Support helped this Veteran through tough times
Anthony:
Hi, my name is Anthony. I spent actually about 21 years in the Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve. I started like everybody else started as a Private. And when I retired as a Gunnery Sergeant E-7. Most of my time in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, a little time out at Camp Pendleton. And time in the Reserve I was back and forth east coast, west coast, you know, that sort of thing.
My old boss from Camp Lejeune, he was here in Cincinnati as a Recruiter, and I went down to talk to him and he said, “Hey, how would you like to come out here and recruit with us?” I said, “Sounds good.” The problems that really surfaced I think, and I noticed is when after I was relieved from duty on recruiting duty, you know, my wife, she was pregnant, and I really needed to be home because she had to stay off her feet and was kind of bedridden during her pregnancy. Well, I explained that to my Commanding Officer, and he just said, “You can get the hell out my office.” So, I did my about-face and went out his office. That was it. I’m thinking, “Hell, I just got fired from the Marine Corps." I’ve been telling people that’s job security and I just got fired.
That was kind of the start of a lot of my real problems I had because it took a dream, you know, aspirations that I want… something that I really wanted to do, and he just kind of dumped on it. And I didn’t have the resources to fight back or at the time, like I said, my wife was pregnant, and she ended up losing the baby, because I guess some of the stress that she was going through. So, I ended up working security. I worked for them for five years, and after that they laid us off. And I’m still in the Reserves though. I’m still active in the Reserve. And the Sheriff’s Department called me. And I went to the Sheriff’s Department. And the Sheriff’s Department was the same thing. You can’t get on the SWAT Team, because you liable to shoot somebody. You got this temper working.
I got injured on the Sheriff’s Department. I had a crash at 90 miles an hour… both my shoulders, messed up my rotator cuff, so that career was shot. I had four years left to retire from there. I had 21 years there, and I’m thinking, man, can it get any worse?
Being retired I kind of became a recluse, I guess and a lot of the anger and depression, they didn’t say, my doctors treat me for depression. And there’s a lot of anger there, you know. I got a very short fuse, and I think a lot of it’s because a lot of time on my hands and I think about where I could have been in my career and life. And there’s always an obstacle there.
When my wife died a lot of it just struck me then. We were married at a young age. I got married when she was 21. I was 22. And we stayed married for, 28 years. We was together for 34 years. Then she died from lung cancer. And it’s like I’m watching the woman every day for, three years fight cancer. It just kind of surfaced. Everything just kind of exploded.
My Therapist and Social Worker, Anna, she’s great. She listens, and she make notes for the doctor so she can determine what’s going on. Therapy is good because I can talk with her. Where in the past, I couldn’t talk about it. It was something I kept bottled up inside myself.
The people that I’ve had contact with with the VA are very good. They’re there to help the Veterans. And I think any guy that’s there that has a problem with Veterans, it’s a good place to go because they do listen.
