By Lynne Hendricks
NEWBURYPORT — Today as veterans across the country take part in hometown celebrations meant to honor their service to America, thousands of veterans will be dressing in their military uniforms to participate in these ceremonies for the first time.
They are the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, who are still trying to assimilate from war zones to the peaceful, quiet streets of their old hometowns.
Those returning from war have been forever changed by what they've seen and witnessed, yet they're returning home to the cities and towns where life seems to go on, business as usual. That makes for a tough transition, according to Newburyport Veterans Affairs officer Kevin Hunt, who is himself a veteran of the Vietnam War and sees firsthand the difficulty some recent local veterans are having getting back to living normal lives.
"It's a situation where you could be in the middle of a killing zone — meaning you will be killed or you will attempt to kill, and deal with that for a year, and then within 48 hours you're on the streets of your hometown with the birds singing, and nothing's changed," Hunt said. "It's very difficult for a young man or woman to adjust. And some are not adjusting well."
As the city's veterans agent, Hunt has seen servicemen and women come home to Newburyport and face obstacles they can overcome with help. But he's also seen some cases where those returning home from war are forever impaired by their traumatic experience overseas.
"Today there's so many people coming back with head injuries," Hunt said. "I've definitely encountered people who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I see people suffer from it, and it's something we really should be doing something about it, because it just ravages people.
"It is real. There's no doubt about," said Hunt of the PTSD symptoms that many vets are reporting. "They don't function as they did before they went into the battle conditions."
And if they aren't showing the telltale signs of PTSD — experiencing feelings of worthlessness, being unable to sleep and becoming unhinged by loud noises — most veterans coming home still find themselves in need of a helping hand to begin anew.
One such soldier, 26-year-old Marine Victor Johnson, whom Hunt has been keeping tabs on, came home from Iraq three months ago, returning earlier than expected due to a knee injury sustained in the line of duty. Though the veteran maintains full mobility, an associate degree and a solid set of marketable skills, it was hard for the young Port native to find work and a place to live.
"It was a culture shock because you adjust to military life," Johnson said. "They break you down, and you do exactly what they want, so when you get out, it's kind of like, what do I do now."
Like so many other servicemen and women returning from the war, he came home a proud Marine seeking a similarly proud position to take in the civilian world.
"It was so hard to find work that wasn't McDonald's or Market Basket," Johnson said yesterday.
After three months, Johnson finally found work and started on Monday at a company called Advanced Urethane Technologies in the Newburyport Industrial Park. But others returning to the area are finding it takes even longer than that to find jobs at home during one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression, and they look to other vets for support and understanding.
Helping Johnson work through the transition, for instance, was Air Force veteran and Newburyport native Scott Bartlett, who met Johnson as the two were using the computer resource area at the Newburyport Public Library.
"We met at the library, and he's helping me on the computer," said Bartlett of his friendship with Johnson. "I don't know much about computers, and we just happened to be working at the same stations. We hit it off. He reminds me of one of the guys back in my old squad in the Air Force — really positive and upbeat."
Bartlett is a veteran who knows something about assimilating after military service, and he recently decided to seek disability from the veterans office for injuries he sustained in a plane crash in the line of duty. Like other veterans who become disabled in the service of their country, the negative effect his injury had on his mental attitude was immense.
Above and beyond his physical struggles, Bartlett struggled with an alcohol addiction starting while stationed in the remote US Air Force support base in Labrador, Canada, in his early 20s. With one relapse in 14 years of sobriety, Bartlett recently returned home to Newburyport to attend Suffolk University for his graduate degree. Bartlett is upbeat and optimistic about his future and glad to be home in Newburyport, where he feels a sense of belonging.
Bartlett recalls Hunt calling him up one day a year or so ago and requesting that he walk in the Yankee Homecoming Parade with the other Newburyport veterans. He agreed to participate and donned his uniform to march with his comrades. He was completely overcome by the reaction of the parade crowd along High Street.
"All along High Street, they stood up and cheered," Bartlett said. "It was really touching."
The feeling it gave him to see so many in the crowd cheering for his sacrifice and service was unlike any other he had felt, he said. And it's what he hopes his new friend feels when he walks with the other veterans in today's parade, as he's expected to do.
"It gave me a sense of being home," Bartlett said. "I've been homeless or without a place of my own for a long time, and it felt great to be home. That's what I want for Victor. That's what I want for Victor and others like him."
Hunt confirms that Newburyport citizens are grateful for the service of their veterans. But that doesn't mean it's any easier to assimilate today than it was for veterans returning from Vietnam, where he served.
"It is easier to come back today from the viewpoint of what your fellow citizens think of what you did," said Hunt, comparing the disdain veterans were treated to upon returning from an unpopular war in Vietnam. "But it may be more difficult for individuals to make their own adjustments. They're hard wars to compare. Vietnam was a war of ambush in the jungles. This is a war of mortar attacks and roadside bombs."
