Photo By Sgt. Joe Villines | Brig. Gen. Frank A. Cippola, Deputy Commanding General of the 88th Regional Support...... read more read more
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SCHAUMBURG, Ill. -- The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program takes aim at several issues over seven separate events to help Soldiers and their Families cope with the aftermath of deployments including coping with injuries, isolation, drug and alcohol abuse, depression, anger, estrangement and uneasiness in crowds.
The 88th Regional Support Command hosted its YRRP for events 5, 6 & 7 in Schaumburg, Ill., June 11-13, 2010 for returning veterans from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Bryan Taylor, Director of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program for the 88th RSC since October of 2009, says “The Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program was established in 2008 with the National Defense Act. It was stood up in response to the number of divorces, suicides, and substance abuse cases that were being identified with all Department of Defense Reserve forces as a result of the prolonged war.”
Events 5, 6, & 7 of the program happen 30, 60, & 90 days, respectively after the Soldier is released from active duty, and includes information on current benefits and resources available to help overcome the challenges of reintegration. Events 1 & 2 are for Soldiers and their Families to start preparing them for separation; 3 & 4 are for Family only as a check-up and to prepare them for homecoming.
For Staff Sgt. Shawn Mason, an Information Technology Specialist who deployed to Iraq with the 326th Area Support Group from 2008-2009, the hardest part is trying to get over injuries so he can return to work as a heating and cooling specialist in the civilian world.
“I hurt my right shoulder on the train-up to go to Iraq, and then in Iraq, I used it, but it was painful,” said Mason, adding “At the Yellow Ribbon, I’ve had a lot of people help. It’s been really nice because everybody seems to care about why you can’t do the things you could do [before], and they really want to help out.”
Mason is working with the Veterans Affairs representatives to get compensation benefits and with the Army for incapacitation pay while he heals.
For many, getting back into civilian life is difficult because as Taylor puts it, time stops at home when they leave, and picks up when they get home; meanwhile, home life continues forward.
A Soldier’s life is also very structured. Downrange, the days tend to be routine.
“Civilians make 9,000 decisions a day; service members make about 3,000—I didn’t have to decide what I was going to wear today, how I was going to wear my hair, what kind of shoes I was going to wear.—All of those decisions were already made for me,” said Lt. Col. Cynthia Rasmussen, the 88th Regional Support Command’s Psychological Director, a mobilized Soldier at Fort McCoy, Wis.
“You guys, civilian people, you’ve got to figure out when you get up, ‘Am I going to wear my hair long? Am I going to put it up? Am I going to wear sandals? Am I going to wear shorts? Am I going to wear a nice tie? Is my wife going to dress me? What am I going to look like?’” said Rasmussen, adding, “Think about it once: Soldiers come home after four or five days at the [demobilization] site, take their uniform off, throw it under the bed/hang it in their closet/burn it/ kick it, or whatever, and all the sudden, ‘boom’ you’re a civilian and you’ve got make six thousand more decisions the next day when you wake up.”
Returning veterans have a tendency to avoid crowds, and are often not trusting around people they don’t know well, according to Rasmussen, and often don’t feel comfortable unless they’re with other servicemembers. “Being suspicious isolates you,” she said.
There isn’t any one issue that stands out for the Psychological and Behavioral Health Team. Transitioning veterans talk more about relationships, though there are usually other issues they are dealing with, which is why the YRRP brings Families in nearly all of the events. Word-of-mouth, phone calls, and visits to units combined with Yellow Ribbon events are how Rasmussen’s team reaches the Soldiers.
“The Army has a lot of programs…the Yellow Ribbon program is a huge one, the Psychological Director program is Huge, but I still think we have a lot to learn,” said Rasmussen, adding “I’m working harder now than I was five years ago.”
Mason attended Event 5 in Minneapolis in May of this year and said it was nice because there was information for spouses too. “That way, they incorporate your Family into everything…the Family is supposed to be entered into everything the military does, because, if not, the Family gets left out; that’s not a good thing.”
Another of many tools used to support Soldiers is the Military Family Life Consultant program, which is available for group and individual counseling at the events.
The DoD was noticing an emerging need to provide counseling and support to servicemembers to prevent personal and Family distress associated with increased deployments to contingency operations worldwide. The MFLC program is administered by the Military Health Network and employs licensed experts with Masters Degrees with a minimum of five years of experience in social work, counseling, or related clinical disciplines.
John Bassett, from Bellville, Ill., an MFLC Personal Financial Consultant with over 50 years of experience in the Financial Planning field, sees financial planning as one of the biggest problem facing our Soldiers.
“The thing that worried the command, as much as anything else, was that some of their better people were getting in bad debt trouble. There were all these credit cards coming in their mail, and they were getting in over their heads in debt. Some of them had to go bankrupt, which meant they had to get kicked out of the service, and they didn’t want to lose them.” The idea is to make this available so that people can help themselves, and avoid the traps,” said Bassett.
Representatives from veterans service organizations, colleges, private business, VA, and other organizations such as Troops to Teachers gave their time to make Reserve Soldiers aware of the many benefits available to them.
Mason said this event is “helpful,” but cautioned, “You have to make it helpful; you can’t just say ‘Oh, I have to go.’”
| Date Taken: | 06.13.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 06.19.2010 01:57 |
| Story ID: | 51632 |
| Location: | SCHAUMBURG, IL, US |
| Web Views: | 546 |
| Downloads: | 182 |
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