Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Vietnam Veteran Ed Bolf's Recovery from Post Tramatic Stress Disorder and His Re-entry into Society with the Help of NASA, a Crystal Lake Organization
We're not talking about the space agency here. In Crystal Lake, NASA stands for National Association of Systems Administrators. While researching yesterday's article, I found this press release by Kathy Chwedyk, Development Director of the National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corporation. Here it is, as the former reporter wrote it.
It is a powerful piece about how one veteran was brought back into society after a serious bout with Post Tramatic Stress Disorder.
Veteran Participant in Project Fresh Start Accepts IT Position
Ed Bolf, a Vietnam-era U.S. Air Force Sergeant and former resident of New Horizons Veterans Center in Hebron, Illinois, has completed his training with Project Fresh Start, a program of National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corporation (NASA Education), and has accepted a position that will place him in an IT role with an international company. Bolf relocated to Indiana and assumed his duties in mid-March.
Project Fresh Start seeks to prepare displaced, disabled and other transitional workers for IT careers. NASA Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that Executive Director John Blanchard founded in 1999. Blanchard is president and CEO of National Association of System Administrators, Inc. (NASA), a provider of hardware maintenance and operating system support that he founded in 1994, and National Association of System Administrators Corporation (NASA Corp.), a software development company that he founded in 1998.
“Ed is about to embark upon a promising, long-lasting career in the IT field that will make the most of his skills and talent, and we couldn’t be prouder of him,” Blanchard said. “I commend our trainers for their dedication to the program and their patience in teaching the trainees. I commend the hiring company for making Ed such a good offer. Most of all, I commend Ed for his tenacity, his intelligence and his hard work. Bravo Zulus are due all around.”
Blanchard himself is a veteran. He served with the U.S. Navy in Beirut and considers the training and placement of veterans a priority for the Project Fresh Start Program. He plans to participate in Veteran’s March 2006 in Washington D.C. on April 25.
“It was an honor for me to serve my country,” said Blanchard, “and it is an honor for me to be in a position to help veterans. The veterans in our program have exceeded our expectations, and I am not surprised by that. Men who have received training from the best military organization on the planet can handle anything we throw at them.”
Asked how Project Fresh Start has changed him, Bolf said the question made a line from the Jack Nicholson movie "As Good As It Gets" pop into his head.
“During our training as medics, an instructor told us that 80% of us would be field medics in Vietnam. We wouldn’t be given weapons because the enemy wasn’t supposed to shoot at us. But he said the first thing we should do out there was to get rid of the helmets which bore the red cross, which made an easy target for snipers. Then we should put on any parts of a regular uniform we could find, and find a weapon.”
Medics, Bolf soon learned, had a very short life expectancy in any combat zone. He was considered lucky because he didn’t actually see combat, “but there was no comfort in that because I had to face the carnage of war day after day,” he said.
“USAF Hospital at Clark Air Force Base was like part of a continuous conveyor belt bringing in casualties from the battlefield or medical facilities such as Cameron Bay (in Vietman). Then the conveyer would take them back out again to send them to the States – either in a box, or alive and all too often missing much of themselves physically or emotionally.”
Bolf, the son of a World War II veteran, was so focused on the injuries of his patients that he didn’t realize that he was being damaged emotionally, too.
“I was only in my twenties, and so were most of them. It was impossible not to identify with them. Many had limbs amputated in the field, and often they would need further amputation at our facility in the Philippines. We fought to save them from life-threatening systematic infections such as gangrene. I knew their names. When I could, I’d go up to visit them because they had no family there. None of us did. The hardest thing was when you’d go to check on a guy, he’s your brother, and you know he’s not going to make it. He might not know it yet, but one day he asks you, ‘Am I going to die?’ I couldn’t answer that at first. I would lie, as most people do and try to convince both myself and the patient not to even consider any such thing. Having read about hospice care, a rather new concept then, I learned that when they ask if they’re going to die, you should tell them the truth so they have a chance to make amends, say their goodbyes and for most, to arrive at their end with some dignity and relative peace. I began to practice that, but it was hard.”
When he received his honorable discharge from the Air Force, he went to work in January of 1970 at the University of Illinois as the Technical Director of the Blood Bank and Transfusion Service. It was a good job, and he thought now he could put the war behind him and re-enter civilian life.
