Services & Programs for Veterans

The VA has tried to take such good care of me in so many ways that I owe everything in the world to them. Some, some of the doctors I’ve had over the years were, were no smarter than me and I wasn’t very smart. And, but still there were so many tried things and I’ve, like I, I go to the hospital, go to the clinic two, three times a month. And, I mean and, and, and I’m always being sent to the VA, the big hospital to see a specialist. And one, of course, for my vision, which is not the best in the world. And, so a few months ago the, the fellow that checked my eyes gave me a prescription, he gave me a prescription and I got glasses at the VA. And I might as well have been blind. He was, I mean they were so far off that it was, that it was worthless. So, I had to use my old glasses, which weren’t much better. And, but still, still though he tried. And, and other people there tried. I guess that’s in life, period. That’s what impresses me more than anything is when, is when people try. And one thing you notice when I talk, sometimes I’ll say things and I’ll say it slurred. I notice it. And, so it makes me, it makes me feel very uncomfortable that I do it. But it’s going to be that way for the rest of my life, I guess.

Understanding, care, therapy, physical therapy, different kinds of therapy, cognitive therapy, things like that. I just got right back into it and, you know, stuff that I needed. And I had no issues whatsoever with the VA. In fact, you hear all of this negative stuff about the VA but not from the providers. It’s from the administration and stuff.

Let’s see, I’ve only had a problem with one. I do it in tiers in terms of exceptional; average; not bad but not good, maybe we didn’t connect or whatever and just sort of average relationship; and then bad. I’ve only had one bad experience where I was considering going to a patient advocate, but the majority of my care here has been awesome. The one big complaint I have is - I’m guessing it’s a staffing problem - but my primary care doctor is the only one that’s stayed the same. In the last year and a half, I’ve gone through three psychiatrists. One was on a fellowship that ended in September. Then I was with one for three months, and her and I didn’t get along, and that’s the one I was going to - yeah. And then, let’s see, then I had one who was a resident for about two months, but he was an OHSU resident and only there in the mornings on Monday, and my class schedule did not - was not compatible. So now I’m on number four now. It’s really difficult to establish. You don’t know what you’re getting into establishing a new relationship every single time with a psychiatrist or psychologist, especially when they keep rotating so many times.

One of the things that, and this was something I got from the guy who’s head of anxiety, he said that you need to start confronting some of the things that cause you stress and get used to them, and one of them is coming up here, because every time I’ve come up here it’s been stressful. So, if I come up here and have positive experiences - I used to have to sedate myself to come up here. I would have to take - oh, what do they call it - hydroxyzine. I think it’s hydroxyzine. It’s an antihistamine that they give us Veterans to calm us down. I’d always have to take hydroxyzine to come up here, and now I don’t have to anymore, and I don’t have anxiety attacks here anymore because I’m coming up and doing positive things. 

Moving to the East clinic for some of my care was actually mandated by the VA because they’re like, “You’re freaking out when you come up here, and you’re not dealing with it.” It’s kind of hard to see all these veterans that are suffering, and you just want to march into the office and say, “I don’t give a shit that you want your coffee break. You still have 100 people in line. Shut the fuck up and move out. I don’t care that it’s your union or whatever.” So just having to learn to deal with that and just go - okay, so this is the parameters we have to work within, and just deal with it. Because just like the other day I got frustrated when I went to the pay cage and they’re closed, and I’m like, “You know what, we never left in the military until every last person was taken care of.” We don’t say, “Oh I’m sorry. It’s five o’clock. I don’t care that you’re in line.”

When you’re TBI, trying to force yourself to - just for me to go in and go through the whole rigmarole of going in there and writing all that stuff out, and going down there and getting American Legion to help me was almost an overwhelming task for me. And so, to have to go back and try to find somebody who would help me with that, and go back to VA and say, “Yes, it is. You guys need to foot the bill.” At least at the time, I just retired - it was just more than I felt like I could do. It’s funny how many Veterans don’t fight for their stuff. I was talking to Arnold, he got a bone spur in the Army, and it’s noted with the Army, and they won’t pay him for it.

I: How does that make people feel?

You know, I don’t know. If you’re a combat soldier, you don’t expect them to give you anything. You really don’t. It’s like, you pay to die. So, you don’t really expect them to do stuff for you. If you fight, you can get some of it, and a lot of it boils down to how much you’re willing to fight with the system to get it done, you know? It’s like - and a lot of them won’t. A lot of them won’t do it, even when they’re entitled.

