Walter
I served two tours of duty in Vietnam where I fought in small guerilla units. Our mandate was to seek out the enemy and kill. The only rule was to stay alive. I was a Marine. I enlisted at the age of 17, straight out of high school and served from 1965 - 1971. I was highly decorated, but also I was damaged. When I came back home, I was not the child my mother had raised.
I turned to drugs to try to forget Vietnam, but I could never get high enough. I was addicted to cocaine and heroin and had a $500 a day habit. Also, I sought out people who accepted my behavior. What I didn’t know then and what I did not receive any help with is that I suffered from post traumatic stress disorder.
We will miss him. Brother Wesley’s journey in his own words…
It was not until I was sent to RAP, Inc. Substance Abuse Program some 20 years ago, through the court system, that I came face-to-face with myself and discovered just who I was. Prior to then, I was on record as having 87 arrests and some 87 convictions. One of the first things I learned as a resident of RAP was its philosophy:
My involvement with drugs landed me in prison in 1973…just two years after I came home from Vietnam. I didn’t get out until 2003 and came to RAP, Inc. following a 28 day assessment at Kerrick Hall. I was in treatment at RAP for about a year. It was such a positive experience, I decided to stay. And I now have worked my way up to being the manager of RAP’s facility in Laurel.
I stayed at RAP because I found something that gave my life purpose. It was like a new beginning. No one looked down on me and I enjoyed the family atmosphere. The staff challenged me to refocus and apply myself. They made me solve problems and showed me that I could share something of my life with others to help them avoid the trauma that I had gone through. I was offered the opportunity to do the work.
I am still a work in progress; I’m still learning. What RAP helped me to recognize is that I have always been a leader and I lead by example. I care about people and I want what’s best for them. I have spent so much time destroying life, I’m glad to have the opportunity to help. I have a bill to pay and I’m still paying it.
Combat makes you numb, detached, distant. But all the things you did come back to you and you find yourself down and depressed. You can’t believe you did those things. So now I am in therapy for PTSD—post traumatic stress disorder. I’ve been told I’ll never be cured; I’ll just have to learn to cope with it. I get together once a week with other combat vets at the VA Medical Center on Irving Street, N. W.
I’m sixty years old now. During my six years in the military, in addition to Vietnam, I traveled the world on assignments that included demonstrating the use of new weapons—small arms—to U.S. allies. For my service, I received medals on the one hand and on the other, government unfairness in granting me the disability benefits I had earned. What are veterans expected to do when they can’t find jobs, are badly treated and are refused medical care? Many will turn to drugs and spend years in prison as I did.
I am grateful that I have a family that never gave up on me. My brother who is a lawyer and was instrumental is getting me out of a maximum security prison in Texas and into RAP.
Veterans of the Iraq war who will turn to drugs will need RAP. Veterans who are coming out of prison now as ex-offenders will need RAP. I tell everybody that we need to make sure that RAP is available to serve because we know that there will always be a need for RAP’s services.
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