Homefront: Help For Vets and Their Families

Homefront Online recently interviewed IAVA Member Veteran Wendell McCleod and his wife Annette for this article about IAVA's new PSA campaign, anchored by the website www.SupportYourVet.org, for the friends and family of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

“No one knew what to say,” she said. “No one stood where I stood at that moment, so instead of reaching out, they just said nothing. Which is a human response. When you don’t know what to say, you wind up saying nothing.”

The McLeods’ story became national news after they were featured in a Pulitzer-winning Washington Post series about Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Wendell had served in the South Carolina Army National Guard for 17 years when he was slammed in the head by a steel cargo door of an 18-wheeler on the Iraq-Kuwait border.

Annette says transitioning after homecoming is hard enough; when your loved one is injured, you really need someone you can connect with. Besides offering tips for talking to vets, the new Web site also hosts forums, where friends and family can connect and share advice for dealing with readjustment.

“It is a tool that can be used in so many different ways,” Annette said of the SupportYourVet.org forums, which she participates in regularly. “The Internet is endless, so you never know who is on the other end, but you know there is somebody.”