CLEVELAND — Walter Jones, a Marine Corps veteran, said he often spends his time at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.
“I joined the military because I didn’t want to go to college,” he said. “I had a scholarship from Boston College, and I went down there. (It) wasn’t a good fit for me, and my parents told me I had to do something.”
He said his time in the service wasn’t always easy.
“I got shot in Beirut back in 1983,” he said. “Iran and Iraq were burning each other’s oil wells and they sent Marines, 1st Battalion, 8th Marines over for a peacekeeping mission. We could not lock and load. My whole battalion died two weeks before I got shot.”
Jones said he describes himself as becoming really angry and mean after leaving the military and becoming a U.S. Marshall. While he wants to keep the details private, he said he ended up in trouble with the law.
“I’d done something really bad, really bad, where I was looking at jail time,” he said.
He said this is what finally led to his diagnosis of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.
“I had to have an assessment to see was I fit for trial,” he said. “The judge, which was a retired JAG officer, which is an educated person in the service, he saw that I was a disabled veteran and he sent me for an assessment to see was I fit for trial, which I was not.”
He said the judge gave him two options.
“He said go to a domiciliary in Cleveland, Brecksville,” he said. “ I didn’t know what a domiciliary was or he said 10 years in a federal prison. I told them I’ll take the unknown.”
Jones was referred to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs Domiciliary Care for Homeless Veterans Program. It is the VA’s oldest health care program designed to help disabled veterans and is now integrated with the VA’s Mental Health Residential Rehabilitation and Treatment Programs.
“We have a number of those treatments available that we can do with veterans,” said Dr. Heather Flores, assistant chief of PTSD and mental health for the VA facility. “They’re also available, though, for others in the community.”
Flores said PTSD Awareness Month is important because it encourages not only veterans, but everyone to seek help.
“We want to work to really reduce the stigma around it so that we can help people to find ways that they can continue to live their life differently moving forward from the trauma,” she said.
Jones said he’s grateful for the care and help he’s received.
“Just that you have to be hopeful,” he said. “I know one of my main phrases for me and my three daughters is hope. You know, I pitch my tent in the land of hope.”
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