Read Stories > Vietnam Veteran Makes Peace With PTSD and Feelings of Betrayal

When Eldson returned from the battlefields of Vietnam only to be met by protesters and spit on in his own country, he felt betrayed and angry. These feelings led the Army Veteran down a path of drug use and crime, eventually leading to a life sentence in prison. Then support from another Veteran, treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and a VA work therapy program gave him a chance to start over.

“I got peace with my PTSD,” Eldson says. “I got peace with myself.”

Survival in Vietnam: “It changed my whole perspective”

Normally the point man for his platoon, Eldson was serving as the radio operator on the day he was wounded in Vietnam. Under rocket fire that tore up his helmet and M16 rifle, he believes the radio on his back saved his life.

The platoon leader next to him wasn’t spared. “Part of his brains was in my face,” Eldson recalls. “That was the most impactful moment. It changed my whole perspective about the war, about life.”

Amid the hardships, Eldson bonded with his fellow soldiers. “We became brothers forever, and we looked forward to coming back to the world,” he says. They expected to do amazing things, he adds.

Hardships back home: “I felt my country let me down”

His return did not go as envisioned. When Eldson came back to the United States, he was surrounded by protesters, including one who spit on him.

“I couldn’t understand them protesting against me and those of us that served, so that anger ate my life up as a young person,” he says. “I felt my country let me down, so I started using drugs, self-medicating.”

Eldson’s drug use continued for years and nearly cost him his life. “I separated myself from everybody that knew me,” he says. “I probably OD’d 10 or 15 times. It was a suicide journey.”

It also led him to commit crimes. “I robbed banks to get drug money, a twisted sense of revenge,” he says. Eldson ended up in prison, sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Life renewed: “I learned to look at myself”

Changes in the law gave Eldson an opportunity to be released. The warden, also a Veteran, became Eldson’s case manager and accompanied him at his parole board hearing.

“He was the reason I got out of prison,” says Eldson.

Eldson believes he left prison as a changed man. “I became a different person because I felt the wrong that I had done,” he says. “I apologized to my family and to my country.”

Eldson also went to VA for help. Eventually, that assistance included mental health treatment and Compensated Work Therapy, a VA employment and therapeutic work program. The program assists Veterans who face job barriers because of mental health conditions or physical disabilities.

Eldson credits treatment, and his acceptance of it, for his turnaround. “The therapy has helped a lot because it teaches me how to do these things that I need to do for myself, even when I’m by myself,” he explains.

“I learned to look at myself and accept the fact that I had a mental problem, and that mental problem could be my master or I could master it,” he adds.

As Eldson describes it, finding that peace within himself enabled him to help other Veterans. He did that first by working for VA. Now he does it with Vietnam Veterans of America.

“That’s my therapy,” he says. “We are brothers, you know. When one roll, all of us roll.”