“Two weeks after my return, the unexplainable anxiety began and the first of many future panic attacks occurred,” he said. After being assured that he wasn’t suffering heart attacks, he did his best to ignore the episodes, hoping that in time they would subside and the associated anxiety would go away.
They didn’t.
In 1981, Bolf accepted a position as Director of Hospital Services at the Oklahoma Regional Center of the American Red Cross in Tulsa.
In 1982, he said, “all of this came to a head.”
Bolf didn’t know it then, but he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The intensity of the anxiety and panic attacks increased. His condition increasingly affected the personal and social aspects of his life. He couldn’t travel by airplane once he left military service, and when his job required him to attend seminars across the country, he found excuses to drive instead. Often he would put in for vacation time and take his family along to hide the fact that he was afraid to fly.
“I’d feel trapped,” he said of airline travel, “like I was boxed in and I couldn’t escape. It was easy enough to avoid air travel, but I would have the same feeling in a large department store or a closed-in mall. Later still, even family gatherings exceeded my shrinking comfort zone.
“My life took on a nightmarish quality. You can’t imagine it, not unless you experience it. The panic becomes overwhelming and you know only that you must escape or something dreadful will occur.”
The medical laboratory specialist who fought so hard to heal his fellow soldiers could not heal himself.
What people need to know about PTSD, he said, “is that it’s real. Many people think it’s just something you can shake off if you think about other things and get on with your life.
“I don’t believe my ex-wife ever understood how or why it affected my behavior and our relationship; but I don’t blame her for that because it’s incomprehensible.”
When his last car was destroyed in an automobile accident, he said, “it was sold for parts and the remainder was crushed for recycled metal. People understand that kind of damage – it’s physical. It’s visible.
“PTSD did that much damage to me emotionally, but it didn’t show. All people could see was my unexplained avoidance patterns or seemingly rude behavior.”
Eventually Bolf was divorced and lost his home. After he lost his job with the Red Cross, he held a series of mostly menial jobs. For two years he worked nights so he could hide in his room at the YMCA to avoid the outside world, which had become a fearful place.
His life took a turn for the better when he was referred for the Project Fresh Start Program by Pete Castillo, the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program Specialist at Illinois Department of Employment Security in Woodstock, Illinois.
“What we have with John Blanchard and NASA Education is a case of veterans helping veterans while utilizing state and Federal programs,” said Castillo, who served with the U.S. Army during the Cold War. “What John (Blanchard) has done is truly remarkable, and I hope NASA will be a role model for other companies in the state to help provide training, jobs and better lives for those who have sacrificed so much for their country.”
A personal milestone for Bolf came during his training, which took place at the NASA corporate headquarters in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
“John (Blanchard) asked me to fly with him in his private plane to go on a service call out of state at a client facility. My anxiety level jumped at least two levels on a scale of 10, but I had to find out if I could do it.”
It turned out well.
“I didn’t have any discomfort at all,” said the triumphant Bolf, who considers this a definite milestone after being treated with little success by civilian professionals for nearly two decades for social anxiety, depression and a sleep disorder before going to a VA medical facility and learning about PTSD.
Blanchard was dismayed when Bolf told him on the flight back to NASA headquarters that it was the first time he had been able to fly since Vietnam.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Blanchard asked.
“Because I was afraid you wouldn’t take me,” Bolf answered, “and I had to know if I could do it.”
In addition to veterans’ organizations, NASA Education accepts referrals of candidates for Project Fresh Start from homeless shelters, disaster relief agencies and other social service entities. Prospective candidates can also apply directly through www.nasaeducation.org, the NASA Education website.
# # #
NASA Education also accepts equipment donations, including cars. Since it is not-for-profit, a tax deduction is available as an added incentive to assist folks in rehabilitating their lives.
Here is the information that was on top of the press release:
3305 South IL Rte. 31, Crystal Lake, IL 60012, 800-724-9692, 815-455-5296 (FAX)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kathy Chwedyk, Development Director
National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corp. (NASA Education)
Phone: (815) 455-5190
Fax: (815) 455-5296
kathy_chwedyk@nasaeducation.org
www.nasaeducation.org
To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.
It is a powerful piece about how one veteran was brought back into society after a serious bout with Post Tramatic Stress Disorder.
