Monday, February 14, 2011

Unique program helps "New Warriors" cope with trauma from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan - ContraCostaTimes.com

Justin Moore walked off a job in Livermore after his second tour in Iraq, hit the bourbon and stabbed the father of his girlfriend's child with a pocket knife. Chris Kuykendall, of Vallejo, grew aimless and drank, then the former Marine manhandled his girlfriend and landed in a Solano County jail cell. Ryan Kahlor, of Escondido, came home from Iraq and wound up in the hospital four times after picking fights "so people would kill me." Army reservist Kurt Furtado of Watsonville pointed a pistol to his head. He leveled a sword to his chest.

"Part of me got killed over there," said Furtado, 50. "This demon was taking control of my life, isolating me, pushing me into the bottle, destroying Kurt -- the man who went over there."

One by one, they arrived last spring to an unusual private residential treatment program for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with no clear idea of when they would leave -- five months maybe, or eight or 10



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