COMMENTARY
Donn Esmonde: Damaged vets need America to keep word
Her son went to war. Now she is fighting for his life. Her boy is broken. Her boy needs help. Her boy is like countless other sons and daughters who went to Iraq whole and came back in emotional pieces.
This is the vital message of Veterans Day. The cost of war is measured not just in soldiers killed or hurt. The casualties include all of those with invisible wounds. Their psyches were shattered by the sounds of battle and the sight of severed body parts. They must be helped, by the same government that asked for their help.
Denise Simmance understands that. Her trim, handsome, everything-in-order son from the City of Tonawanda who shipped out before the Iraq invasion is not the Christopher Simmance who came back. “He was broken,” she said, “and he has not been fixed.”
She is 56, with short blond hair, a round face and a somber determination. She sat Wednesday in a suburban restaurant, battling back tears. A mother will do anything for her child. She will even — with her son’s permission — lay out the family’s pain in the newspaper.
Chris seemed fine for a while after returning. He shared an apartment with his girlfriend and was promoted to route supervisor at a sanitation company. But soon the demons clawed to the surface.
The details of each damaged-vet story are different. But the plot is basically the same. Chris drank until he passed out. His dark moods drove away girlfriends. He was fired for not showing up for work. He moved back home.
One night, sounds in the backyard awakened Denise Simmance. She looked outside to see Chris in full camouflage gear, face blackened, a knife in each hand. She asked what he was doing. He said he was securing the property.
“He had a flashback,” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking, ‘What the hell happened to my boy?’ ”
Her voice is low but intense. Her eyes water. War exacts an emotional price, even on those who stay behind.
Chris was a corporal in a mortar company in Iraq. An accident of war led to the bombing of a home. Chris was on “cleanup” detail. He picked through the rubble, sorting and bagging body parts of a mother. Of a father. Of children.
Today, Chris fears crowds and loud noises. He seldom leaves his public-housing apartment. He spends hours each day cleaning. Even on good days, his eyes peer through a prescription-pill haze. He has tried to kill himself.
He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. As noted in recent News stories by reporter Lou Michel, the return of thousands of emotionally damaged soldiers has stressed a creaky system. Critics say that treatment from Veterans Affairs is heavy on symptom-numbing drugs, light on soul-mending counseling. Chris is a case in point: He has seen four psychiatrists, none more than once.
“He needs regular counseling, with the same person,” his mother pleaded. “That is how you develop trust.”
This is the story we hear, time after time. The Simmances — she is an insurance technician, her husband is a chef — live paycheck-to-paycheck. They cannot afford a private psychologist. Their son, like so many others, depends on the system to save him. It is not saving him.
“It would probably be easier for him [to get help],” said Denise Simmance, “if he’d had a leg blown off.”
On Veterans Day, President-elect Barack Obama promised veterans an America “that will serve you as well as you have served your country.” It is a promise this country needs to keep — to Chris Simmance, and to every other mother’s son.
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