Strengthen your family by finding support
Marianne:
My name is Marianne. I am an Air Force Veteran and I'm married to a Korean War Veteran. My father was military. My son is military. I have a granddaughter that served, and I just enjoy being with the Veterans. I love listening to their stories. I joined the Air Force at 18 because I wanted to see the world. I was stationed up in Stewart Air Force Base, Newburgh, New York which was only a state away from Pennsylvania, so I didn't get to see much of the world.
When I met Tom, I had been a widow for 20 years, and a friend of mine at work said, I want to introduce you to this fella. And I wasn’t interested, and she kept insisting, and I said, okay, I’ll meet him. Well, I liked him immediately. We’ve been married a long time. It’s only been 15 years but it seems like a long time.
When we first got married, he could not go to a military film, or to see the movie, or he could not watch military. And he would have nightmares. He still had nightmares. If you would try to touch him in the middle of the night or something, he just reacted, and he still is very emotional about it. After all these years it has to be pretty deep.
On Thursday’s he goes to the VA for the post-traumatic stress group meetings and he meets with other Korean War Veterans and when he goes up there it makes a big difference. They talk to each other and it’s just like he’s with old friends and I get to talk to the fellas and it just really helps him. I can see the difference. When he comes home, he’s just so much more relaxed.
They recommended that he see a Psychiatrist at the VA and then they mentioned they have these group meetings and that’s when he started going. I found when they get together and they talk to each other, it really helps them, and then they can see they aren’t the only ones that are getting help. He stopped having so many nightmares. He’ll still have nightmares but not as frequently, so it has made a difference for him.
I think their experience makes them stronger. The advice I would give to a military spouse would may be to, find help herself to try to understand what they are going through and maybe then the Veteran would also be more willing to try to get help.
I think just talking about it and that seems to be the big part, getting somebody to talk to. I think just the idea of maybe reaching out to other Veterans. It’s really helpful ‘cause I know what it’s done for us and it’s really helpful.
