Page 602 - Total War on PTSD

My wife also noticed quite a bit of a change in me, realizing that I figured out a way to meld my two worlds. I love cars, I love racing and I love driving but at the same time I am a Social Worker and work at the VA...so I also love helping Veterans. With my involvement in VetMotorsports, I get to do both. She also noticed that I was more outgoing and that I try to talk to people more than I used to. We utilized the connections I already had within the Veteran Service offices at the VA and some of the people who participated with me the first time. I let them know that we were doing another event and we’re looking for any Veterans that would be interested in participating. So very quickly, I’d say in less than two weeks, I had all four slots filled. Thus far we also try to give a slot to a Caregiver if they come to the event along with their Veteran and have a desire to participate.
The thing that stands out the most in my mind about these events is the camaraderie. I think back to the days of being in uniform and it is very similar to that. The event I
first participated in, everyone was Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom, so a lot of the other participants were relatively young...actually I was the oldest one there. I went into the military at age 26. So just trading stories about our deployments and the camaraderie that got rebuilt, interestedly enough because I am in the mental health profession; the rapport built so quickly just on the commonality that we had all served was tremendous. Even now, in the last event that I did, I had a Vietnam era Veteran who was isolating, and he got connected with another Veteran from the same era who was more outgoing and who was more connected to resources and getting out to do things. They ended up exchanging numbers, and I remember
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