Veteran Participant in Project Fresh Start Accepts IT Position
Ed Bolf, a Vietnam-era U.S. Air Force Sergeant and former resident of New Horizons Veterans Center in Hebron, Illinois, has completed his training with Project Fresh Start, a program of National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corporation (NASA Education), and has accepted a position that will place him in an IT role with an international company. Bolf relocated to Indiana and assumed his duties in mid-March.
Project Fresh Start seeks to prepare displaced, disabled and other transitional workers for IT careers. NASA Education is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that Executive Director John Blanchard founded in 1999. Blanchard is president and CEO of National Association of System Administrators, Inc. (NASA), a provider of hardware maintenance and operating system support that he founded in 1994, and National Association of System Administrators Corporation (NASA Corp.), a software development company that he founded in 1998.“Ed is about to embark upon a promising, long-lasting career in the IT field that will make the most of his skills and talent, and we couldn’t be prouder of him,” Blanchard said. “I commend our trainers for their dedication to the program and their patience in teaching the trainees. I commend the hiring company for making Ed such a good offer. Most of all, I commend Ed for his tenacity, his intelligence and his hard work. Bravo Zulus are due all around.”
Blanchard himself is a veteran. He served with the U.S. Navy in Beirut and considers the training and placement of veterans a priority for the Project Fresh Start Program. He plans to participate in Veteran’s March 2006 in Washington D.C. on April 25.
“It was an honor for me to serve my country,” said Blanchard, “and it is an honor for me to be in a position to help veterans. The veterans in our program have exceeded our expectations, and I am not surprised by that. Men who have received training from the best military organization on the planet can handle anything we throw at them.”
Asked how Project Fresh Start has changed him, Bolf said the question made a line from the Jack Nicholson movie "As Good As It Gets" pop into his head.
“Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, ‘You make me want to be a better man.’ That’s how this program makes me feel. It makes me want to accomplish things again, to rejoin society, to feel good about myself.Before Project Fresh Start, Bolf said,
“Taking this job has been a milestone for me. Project Head Start has given us (him and other program trainees) an opportunity to do something, to be something. Much of that has to do with just feeding off of John’s unbelievable energy.”
“I felt that I had been all I was ever going to be – and that was 25 years ago. Now I’m living out here in this apartment, like a real human being. New Horizons was a roof over my head, and I was grateful for it. But this is a real life and a real job.”During his four years with the Air Force, Bolf was stationed at Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines as a medical laboratory specialist.
“During our training as medics, an instructor told us that 80% of us would be field medics in Vietnam. We wouldn’t be given weapons because the enemy wasn’t supposed to shoot at us. But he said the first thing we should do out there was to get rid of the helmets which bore the red cross, which made an easy target for snipers. Then we should put on any parts of a regular uniform we could find, and find a weapon.”
Medics, Bolf soon learned, had a very short life expectancy in any combat zone. He was considered lucky because he didn’t actually see combat, “but there was no comfort in that because I had to face the carnage of war day after day,” he said.
“USAF Hospital at Clark Air Force Base was like part of a continuous conveyor belt bringing in casualties from the battlefield or medical facilities such as Cameron Bay (in Vietman). Then the conveyer would take them back out again to send them to the States – either in a box, or alive and all too often missing much of themselves physically or emotionally.”
Bolf, the son of a World War II veteran, was so focused on the injuries of his patients that he didn’t realize that he was being damaged emotionally, too.
“I was only in my twenties, and so were most of them. It was impossible not to identify with them. Many had limbs amputated in the field, and often they would need further amputation at our facility in the Philippines. We fought to save them from life-threatening systematic infections such as gangrene. I knew their names. When I could, I’d go up to visit them because they had no family there. None of us did. The hardest thing was when you’d go to check on a guy, he’s your brother, and you know he’s not going to make it. He might not know it yet, but one day he asks you, ‘Am I going to die?’ I couldn’t answer that at first. I would lie, as most people do and try to convince both myself and the patient not to even consider any such thing. Having read about hospice care, a rather new concept then, I learned that when they ask if they’re going to die, you should tell them the truth so they have a chance to make amends, say their goodbyes and for most, to arrive at their end with some dignity and relative peace. I began to practice that, but it was hard.”
When he received his honorable discharge from the Air Force, he went to work in January of 1970 at the University of Illinois as the Technical Director of the Blood Bank and Transfusion Service. It was a good job, and he thought now he could put the war behind him and re-enter civilian life.
