Chaplain, Therapist Achieve Transitional Housing For Patients

[Woodmonkey]

VA fosters community where vets can heal together

It started out as informal housing for war veterans, coming out of life-threatening brain injuries and continuing their care at the veterans hospital in Palo Alto.

But through the persistence of a recreational therapist and a chaplain determined to see the veterans through their difficult healing, a growing number of combat veterans - some of them retired because of their injuries - are now housed at Shenandoah Condominiums, a leafy cluster of two-story townhouses on Moffett Drive near Middlefield Road in Mountain View.

The townhomes, contract housing for the U.S. military, have become a new community for 10 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who share not just a war, but all its uncommon trauma: crippling physical injuries, many to the brain, that have left them with severely damaged eyesight and hearing.

The housing's proximity to the Veterans Affairs hospital where the veterans must go for their continuing treatment - sometimes every day - is not just a blessing. It is also part of their healing, hospital officials said, as they make the transition to their new lives from wounded combat vets to civilians on their own.

On a recent visit, Marine veteran Angel Gomez, 22, was spending the better part of his day idly waiting for a new washer to arrive. The old one, located in a laundry room next to the front door, kept overflowing.

His voice drops when he begins to tell the story of "that night." It was April 12, 2005. He was on his second tour in Iraq, driving a seven-ton truck to Ar-Ramadi.

An explosive hit the truck. Shrapnel tore open his head.

"I couldn't talk at first," said Gomez, recalling his three-year medical recovery. "I couldn't read. I had short-term memory loss. I ate through a tube in my stomach."

Gomez, of Farmersville, emigrated from Mexico and became a U.S. citizen months after he was injured. He spent two years in medical treatment and physical rehabilitation at the Palo Alto VA hospital. Like many Iraq veterans being treated there, he lived in housing on hospital grounds.

Gomez now reads the newspaper, converses slowly, and he can take his own medication.

"As I watched these young service men and women, one of the things that became clear to me was to find an answer to the question that I kept thinking about," said Susan Feighery, a recreation therapist at the VA hospital who works with Gomez. "What happens after they leave the hospital? What then?"

That was a question that also nagged Chaplain Fred Tittle, a retired U.S. Marine who was ministering to some of the Iraq vets.

Shenandoah Condominiums, under contract with the U.S. Department of Defense, seemed a natural choice for housing the combat vets. It was close to Palo Alto. But there was a hitch. The condos housed only active military men and women. So what happens to Iraq vets like Gomez, who is now medically retired from the military?

"I was told they were going to have to move," Tittle said. "I said, no, no, no. There's something wrong with this picture."

VA hospital officials credit Tittle and Feighery with pursuing the idea of transitional housing, and convincing the military that opening the Shenandoah condos to vets from Iraq and Afghanistan is a good idea. Tittle now lives in the same complex. He said he wants to bring the concept of transitional housing to other locations where combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being treated.

Kerri Childress, spokeswoman for the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, said it may be the first in the country to offer community transitional housing for military veterans where they can learn, with one another's help, to return to civilian life.

"It helps us get out of our shell," said Jay Wilkerson, 42, an Army staff sergeant who was injured in Iraq in 2006 and received the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He has lived at Shenandoah for seven months.

"Sometimes I'll forget to eat," said Wilkerson, a graduate of Richmond High School. "And the other guys with their wives will call and say 'come over' or fix me a plate of food to take home. Sometimes I'll forget to take my medicine and we'll call each other as a reminder."

Said Gomez, "It's good having veterans around. We have something in common."

The Source