http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/13/AR2007101301426.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2007101301649A Wife's Battle
When Her Soldier Returned From Baghdad, Michelle Turner Picked Up the Burden of War
By Anne Hull and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 14, 2007; Page A01
ROMNEY, W.Va.
M ichelle Turner's husband sits in the recliner with the shades drawn. He washes down his Zoloft with Mountain Dew. On the phone in the other room, Michelle is pleading with the utility company to keep their power on.
Michelle and Troy Turner live in rural West Virginia, 80 miles from the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital where Troy receives his care. Troy finished his tour in Iraq in 2003, but Michelle must deal with the fallout. Troy's one-year war has become his wife's endless one.
Gallery
When The War Comes Home
Michelle and Troy Turner live in rural West Virginia, 80 miles from the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital where Troy receives his care. Troy finished his tour in Iraq in 2003, but Michelle must deal with the fallout. Troy's one-year war has become his wife's endless one.
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"Can't you tell them I'm a veteran?" asks her husband, Troy, who served as an Army scout in Baghdad and came back with post-traumatic stress disorder.
"Troy, they don't care," Michelle says, her patience stretched.
The government's sweeping list of promises to make wounded Iraq war veterans whole, at least financially, has not reached this small house in the hills of rural West Virginia, where one vehicle has already been repossessed and the answering machine screens for bill collectors. The Turners have not been making it on an $860-a-month disability check from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
After revelations about the poor treatment of outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center earlier this year, President Bush appointed a commission to study the care of the nation's war-wounded. The panel returned with bold recommendations, including the creation of a national cadre of caseworkers and a complete overhaul of the military's disability system that compensates wounded soldiers.
But so far, little has been done to sort out the mess of bureaucracy or put more money in the hands of newly disabled soldiers who are fending off evictions and foreclosures.
In the Turner house, that leaves an exhausted wife with chipped nail polish to hold up the family's collapsing world. "Stand Together," a banner at a local cafe reminds Michelle. But since Troy came back from Iraq in 2003, the burden of war is now hers.
Michelle has spent hundreds of hours at the library researching complicated VA policies and disability regulations. "You need two college degrees to understand any of it," she says, lacking both. She scavenges information where she can find it. A psychotic Vietnam vet she met in a VA hospital was the one who told her that Troy might be eligible for Social Security benefits.
Meanwhile, there are clothes to wash, meals to cook, kids to get ready for school and a husband who is placidly medicated or randomly explosive. Besides PTSD, Michelle suspects that Troy may have a brain injury, which could explain how a 38-year-old man who used to hunt and fish can lose himself in a three-day "Scooby-Doo" marathon on the Cartoon Network.
"He can't deal with everyday stresses of living," Michelle says. "He can't make decisions. He is a worrywart. Fearful. It's like they took Troy and put him in a different person."
As thousands of war-wounded lug their discharge papers and pill bottles home, more than a quarter are returning with PTSD and brain trauma. Compensation for these invisible injuries is more difficult and the social isolation more profound, especially in rural communities where pastures outnumber mental health providers. Troy's one-year war has become his wife's endless one.
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