New Directions help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan

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Ed Gonzalez heads New Directions' program to help newly returned veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan establish normal lives, get jobs or find a place to live. These new veterans have a distinct set of issues. Sometimes it seems it is the mundane things that can trip them up.

"I would ask them, okay, what's the difference between driving in LA and Iraq?" Gonzales said. "Well, in Iraq, you know you don't stop for anybody or anything. You drive down the middle of the road. If a car's in front of you, then you bump it. If it doesn't move many times, you open fire. In the beginning of the war, they were using both pedestrians and vehicles to slow convoys down. The new tactic was, 'You do not stop.'"

In the United States, veterans are faced with parking lot-like freeways. Some veterans begin to panic.

"All of a sudden, they may get a flashback, a memory of a combat situation," Gonzales said. "They're hitting the gas, bumping cars. All of a sudden, they're arrested."

Veterans are also having a hard time in enclosed spaces like schoolrooms. And with medical advances, more veterans survive traumatic brain injury. Some have lost their short-term memory and cannot hold down a job.

For Gonzalez, helping veterans means better educating the public, police and government officials on what they are facing when they return to civilian life.

"You take a young man, who has been under the care of mom and dad, everything was pretty much told to you," Gonzales said. "Graduate from high school, they go into the military, now they have a surrogate parent called the U.S. government. Everything is set. Now all of a sudden, you got a 22 year old, 23 year old, coming out of the military, after they did their three or four years of service to the country, and now you're being told, now you have to make all the decisions on your own."

Gonzalez emphasizes that these problems are not universal, but still, many returned service members are coping with drugs and alcohol, avoiding flashbacks and nightmares by passing out or never going to sleep. The root of the problem comes back to stigma. Veterans have to know that it is okay to ask for help, and the public has to acknowledge the problem.

New Directions is seeing a 50 to 60 percent success rate of recovery from drug and alcohol abuse, while most treatment centers have only a 10 to 30 percent success rate.

The inpatient facility, where veterans can stay and start the process of getting clean and getting help, is open 24 hours a day, and it welcomes veterans from all over the country.

The going can get rough at Operation Welcome Home, but Gonzalez says it is always worth it.

"And then when I see some of my guys that succeed, and they're on their own back again in their own apartment or house, they're reunited with their family all over again," Gonzales said. "That in itself is a reward for me."

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What can you do to help this Veteran's Day?

"If you know where homeless people are, contact our agency and let us know, we'll send a group out there," Gonzalez said.

Reach Operation Welcome Home at (310) 914-4045.