Far From Safety: A Veteran's Story
My name is Holly, and I’m one of the many veterans serving veterans at Harbor Care.
As many of you know, Harbor Care has a special mission to serve veterans. In 2004, the body of a homeless veteran was found along the banks of the Nashua River in New Hampshire. Staff from Harbor Care were outraged and began to work to get veterans the housing and support they deserved.
This commitment to serving veterans drew me to Harbor Care, and I’m proud to work here. My father was a combat veteran of the “Island Hopping Campaign” of World War II. My mother was a “Rosie the Riveter” in an aircraft factory helping build B-24 Liberators, while her brother served as a tail-gunner on a B-17, protecting his aircrew as they risked their lives daily in bombing missions over German military and industrial targets, and was the the sole-survivor of his 10-man crew after a crash.
Me, on leave after graduating language school.
My own veteran story began years later, during the Cold War. After a year of intensive training in the Russian language and six months of analysis school, I was assigned to an aerial intelligence unit in Europe. While our unit’s airplanes were aloft, collecting various types of sensitive information, my buddies and I worked elbow to elbow in locked, windowless rooms processing torrents of incoming data; we had a turnaround time of less than two minutes to post certain types of reports to national intelligence centers and “Big Army” and a few minutes longer on others. Each report required processing by different teams, and despite conflicting opinions we had to reach consensus before posting. It’s hard for me to imagine now, but at the end of each shift my face was always bright red from tension that pushed my blood pressure through the roof.
We had long hours and irregular schedules which often changed in a moment’s notice – turning the first day off in two weeks into a throw-on-your-uniform-grab-your-gear-and-report day – depending on what was going on in our target areas, depending on the mission. We worked many double shifts, and our schedule was erratic – reporting at 3 a.m. or 11 p.m., whatever the mission required. We often went days without seeing the sun. When I returned to the States after that three-and-a-half-year assignment, it took months for me to sleep and wake at regular intervals like a healthy person.
I hope you’ll pardon my complaints – my experience is nothing compared to the daily challenges of those whose mission took them outside the safety of a locked room. My husband served as a sniper within the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Now only Republic of Korea (ROK) soldiers patrol the DMZ, but back then the area was patrolled by U.S. and ROK soldiers, working together. Though during his presidency Jimmy Carter declared that the Korean DMZ was no longer a war zone, North Korean patrols continued to make frequent incursions, and our forces still came under fire along that border and because the DMZ is a no-go zone for all except those few soldiers who are charged with its protection, these incidents still go unreported for the most part in public media.
Years later, when my husband Harry was serving in the Middle East, a coordinated attack involving three car-bombs killed several of his friends and left him seriously injured. Upon returning to the U.S., he spent several months in the hospital, and afterward needed extensive recuperative therapies during his long road toward recovery. He was lucky, in that he had family who supported him through the readjustments to both civilian and domestic life. The challenges he faced, however, demonstrate how grindingly difficult the transition is for those without a sturdy support system in place.
My husband Harry in Korea.
Not every veteran has a family equipped to provide the level of support someone with grievous bodily and emotional injury needs. Often their injuries are hidden; someone self-medicating for physical or emotional pain can quickly develop a substance-use habit that drags them down, makes them look (and sometimes act) unsympathetic. Sadly, these visible symptoms of a greater, hidden pain often get in the way of receiving help.
Conversely – and in rare cases -- family connections can actually trigger homelessness. I’m thinking of one vet I know who served in combat as an infantryman during the Vietnam War; after the war he returned to New Hampshire where he got married, began his career in the construction industry, and started a family. Years later, his adult child was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. The veteran and his wife dipped into their retirement savings to pay for treatment and hospitalization, leaving them unable to pay their rent. Soon afterward they lost their housing. Luckily, Harbor Care was just putting the finishing touches on Boulder Point, its permanent housing for veterans in Plymouth, NH. The veteran and his wife applied and were accepted as new residents of Boulder Point, where they share a brand-new, one-bedroom apartment today.
Harbor Care’s Veteran FIRST Services helps more than 400 veterans and their family members each year. We provide case management, employment services, and a host of other supports that are there whenever a veteran and their family need a bit of help getting back on their feet. We operate four different housing facilities for veterans – transitional housing such as Buckingham Place and Dalianis House in Nashua, BAE-Independence Hall in Manchester, as well as permanent housing for veterans and veteran families at Boulder Point in Plymouth.
“Veterans Serving Veterans” is more than a motto for us at Harbor Care, and many of my coworkers have worn the uniform. Whereas Katie Tovar, Rick O’Donnell, and Erika Reinertson work directly with our veteran clients, I work behind the scenes, in marketing. My job is to make sure veterans know about the wide variety of services available to them through Harbor Care. I also want people throughout our state to be aware of both the needs and successes of our vets.