Page 655 - Total War on PTSD

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 thinking, as the event was wrapping up, that this is why we are doing this...because this Veteran who was isolating can now break out and go do things that he couldn’t before.
I meet with everybody, as a group, before the events actually begin...providing a sort of safety and rules briefing as well as providing a reminder to all concerned to stay hydrated, things like that. From there I tend to run between the club and the drivers and I will typically have a driver on the track and then another set of drivers who are working the track. This means that they are resetting the cones if they get hit, things like that. So I am constantly running and coordinating activities, and because of this, we have actually gotten our Veterans ‘rides’ in some very interesting, unique, and expensive cars. By rides, I mean that the Veterans get to go out on the track with
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