Todd Unger
Omaha (KPTM) - When Rich Hagedorn fought in the Gulf War, "Every day you're under a lot of stress, stressful conditions, missions, always having something going on, and looking over your shoulder."
But when the army solider and his comrades came home, they found readjusting to civilian life a process.
"What they told us was to watch out for any signs, talk to your friend. Look for any signs if the person is depressed," says Hagedorn.
The readjustment to civilian life can be tough, and as an instructor at the National Guard's Camp Ashland, Hagedorn says he's been seeing firsthand the toll longer tours of duty and redeployments can have on the psyche of a soldier freshly back from the frontlines.
"We're all wearing an army uniform, and he broke down crying and instead of like the in the old days when they'd say you need to man-up, it seemed like everyone in the classroom was there and they have something in common," he says of one such breakdown.
It isn't an isolated case, and the Department of Veterans Affairs knows it.
"When you have somebody that's constantly bouncing between support systems, buddies in the service and then coming back with their wife and maybe a young kid, it's very, very difficult," says Dave Tuttle.
Tuttle is a suicide prevention coordinator at the VA hospital in Omaha.
He says there's a bigger push here in the metro to help traumatized vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Advertisements sporting a 1-800 number for crisis support will soon be on more than 100 MAT buses in the metro.
"Even if one person see it, they might think that's something I need to do, I need to see," says Tuttle.
He says since initiating the 1-800 number two summers ago, they've fielded over 140,000 calls.
Hagedorn says any effort to help those coming back is a good sign.
"There's a lot of stress that these soldiers are under an it takes its toll. People need to have people to talk to."
The ads should hit city buses sometime early next week.
The effort is part of a wider, nationwide push that'll see over 21,000 buses across the country carry the 1-800-273-TALK number.
