More than 445 people gathered in Indianapolis on Wednesday, attending a symposium that seeks to increase their knowledge about veterans and military families in the aftermath of service and deployments.
Sponsored by the Roudebush VA Medical Center, Indiana National Guard, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University, the Battlemind to Home Symposium V takes is designed to help service providers work toward creating stronger supportive service options for veterans and their families.
Pulitzer prize-winning journalist David Finkel, author of Thank You For Your Service, delivered the keynote address. Finkel provided a glimpse into time he spent embedded with a Kansas battalion during the surge of 2007, as well as after the battalion came home. The surge sent more than 20,000 soldiers into Iraq, the majority of them into Baghdad. No one returned unchanged, Finkel said.
It was a sentiment echoed in the afternoon by individuals who participated in a veterans’ panel.
“I felt like when I came back there was a lot of paperwork, but nobody told me that I would be different,” said Desma Brooks, a veteran who served for 18 years, including deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. “I needed to take time to figure out what about me is different before I try to take over my household again.”
In addition to these two presentations, clinicians, behavioral health providers, pastors, teachers and community leaders also attended breakout sessions that focused on complimentary alternative medicine for treating veterans; professional involvement in treatment of veterans and military families; serving the children of veterans and military families; and VA psychosocial programming. On Thursday, Battlemind will continue with sessions focused on LGTB issues; addressing military sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder; provider resiliency and fatigue; and traumatic brain injury/post concussive syndrome aftermath.