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Transitioning To Combat Veterans Essay

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Veterans face many challenges when transitioning from the service. Those that have served shift from a fairly structured and ridged way of life to the less structured and more chaotic civilian life. Many veterans, especially those that have been in combat or have had to personally deal with catastrophic situations, have a very hard time adjusting and often require significant levels of assistance. Sadly many veterans fail to get help, either because they do not wish to appear weak or they are simply turned away.

Combat veterans are among the highest at risk for issues in transitioning form military life to civilian. Many potentially suffer from both physical and/or mental traumas. Many veterans and even active duty services members have allowed the unofficial culture of if you need mental or medical help you are weak. Many military families are also afraid of utilizing family support mechanisms out of fear of …show more content…

Anything that can impact military readiness can be reported to a member’s commanding officer. A sad result this as caused many a service member to become very distrustful of both mental health and family support personnel. Many civilian counselors have resorted to promising service members that requests for treatment will not be reported to their supervisors. Fortunately while the stigma still exists some progress has been made about shifting attitudes up and down the ranks towards getting the necessary help. (Hall, 2008) This attitude often stems from the fact that if a member, especially one in command of other service members, makes a bad judgment call due to having a mental health issue it could very well lead to a significant loss of both life and government property. Many view or used to view seeking the help of a mental health expert as showing the inability of making sound calls in the field. (Schreiber & McEnay,

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