So, I got out of medicine. I decided that I could continue, I could just keep chomping away at it, but if I get forget to charge up an air conditioning system with refrigeration and I burn it up, well that sucks. If I forget which patient needs which med and I kill someone, that’s a bad day. So, I stepped away from medicine, and I became an air conditioning technician. The VA paid for me to go to school, and all this. It’s a nine-month school, and it came really easy. I mean it’s not particularly mentally intensive work as the nuts and bolts of doing the job. As with any other type of service industry, the diagnostics, the dealing with people, things like that. That’s all, you can’t teach that. You gotta, kind of get it as you go along. But again, for that nine months I would spend hours and hours studying to keep up with my peers and honestly my peers were not the brightest bulbs in the box. There’s a reason a lot of folks go to trade school. Good folks, don’t get me wrong, just…anyway. So, I would, you know I’d study for hours. I did graduate. I think I was like second in my class or third in my class, which was cool. You know, once I graduated, and I actually got hired a couple months before I graduated, so, and I have been working it ever since. And I love it. I love air conditioning. It’s great work. It changes every day, I’m driving all over the city and meeting all sorts of people, it’s great.

So, most wounded warriors, they basically need to qualify for vocational rehabilitation through the VA. So, it’s just another education conduit, a funding stream, but it makes accommodations for your injuries that you sustained because of military service. So whether that’s a physical injury, you know maybe it’s an amputee who’s missing a leg or an arm and has to have special accommodation, or special equipment, or a lot of us with TBI and PTSD, who need, you know, certain types of technical devices or special software to work or being educated on what disability accommodations are actually provided, in the work place and in education, it kind of helps us, generally speaking, with our disabilities, depending on what it is, to actually function and get educated and, you know try and create a career, you know, aside from military service.

I: Has that been helpful to you?

Yeah, I mean it’s really been helpful to me because I’ve pretty much used every single device or opportunity that the program has. You know, when I first was injured and I started voc rehab, you know, they got me a computer and things like they get for most college students, but they also set up my learning environment at home. They brought in accommodations and based on my physical and my mental injuries, they set up my work environment and my user field where I use my computer, specifically tailoring it to also accommodate the other problems. It’s like, they taught me about fluorescent lights, because they pulsate when they send out electricity. That affects, literally affects your TBI, and your PTSD. It can cause headaches and it can also irritate you, cause irritation and you don’t know it. You know the type of lighting that they use, how you sit, because of my physical injuries how you sit in a chair, what type of chair you use. You know, whether or not you needed to be in a more closed space or quiet space rather than something with a lot of noise. So, that was like the first big thing.  And then, the vocational rehab specialists seem to be more understanding to the disabilities that they’re trying to assess you with, rather than, let’s say, a regular education counselor at college. Even with the disability accommodations, they told me more about what I was qualified, and eligible to use and available to me, rather than the ADA person, let’s say, at a college, who might not have specifically known even what’s out there because the military injuries are very unique compared to, let’s say, a civilian, maybe, who was in a car crash. 

I mean I’ve been, I’ve been working with the DAV, Disabled American Veterans to – they, they mostly just help with claims. And so kind of, I guess also what kind of got the, the whole ball rolling with seeking additional treatment for like unidentified, undiagnosed cognitive difficulties was like I was just talking to my DAV service officer one day and he was like, he was like, “It sounds like you maybe you might have PTSD.” And he was like, “Maybe you should file a claim for that.” And I did. I don’t think that they’ll probably approve that, but that actually probably is one thing that helped get the ball rolling just in terms of like, “Well if it’s not PTSD, let’s find out what it is.” You know? Like so – but he just said, you know, it might be PTSD because of that event was traumatic, you know. And you know, and I was talking to him about these difficulties that, that I’ve expressed. And so that’s, that’s really the only other organization. Mostly just through the VA and, and then at school a little bit. So.

They’re supposed to – the National Guard is supposed to – they have what they call “reintegration games,” OK. Reintegration games and stuff like this. I for one never went through any of that stuff because of the bad taste that I got for the National Guard and everything. I don’t know – there’s a lot of people that I know that are, that have been involved with it and stuff like that. But there’s a lot of other, other programs out there. You’ve got the Wounded Warrior Program; I’m an alumnus of the Wounded Warrior Program, they’ve helped a great deal. You’ve got Operation Home Front, Colish and the Salute Americans Vets, American’s Heroes. All these little companies that were, were started up. It’s like I think they’d been there, they’d been there for the Veterans more than anything else. Especially the Wounded Warrior Project.

Well, some people won’t even go to the Vet Center. Some people will not go to anything that’s related to the government. The whole reason why the Vet Center was invented and created was because Vietnam vets did not trust the VA. The Vet Center does not have to give up any records, they can go, “Up yours. You cannot have it.” Now some Vets still believe that you still pass it on, that “Big Brother” is always watching us. Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not watching. But I think it would be nice to have more services away from what a lot of Vets perceive as a place of death. I mean, I know that’s how I felt about this place. I’m still convinced that one day I’m going to die here, but I don’t want to. I’d rather take care of it before I get here.