http://honoluluweekly.com/cover/2008/06/one-soldiers-story/
One soldier’s story
They say there’s nothing wrong with me
by Suzanne Westerly / 6-25-2008
One soldier’s story

Photo Credit: Malia Leinau

“I always thought it could be my last day. Our adrenaline was so high. Just to stay alive…[I was] not thinking about the weight I was carrying around as an infantryman, about 100 pounds of ammunition, grenades, and all that. When I was out there I could only think of IED’s, getting shot at or getting harassed by the locals. Our convoy went through the Gateway 310 times. We were hit with 4–6 roadside IEDs. Our truck was rocked really bad. Now I have traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. I probably aged 10 years, I really did.”

In 2005, Stephen Imamoto, a married father of three daughters, was ripped out of his quiet life in Makiki and “backdoor-drafted” into the Iraq War. Imamoto, a Sergeant 1st Class with the U.S. Army Reserve’s 322nd Civil Affairs Brigade, was given three months to get a bunch of young recruits ready to enter a war zone. They went, and he got them home alive, but now Imamoto, who was born in Kona and is a Roosevelt High School alum, is fighting a different battle, on a different front.
The home front

“I was mobilized to go to Iraq, but when I came back home with my local unit in 2006 of May, that’s when everything fell apart. I couldn’t sleep, I had pain, I had nightmares, all the post symptoms of combat.” Imamoto has “injuries from head to toe,” and then some that run deeper. He now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the effects of a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Imamoto, now 42, can’t sleep because of his pain-wracked body, and nightmares. He went to see Army doctors at the Veteran’s Administration. “They said, ‘Naw, that’s not TBI,’ but I have all the symptoms–ringing in the ears, tinnitus, I have hearing aides for both ears, migraine headaches, IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), blurred vision–all the symptoms of TBI. But the army is saying, no it’s [just] PTSD. I suffer every day with my back and knees. I have damage from head to toe.

“They say there’s nothing wrong with me. They accuse us of making up the injuries–that we’re imagining what we report! They just want to push us out. Most of the doctors haven’t been to Iraq. They tell a veteran that he’s lying!

“I’m pissed off at the system. They say they want to take care of the veterans, but the red tape is mind-boggling. I’m a wounded vet, I was medically discharged from the military, and I can’t even be seen by [Tripler Army Medical Center doctors] for my injuries unless I have a [private] health plan. I’d have to purchase one. Right now the Army has given me a really bad plan [Tri-Care Prime]. I don’t like the system–that we have to pay for benefits. I was told to go to the medical treatment facility near my home, which would be Tripler, and they won’t consider me.”
Is help on the way?

Stephen Imamoto’s candor and willingness to speak publicly are rare, but his circumstances are all too common. Honolulu psychologist Stan Luke, of the nonprodit Helping Hands Hawai’i, recently testified before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. “Since the start of the Iraq war, we’ve seen an increase in demand for treatment of PTSD and traumatic brain injury. The volume of eligible veterans has increased so much that the system is unable to accommodate the demand. The consequence on a clinical level is that those with PTSD and TBI are left untreated and their illnesses and injuries get worse, resulting in increased family conflict, financial burdens and many veterans dropping out of necessary treatment out of frustration. Second, a rise in hurdles in the disability applications. Many veterans experience financial hardship because their applications are delayed in a system that is overwhelmed. For many disabled veterans, this confluence of financial pressure, frustration with the system, and their attendant disability results in bad outcomes.”

A growing avalanche of media is now focusing on the plight of our soldiers. The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year for its series on the abyssymal quality of care at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Subsequent media inquires have unearthed internal Veteran’s Administration Emails documenting attempts by VA personnel to cover up the extent of veterans’ suffering.

Here at home, State Representative Cindy Evans, Chair of the House Committee on Public Safety & Military Affairs hosted a talk story session with Hawai’i veterans on May 28. Evans has traveled to all the islands in her fact-finding mission, asking Hawai’i’s veterans for their thoughts on issues they are having difficulties with and if they felt veterans services should be back under the Department of Human Services. In attendance were Representatives Marcus Oshiro, Marilyn Lee and Ryan Yamane. Also present were was Mark Moses, Director of the Office of Veterans Services (OVS), William Clay Park, case manager with Helping Hands and a group of veterans.

Park, himself a Vietnam veteran, helps homeless veterans in filling out VA benefit applications, which he carries by the boxful in his trunk. “What I see happening today is the severe stress on family members. I get many calls from wives whose husbands most likely have PTSD, but husbands refuse to acknowledge they have a problem. We keep focusing on the vets, but I look at the family as well as the vets because I keep getting calls from wives saying ‘I want my husband back, this is not the man that I married.’”
“Local boys don’t want to admit they’re broken.”
Photo Credit: Malia Leinau

Park created a new Helping Hands program called the Uncles Program. Imamoto, who has been speaking out and sharing his war experiences, was recently inducted as an Uncle. He says he feels good when he can help others, and sees a great need for more Uncles to help the flood of veterans coming back from war.

