Shelter helps homeless female vets get on feet

[unhappycamper]

Iraqi war veteran and former Army private Margaret Ortiz, 27, sits in her room Dec. 1 at the U.S. Vets women's shelter in Long Beach, Calif. The $15,000 Ortiz had in the bank when she left Iraq is long gone, spent on alcohol and cocaine. She is one of the faces of America's homeless female veteran population.


Shelter helps homeless female vets get on feet
By Kimberly Hefling - The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 15, 2009 11:55:24 EST

(Editor’s note: The third of a three-part series.)

Part 1: Women Combat Vets Battle for Acceptance
Part 2: New VA patients younger, more likely women
———

LONG BEACH, Calif. — The $15,000 that former Army Pvt. Margaret Ortiz had in the bank when she left Iraq is long gone, spent on alcohol and cocaine.

By the time she found her way to a program run by the nonprofit U.S. Vets for homeless female veterans in this Southern California city, she’d slept in San Diego on the beach or anywhere she could find after a night of partying. One morning, she woke up behind a trash bin, her pants torn, with no memory of what happened.

Instead of helping her forget her six months in Iraq, where she said she faced attacks on her compound and sexual harassment from fellow soldiers, the alcohol and drugs brought flashbacks and raging blackouts. She said she tried to kill herself.

“You knew something was wrong with you, but you didn’t know what was wrong with you,” said Ortiz, 27, from atop her twin bed in a plain dorm-style room, a black 4th Infantry Division ball cap on her head. “Nobody knew, and so you couldn’t really handle it.”

Ortiz is one of the new faces among America’s homeless veterans.


Rest of this heartbreaking article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/ap_military_women_homelessness_121509/

[TexasObserver]

1. Recommend. Homeless vets. Oh, but we LOVE the troops.

It's Tommy this and Tommy that, and Tommy get your gun.

[TexasObserver]

2. If you had posted about a homeless kitten, you'd have gotten a response.

Many vets are damaged goods, struggling to deal with PTSD, struggling to make sense of what they've done, struggling to live in a world that is foreign to them. The numbers of homeless vets and vets committing suicide are alarming. But teabaggers, Sarah Palin, kittens, and Glenn Beck are more interesting.

[unhappycamper]

3. I know.

Every now and then folks notice a thread and it collects unrecs and recs pretty quickly.

[TexasObserver]

4. This one has 4 recs already.

I would suggest it has more to do with the time of the OP. I've noticed that sometimes early morning threads get stampeded in the morning rush. So many posters look only at the first few topics before diving in. That tends to push to the bottom of the page threads started in early morning.

Because a number of morning posters MUST start at least three or four threads each, pretty soon those 5 am threads are shoved to page two, and it's all over that quick.

Maybe this will get the thread a second look. I'm disappointed in the implicit "who cares?" aspect of ignoring the problem, or finding it less worthy of empathy and action.

[jmowreader]

9. MOST vets are damaged goods

I know a lot of veterans; I don't know one who isn't, in some small or large way, fucked in the head.

[TexasObserver]

11. I'd say many, but not most.

I'm a vet. There are a number of vets here. Most vets I know are mentally sound.

Those who serve in the war zone, who engage hostiles, tend to have problems, but most vets don't serve in a war zone. Among those who have, many are sound citizens. I know WWII vets who served in the most horrifying of conditions, and they're still cranking along in their 80s: men who dropped bombs on Germany or Japan, men who took back Asia one village at a time. Likewise for Vietnam vets. Many are damaged goods, of course.

It's probably fair to say that most soldiers who are fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq are damaged goods.

Whether it is "most" or "many," it's a substantial number of vets who need long term help with the mental/emotional problems caused by killing peasants in horrific ways for dubious reasons.

[jmowreader]

13. I'm also a vet...

Most are basically mentally sound, but every one of us has been affected by our service in some way.

[TexasObserver]

14. I agree with that.

[babylonsister]

5. I wish I had seen this sooner; you'd have gotten a rec'd from me.

This is heartbreaking. :cry:

[comtec]

6. I only just saw this thread or I would have R'd it to the greatest

It's unforgivable what we're (not) doing for our troops coming home!

That would should have been taken care of by the VA, as opposed to feeling she has to turn to hard drugs to cope!

This treatment of our returning troops is just unforgivable.

[TexasObserver]

8. I agree with your comments.

[Hippo_Tron]

7. This is really sad...

I honestly can't fathom returning from combat without some kind of serious PTSD issues. The comparatively mundane problems I face in my own life are difficult enough. I'm glad to hear that the Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding efforts to deal with this. Hopefully congress doesn't get in the way.

[Tailormyst]

10. What a heart wrenching story.

As a country we do a great disservice to our vets.

[lpbk2713]

12. I found this too late to give it a rec.

This story should have made it to the Greatest page.

[Swamp Rat]

15. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

:kick:

[Statistical]

16. Belated K&R. Damn 24 hour timer. Saw it for first time.

Glad there are organizations helping those who need it.

I landed on my feet after Iraq but I know even in my unit some who didn't. Two who had to be hospitalized because they hurt themselves. Multiply that by thousands of units and you have a large problem.