This article originally appeared in the Cape Cod Times.



New Hyannis Vet Center aims to heal old wounds

By K.C. Myers
Staff Writer, Cape Cod Times
March 01, 2008

HYANNIS — With more than 30,000 veterans on the Cape, it was high time for a second veteran's center.

Yesterday, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, U.S. Sen. John Kerry and many of the region's state legislators came to celebrate the grand opening of the new Hyannis Vet Center on West Main Street. While the established veteran facility at the site provides medical services, the new one will offer "readjustment" and psychological counseling to veterans and their families.

"The scars vets carry go beyond direct wounds," said Kerry, a Vietnam veteran who earned three Purple Hearts. "In World War I, they called it shell shock. In World War II, battle fatigue."

During and after Vietnam, many veterans committed suicide or died from alcohol and drug abuse after they came home, Kerry said.

In response to the plight of Vietnam War veterans, Congress approved the opening of the first federally funded veteran's center in 1979 in Burlington, Vt., said Timothy Beebe, regional manager of readjustment counseling services for the U.S. Veteran's Administration.

Today, there are 209 such facilities in the country, with 23 more recently approved, Beebe said.

Congress appropriated money to build the 23 new centers, including the one in Hyannis, which will cost about $400,000 annually.

Delahunt said Kerry played a key role in securing federal money for the Hyannis facility. "There's not a better friend to veterans in the country than John Kerry," Delahunt said.

Many veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, the modern term for battle fatigue, suffer in silence.

Veteran Jeff Mandeville of East Sandwich pursued a successful career as an engineer for 26 years before a back injury forced him to slow down for the first time since his service in the Vietnam War. Then his inner turmoil rose to the surface.

Yesterday, Mandeville said he had moved his family 30 times in 26 years, always in pursuit of something that would make him "feel I was doing something as important as what I did in Vietnam."

He finally entered a veteran's center and realized he had post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder is an ongoing condition," he said. "With the right tools, we can make it work for us. So for all the vets out there, if you think something's wrong, please don't wait 26 years to talk to someone the way I did."