On a rainy afternoon five years ago, the 459th Reserve Engineering Company’s buses pulled into the armory in Bridgeport, West Virginia. They were returning from a year in Iraq.
On one bus, a soldier called out, “Welcome Home, Gentlemen! Can I get a Hoo-Ah?”
The other soldiers responded with the Army yell: “Hoo-ah!”
Minutes later they spilled out onto the parking lot, to be embraced by family and friends.
In the years since, that scene has been repeated for almost every West Virginia National Guard and Reserve unit. Afterwards, the soldiers face the challenges of adjusting to home.
Every combat veteran has a different reaction to the trauma of war. Those reactions may dramatically affect their civilian life.
In 2007, a Department of Defense Task Force found that three to four months after returning home, one-third of regular Army soldiers were experiencing mental health issues.
The figure is even higher -- one-half -- for National Guard and Reservists.
Wheeling Vet Center therapist John Looney is a Vietnam combat vet who counsels returning Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers.
His experience gives him credibility with the vets seeking help transitioning from war to home.
“Destruction and death – that's what war’s about,” Looney said. “So you stuff your emotions and you ignore them.
"It's like a credit card. It goes on credit but then the bill comes due,” he said.
Jeremy Harrison was a sergeant in the 459th. He is still haunted by what he saw and did during the first two weeks of the invasion in March 2003.
“We went through Nasiriyah. Marines were dying, bullets were flying everywhere. There were dead bodies lying around and at any given second we could of been shot. We had no idea where anything was really coming from,” Harrison said.
The next day, they continued up the highway towards Baghdad.
“We started witnessing a lot of the dead bodies that were everywhere. We came through a couple of scenes where buses had been blown up and they were full mostly of civilian people, women and children that had been burned – just really bad images," he said.
When Harrison got home, he couldn't sleep. Nightmares of horrific images often haunt combat soldiers. While asleep the mind tries to sort out and resolve those experiences.
At first, Harrison thought drinking helped with that.
“I went from having maybe a couple of beers to drinking pretty heavily four or five nights a week. I was getting very little sleep. If I wasn't drinking, I wasn't getting much sleep at all.
"If I did sleep, I was having nightmares -- waking up screaming, sweating -- and the alcohol was a way for me to at least stay asleep through that. I was becoming a detriment to myself and my family and friends. I started getting to a point where I was isolating more as I was doing.”
Jeremy's father, Ron Harrison, met Jeremy at the 459th Armory when he returned from Iraq. Ron saw a different person get off the bus.
“Jeremy was always an over achiever as a teenager. He excelled in sports and with his grades in school," Ron Harrison said.
"When he got back he was full of torment. He was definitely carrying his emotions on his sleeve. I was worried about it. His focus was gone. It was scary,” he said.
Combat soldiers learn to survive in intense environments. When they return home, certain sounds, smells, places and events can trigger them back into survival mode, even though they are no longer in danger.
That's something Jeremy Harrison experienced the first week after he returned home.
"I remember some thunderstorms that occurred and these were thunderstorms that I have never heard before, the thunder and lightning was very, very intense and I remember that's the first time that I experienced hypervigilance when I was home,” he said.
Harrison knew he needed help. He went to the Wheeling Vet Center to discuss what was going on in his life with therapist John Looney.
“Jeremy talked about his symptomology and I said, look this is normal for us combat veterans, welcome to my world. And so he gets an idea of how he needs to adjust," Looney said.
"See, when he came back his perception of himself changed because he had done so many things he'd never thought he have to do, and the other thing is his world view changed,” Looney said.
Harrison was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Warriors returning from combat have experienced this for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until 1980 that the American Psychiatric Association defined it.
PTSD is caused by a traumatic event in which the person saw or experienced death or serious injury and their reaction was intense fear, helplessness or horror. The more often a person is exposed to these incidents, the more likely they will develop PTSD.
After his return, Harrison moved to Morgantown to earn a masters degree in Social Work. He met children’s therapist Susan Herald and they eventually married.
“The interesting thing in our relationship is that I worked with children with PTSD so I understood what the diagnosis was,” Herald said.
“I didn't understand living with iearn That has been a living experience. I had to learn through him what caused this.
"I remember we sat on the couch in his apartment and he just talked to me about things he had seen -- things he had to do when he was over there. It really just took listening. You want to console. You want to say, ‘I understand’ or you want to say, ‘it's ok.’
”But that really doesn’t make any difference, because you don't understand. All you can say is that you care about them regardless of what they've had to do,” she said.
Adverse trauma reactions, including PTSD, can often be managed by exercise, anti-depressants, and therapy. Harrison said they have helped him.
“I started taking sleep medication, which worked and it continues to work today. Talking about it has become a really good way for me to loosen up and be able to relax a little bit more, that tension ball isn't squeezed so tight.
"Through those two things, and obviously the help of my loving wife, it's really come a long way in helping me get things under control,” he said.
Harrison now works for the Wheeling Vet Center as a therapist. The vets that talk to him know that he’s been there, and understands both the stress of combat and the emotional pain that may haunt them when they return.
Harrison reflected on his life since coming home.
“It's life changing and it's a permanent life change. Things will never be the same.
"I compare it to everyday things that are going on back here and realize that life is too short to go unhappy. By taking advantage of the things established to help Veterans re-integrate in society, life can be wonderful and that's why we’re here,” he said.