Rep. Marcus Oshiro, State House Finance Chair, is determined to help veterans by working with the Legislature to provide policy and direction to the Governor who can then fund needed programs for the veterans through the Office of Veterans Affairs. Moses looks forward to working with Oshiro to get more counselors and open more clinics on O’ahu and the other islands.

The OVS initiated a new program calling all veterans, Moses said, “especially the recent veterans, six months after they get back to see how they are. But we can’t talk to the wives, only the vets, so there’s still a disconnect there.” Moses said. “The OVS has changed how we deal with mental health issues. “With the returnees now, it’s understood, there’s a new presumption within the VA that if you were exposed to IED’s, you have PTSD or that you could have it. Before you had to prove you had it.”

Moses recalls one veteran saying, “Local boys don’t want to admit they’re broken.” He insists they don’t have to.

“He doesn’t have to say he’s broken, he can say he’d like to get the benefits he’s entitled to! It’s not welfare.He’s earned those benefits, and if he’d like to get that extra cash in his hand, he should come and see us. We have about 120,000 vets in the state and their dependents, double that, that’s a large population and the point I make is they don’t have to feel this is welfare, it isn’t–they’ve earned it!”

In addition to Tripler and Helping Hands Hawai’i, veterans can receive counseling at the Honolulu Vet Center on Kapi’olani Boulevard, where Director Stephan Molnar, also a Vietnam veteran, is there to help. “It isn’t just the physical injuries,” Molnar says. “It’s the wounds of the heart. When this war ends, it’s just the beginning of where we’re going.”
The runaround

Now that he’s retired, Imamoto can’t get help. “Everyday when I’m in pain, can’t get out of bed, stuck, can’t move, the VA can’t see me right now, the army won’t even consider me, so that means I’d have to either put up out-of-pocket expenses to see my own doctor or wait until there’s an appointment–at least a week. So VA is trying to accommodate, but they’re overwhelmed with other vets. They’re willing to help me, but not Tripler. They want us to go to the emergency room at Tripler, if it’s really bad, but the problem with that is there’s a 6-hour waiting period. And because of my status, retired, the active duty, their spouses and family come first. Might not get in all day.”

“Prior to being deployed, we had to take a physical, and there was nothing wrong with me,” Imamoto said. “When I got back I was in the medical hold unit for all kinds of treatments, I didn’t have no pre-existing injuries.” Imamoto was lucky to have had a superior warn him to take his time with the paperwork, as many soldiers report enormous hassles in trying to receive assistance based on how they filled out those forms.

The military brass says the troops are getting plenty of information and counseling when they return home, but the troops are saying the opposite–that they hurry through the benefit application form, just to get out of there and go home, with no one advising them of how critical these forms are for future benefits.
Stephen Imamoto with his daughter Raene.
Photo Credit: Malia Leinau
“I only sleep 20 minutes at a time.”

“I had five mental health appointments this month cause I had to tell the doctor, ‘I’m going crazy,’ sometimes I think homicidal or suicidal cause I’m just fed up.” Even telling his doctor this, Imamoto is fighting an uphill battle to get help. “I have all my records. Always have documentation, is what I’ve learned in the years I’ve been in.”

“It’s hard because I’m still hyper-vigilant, looking for snipers, people walking up with bombs strapped to them–I’m back home, and I’m still doing that while I’m around my family. I had to be vigilant for a year. I’m still having a difficult time accepting . . . I’m trying, but I don’t want to deal with anybody. I don’t want to be in public or be around anybody. Especially when people do silly things, it pushes my button, I want to just go there and hit them, tell them, do you know what you’re doing can get people hurt by your stupid act. So I have to stay home. I haven’t gone by to my civilian job.

“They [doctors] don’t want to listen to what we’re saying. They have [veterans] right in front of their nose, how much more proof do they need? It’s a mind-boggling game, but I’m not giving up, or giving in.

“But I get discouraged. I want to be violent. I only sleep 20 minutes at a time, and they say nothing’s wrong with me. Can’t fall asleep or stay asleep. I’m married, she’s been dealing with me pretty well, but I don’t know how much more. We’re not even sleeping together because of me punching the walls. I don’t know how much more she’s going to be able to put up with me,” Imamoto says softly.

“In May of 2006, that’s when everything fell apart. I couldn’t sleep. I had pain, nightmares, all the symptoms of combat. That’s when I was put on all kinds of medication–they didn’t help at all–and they’re saying I’m ok!” Imamato laughs sadly. “Where do I go?

“I’m still fighting a battle for benefits. Because of our status in the Reserve, we don’t get the same benefits, but we do the same mission, the same training. We’re the ones ending up on the short end of the stick.”

Imamoto now finds it so hard to control his anger, he mostly stays home.

“They give you all these decorations and medals, but what our veterans need and deserve is health care. In the VA, the command staff perceived all us wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan as here to milk the system, to make good money. That was never the case.

“I just want to get the medical treatment I’m entitled to, so I can get better. What makes it worse, what makes me sick is that these Command Staff never went to Iraq or Afghanistan, and they have the nerve to say, ‘I know what you’re going through.’ They have the nerve to say we’re in it for the money! No, we’re here to get treated.”