Moving on from trauma

William Rodenbaugh returned from Vietnam with a lot on his mind.

He'd seen death. He'd slept on the jungle floor. He'd been scared for his life.

But when Rodenbaugh came home to New Jersey, he didn't talk about what had happened.

"They didn't ask me," he said of his family, "and I didn't want to, you know, put it on them."

Rodenbaugh worked three jobs. He had children. In short, life marched on.

"I just dealt with it in my own way. You had to - what else were you going to do?"

But on September 11, as Rodenbaugh watched the World Trade Center burst into flames, the trauma of war returned. He retired a few years later and moved to South Texas. Now, at 63, he has more time to think about the horrors of the Vietnam War. Thankfully, he also has the resources to get help.

On Tuesday, Rodenbaugh attended a post traumatic stress disorder conference at the Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville East Campus, along with about 50 other professionals, patients and family members.

The conference was presented by Valley Baptist to encourage community conversation about mental health issues. Among the presenters were Dr. Daniel Villarreal of Valley Baptist and Dr. Jennifer Wood of the Veterans Association Outpatient Clinic in Harlingen.

According to Villarreal, a conference like this one helps those unfamiliar with psychiatric treatment to understand one of its specific uses: helping people recover from trauma.

"These events let people know that we're here," Villarreal said. "We're here to help."

About 8 million Americans suffer from post traumatic stress disorder, according to the National Center for PTSD. This includes 30 percent of all Vietnam War veterans.

Rodenbaugh hopes that young men returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will make quicker use of the resources it took him decades to track down.

"The information and help is out there for these soldiers to get," Rodenbaugh said. "If we had these services back then things would have been a lot better for a lot of veterans."