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About Homelessness

The New Wave of Veteran Homeless

We’re all glad to have so many soldiers coming back home from Iraq. But what kind of future do they face as they adjust to life stateside?

A recent article by StreetRoots highlights:

 

From the StreetRoots blog: “A long way from home: Soldiers return from the battlefields”

Ryan McNabb was a medic in the Marine Corps for six years. He deployed twice to Iraq and worked on the front lines, experiencing, he says, what you’d expect to experience on a battlefield. He returned home in February 2006.

A few months later, he got in a fight and assaulted two police officers. He chalked it up to normal drunken sailor stuff — just blowing off steam.

When he blacked out in rage, while driving 65 miles per hour with his wife and five-month old son in the back seat, he realized it wasn’t normal any more.

“I know I’m an intelligent human being. I know why babies cry, and they’re trying to inform me of something,” McNabb said. “But with PTSD, I don’t like large sharp sounds. It reminds me of gunshots and explosions. My son had wet himself. He started to cry. I was driving. While he’s screaming at the back of my head, he’s screaming at my soul, which set me off. So I start screaming at my wife, while going 65 miles per hour down the freeway. She shouts back at me. I rip the rearview mirror off and threw it at the floorboard. I grabbed the GPS and threw it at the windshield and it spiderwebbed going 65 mph with my wife and child in back seat. I blacked out in rage. I don’t remember pulling to the side of the road at all.”

>> Read the full article

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