“Two weeks after my return, the unexplainable anxiety began and the first of many future panic attacks occurred,” he said. After being assured that he wasn’t suffering heart attacks, he did his best to ignore the episodes, hoping that in time they would subside and the associated anxiety would go away.
They didn’t.
In 1981, Bolf accepted a position as Director of Hospital Services at the Oklahoma Regional Center of the American Red Cross in Tulsa.
In 1982, he said, “all of this came to a head.”
Bolf didn’t know it then, but he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The intensity of the anxiety and panic attacks increased. His condition increasingly affected the personal and social aspects of his life. He couldn’t travel by airplane once he left military service, and when his job required him to attend seminars across the country, he found excuses to drive instead. Often he would put in for vacation time and take his family along to hide the fact that he was afraid to fly.
“I’d feel trapped,” he said of airline travel, “like I was boxed in and I couldn’t escape. It was easy enough to avoid air travel, but I would have the same feeling in a large department store or a closed-in mall. Later still, even family gatherings exceeded my shrinking comfort zone.
“My life took on a nightmarish quality. You can’t imagine it, not unless you experience it. The panic becomes overwhelming and you know only that you must escape or something dreadful will occur.”
The medical laboratory specialist who fought so hard to heal his fellow soldiers could not heal himself.
What people need to know about PTSD, he said, “is that it’s real. Many people think it’s just something you can shake off if you think about other things and get on with your life.
“I don’t believe my ex-wife ever understood how or why it affected my behavior and our relationship; but I don’t blame her for that because it’s incomprehensible.”
When his last car was destroyed in an automobile accident, he said, “it was sold for parts and the remainder was crushed for recycled metal. People understand that kind of damage – it’s physical. It’s visible.
“PTSD did that much damage to me emotionally, but it didn’t show. All people could see was my unexplained avoidance patterns or seemingly rude behavior.”
Eventually Bolf was divorced and lost his home. After he lost his job with the Red Cross, he held a series of mostly menial jobs. For two years he worked nights so he could hide in his room at the YMCA to avoid the outside world, which had become a fearful place.
His life took a turn for the better when he was referred for the Project Fresh Start Program by Pete Castillo, the Disabled Veterans' Outreach Program Specialist at Illinois Department of Employment Security in Woodstock, Illinois.
“What we have with John Blanchard and NASA Education is a case of veterans helping veterans while utilizing state and Federal programs,” said Castillo, who served with the U.S. Army during the Cold War. “What John (Blanchard) has done is truly remarkable, and I hope NASA will be a role model for other companies in the state to help provide training, jobs and better lives for those who have sacrificed so much for their country.”
A personal milestone for Bolf came during his training, which took place at the NASA corporate headquarters in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
“John (Blanchard) asked me to fly with him in his private plane to go on a service call out of state at a client facility. My anxiety level jumped at least two levels on a scale of 10, but I had to find out if I could do it.”
It turned out well.
“I didn’t have any discomfort at all,” said the triumphant Bolf, who considers this a definite milestone after being treated with little success by civilian professionals for nearly two decades for social anxiety, depression and a sleep disorder before going to a VA medical facility and learning about PTSD.
Blanchard was dismayed when Bolf told him on the flight back to NASA headquarters that it was the first time he had been able to fly since Vietnam.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Blanchard asked.
“Because I was afraid you wouldn’t take me,” Bolf answered, “and I had to know if I could do it.”
In addition to veterans’ organizations, NASA Education accepts referrals of candidates for Project Fresh Start from homeless shelters, disaster relief agencies and other social service entities. Prospective candidates can also apply directly through www.nasaeducation.org, the NASA Education website.
# # #
NASA Education also accepts equipment donations, including cars. Since it is not-for-profit, a tax deduction is available as an added incentive to assist folks in rehabilitating their lives.
Here is the information that was on top of the press release:
3305 South IL Rte. 31, Crystal Lake, IL 60012, 800-724-9692, 815-455-5296 (FAX)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kathy Chwedyk, Development Director
National Association of Systems Administrators Education Corp. (NASA Education)
Phone: (815) 455-5190
Fax: (815) 455-5296
kathy_chwedyk@nasaeducation.org
www.nasaeducation.org
To return to McHenry County Blog, click here.
# posted by Cal Skinner : 7:35 AM
