MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – For some veterans, the battle doesn’t end when they come home. Many say the experiences they had overseas stay with them.
“The effects that happen to you when you’re in combat, change you. They change your core; they change everything about you,” William Huff Aker, a Vietnam War Veteran and double Purple Heart recipient said.
When Aker was finally able to come home after serving in the Vietnam War, he realized how much his experiences in battle affected him.
“The first couple of years I got home, I tried to assimilate back into society, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t fit,” Aker said.
Aker, like many other veterans still deal with PTSD from what they saw overseas.
“I just thought it was a normal reaction I had when I would go into a quick rage, or kind of fall apart, get flashbacks, dreams, nightmares at night. I thought that was all something that was normal that was supposed to follow. I didn’t know it was something that was going to haunt me to this day,” Lou Krieger, a Vietnam Army veteran said.
“What you see and what you hear, and the sights and sounds, it never goes away,” Krieger said.
However, both Krieger and Aker have been able to find some sense of relief through weekly, sit-down meetings with other veterans.
Every Thursday, a group of Veterans meet to talk about their experiences with PTSD.
Aker has rarely missed a meeting in the past 10 years. He says the veterans he’s met have changed him for the better.
“The guys there, they care. They cared about what was going on inside me that I wasn’t telling anybody else about, and that changed things a lot for me,” Aker said.
Even though Aker and Krieger’s PTSD symptoms will never fully go away, they say they wouldn’t change what they experienced during combat.
The veteran support meetings take place every Thursday at 10 a.m. at the DAV chapter 30, located on Church St. behind the PGA Superstore. All veterans are welcome to attend.
The meetings are part of the Myrtle Beach Vet Center’s counseling services. For more information about other services offered, click here.