Photo By Natalie Cole | Amid the hustle and bustle of Sailors turning in their gear, a redeploying Sailor...... read more read more
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CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait - Many troops on combat deployments spend months making high-stakes decisions under pressure and running on adrenaline as they work grinding days. The contrast of deployed life to home life can be sharp, and for the past nine years, the Armed Services have been dealing with the question of how to best support troops when their deployments end.
The U.S. Navy Warrior Transition Program on Camp Arifjan, Kuwait is the Navy’s approach to building a bridge between deployment and home. The program is a three-day stretch of time for Sailors returning from Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait to turn in their combat gear and decompress before flying home. Since February 2010, more than 8,300 Sailors have transitioned through the program.
The WTP is set up for Sailors who have served special assignments with the U.S. Army in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and New Dawn. The Sailors, known as Individual Augmentees, serve on missions ranging from detainee operations to customs inspections, said Care Team Director Capt. Sharon P. Ignat.
When integrated with the Army, Sailors work in environments that differ from the steel grey and salty blue of their typical ship duties, Ignat said. Therefore, the WTP is not just about helping Sailors have a healthy trip home: It also serves to welcome them back to the Navy culture after working with the Army. “Unlike other deployments, they’ve been under significant stressors, different stressors. And, we allow them to reflect and talk a lot about their deployment, and that’s the beginning,” said Ignat, from San Clemente, Calif.
The WTP is managed by a Care Team of professionals, including a psychiatric nurse, two chaplains, two Navy corpsmen and Ignat, a family nurse practitioner. The team guides Sailors through a straight forward schedule. On day one, Sailors drop their weapons and gear. On days two and three, Sailors attend informational workshops about what to expect when getting settled in back home, said Lt. Cmdr. Erskine Alvis, a Care Team chaplain.
The WTP’s low-intensity days are intended to give Sailors space while at the same time ensuring they have access to education and professional support, Alvis explained. “I say the warrior transition program is kind of like a jet liner landing. A jet airliner flies at over 500 knots to get you across the ocean, but it can’t land at 500 knots. In other words, it has to land at 135 – 150 knots per hour. And our goal is to … get you to a rolling stop.”
Lt. Edward Horner is a logistics officer who works with returning Sailors in the WTP. He and his team participate in the Welcome ceremony and then collect Army-issued combat gear from the Sailors in the first day of the program. Horner said he and his team enjoy helping with the WTP. “We line up, make a tunnel so the people come in and walk through that tunnel, everybody’s clapping and happy for them and you can see the stress coming off of ‘em, and they realize that they’re coming back home,” he said.
In addition to helping Sailors wind-down and return to the Navy, the WTP helps Sailors plan for what lies ahead. “The whole purpose is to get people to think about what it’s going to be like to be home [and] getting people to understand that some things that may work in theater may not work at home,” said Alvis, from Black Mountain, N.C.
While most Sailors are not expected to develop disorders as a result of their deployment, it is important to have a tool kit for ways to move on from the general stresses of combat, Alvis said. “[We] say ‘here are some tools you can use to construct your deployment experience in a healthy way moving forward, here are some places you can go get help if you’re struggling with an issue, here [are] some ways you can teach someone else about what he or she may need to know coming forward on a deployment.’”
Petty Officer 2nd Class Donny Hathorn, a Navy Reservist from Fort Collins, Colo., served with the Army in Afghanistan at a detention center for nine months. He said his experience transitioning through the WTP in September ran counter to his initial expectations. “It’s better than I thought it would be. I thought they would try to shove us through as quickly as possible, but it hasn’t been like that.”
Hathorn, who plans on spending his post-deployment vacation time with his wife, daughter and friends, said he appreciated that there were no unexpected changes or tight deadlines – a fact that he said helped him relax out of deployment mode.
Lt. James Kirk, from Santa Barbara, Calif., served nine months in Iraq as an officer in charge of a Navy customs team. He said he felt some relief knowing that he had a few days of light duty when going through the WTP in September. Kirk said that while not everyone will need immediate care at the WTP, “I think it’s worth it for those who actually do.”
Importance of Location for WTP
The fact that Sailors like Hathorn and Kirk complete the WTP as part of their trip back home is intentional. The rationale is that Sailors are better able to focus on preparing to reenter their lives before they get back to the United States, where distractions and pressures abound, according to Alvis.
“There a real advantage to doing what we do in theater because when you get on the plane, you get on the plane,” he said. “Everybody’s emotionally just totally checked out. Here … we’re still using the adrenaline and the anticipatory anxiety of going home as a force for change and a force for … healing.”
Ignat added that having the WTP in Kuwait fosters a supportive peer environment where Sailors can talk about what they have experienced with others who understand – an important step in relieving stress. “The biggest thing for an IA coming out of theater is it’s hard for people to understand the things they’ve been through, not having been through it themselves. Even others in the military who have not been out in theater really [don’t] understand it. I don’t think I did until I got here,” she said.
The peer support compliments the qualified medical and counseling staff who intervene for the less than ten percent of Sailors who request formal medical care, said Alvis. “We’re here to provide the clinical prospective and spiritual care perspective of hey, if there’s something that we can do in terms of responding to you now, we can do that, and if you need longer term care, we’re certainly going to make that recommendation and urge folks to go back and seek that care.”
He emphasized that the WTP is structured in a way that removes the potential perception that seeking help could be damaging to one’s career. “We’re a non-threatening place. We’re not in the command. We’re not in their previous command, we’re not in their future command and there’s freedom for folks to reach out [here],” Alvis said.
Measuring Success
Alvis said the care team refines the WTP using feedback from Sailors who have passed through the program. “We are in the process of improving the process. Every time we have a class here, we say, ‘okay, what helped, what did not, what can we improve?’” he said. “We do that to make ourselves better at what we do and to be more in tune with what folks are saying because there are trends that come out of different places.”
The majority of the feedback the Care Team has received thus far has been positive, although not every Sailor sees the need for the delay in getting home, according to Ignat. “The majority of our people coming through say ‘it’s so nice being welcomed back into the Navy, we appreciated the downtime,’” she said. “We still get 10 percent that will say ‘hey, I’d rather be home with my family right now, not sitting for three days in the hot desert of Kuwait.”
Alvis and Ignat agreed that the WTP’s success is measured by what does not happen. “Prevention is a nonevent,” said Alvis. “There are some things that we’ll never capture because they did not happen. And, the thing that people have in that three day period of time here is … access. It doesn’t mean everybody has to, but they have access to a tremendous amount of one-on-one time.”
Working at the WTP has been a meaningful experience for Ignat. “I mean, the appreciation that I have for our Sailors and our Soldiers … I don’t think I ever had the appreciation I have now, and I make it clear to the folks I write back home. They’re always wanting to know what they can do for me out here. It’s more about what can you do for those guys out in theater. And that’s what it’s all about,” she said.
Alvis said his expectations for the program are to keep working to make the transition from deployment to home as smooth as possible for Sailors. “We don’t have a magic pill we can give people to fix stuff. But we can certainly help people make that process of going home healthier and better and hopefully a little more relaxed.”
| Date Taken: | 09.20.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 09.22.2010 04:32 |
| Story ID: | 56764 |
| Location: | CAMP ARIFJAN, KW |
| Web Views: | 539 |
| Downloads: | 19 |
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