Georgia mother fights for better understanding of veterans with PTSD

From Tim King, who is a former U.S. Marine with 20 years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, for the Salem-News.com in Oregon:

STATHAM, Ga. -- Jamie Keyes in Georgia is fighting for her son, an American combat veteran suffering from PTSD- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Nathan Keyes (pictured) is currently serving a three-year sentence for an episode that resulted from his PTSD. Jamie is the first to agree that there is no manual for deprogramming a soldier from the horrors of war.

She closes her emails with this quote:

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation."
- George Washington

I don't normally latch onto such things, but I think few quotes mean more, or would serve as a better inspiration to today's politicians who hold the future of those who served in their hands.

Jamie's son Nathan served two tours in Iraq during his eight years of service to his nation. She says he followed in the footsteps of his grandfather and uncle; they both served in the military.

But she says that when her son came home from the war suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, she didn’t know what to do for him.

"These boys don’t come home with an instruction booklet – how to deal with them, how to respond to them, and I knew almost nothing about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Keyes said in a report published by C. Peterson with Barrow County News in Georgia. "I knew nobody that had a son or daughter in the military, let along one who came home with a disorder."

Nathan had a violent flashback from the war in August 2008 that led to his three-year incarceration in St. Augustine.

Nathan and his girlfriend Kristan Mae Hundley, were driving August 13, 2008, when according to reports, a driver named Anthony Petrilli pulled behind Keye's Toyota RAV4, with his young daughter in the front passenger seat.

Petrilli, a former U.S. Marine from the Lebanon period in the early 1980's, decided to honk his horn behind Keyes and Hundley. When Keyes reacted, Petrilli said, "Buddy, don't even say anything."

That is when Nathan Keyes pointed a 9mm Glock at the Petrilli's vehicle. Hundley's reaction was to yell "no" and swatted at Nathan's arm. She decided to put some distance between themselves and the other driver, but Petrilli followed them.

Later he would say that he felt a bond with Keyes, as he had served with the Marines in Lebanon, suggesting he understood where this former soldier was coming from.

At this point, I feel compelled to offer my own thoughts. First, honking in traffic is often a sign of hostility, whether it is meant to be or not. This driver, with his daughter, fully aware that he was chasing an armed subject, decided it was his duty to follow him and see him arrested. I was in the Marines exactly when Petrilli was, and Lebanon was horrible, particularly for the Marines who were inside the Embassy, and those who had to recover them. But the idea of comparing that to two tours in Iraq, doesn't hold a lot of water.

I think that chasing a guy with a guy with a little girl in a car is really super irresponsible parenting, if I have ever heard it, and in my book both drivers are very much at fault.

I think Petrilli knew that he was pushing a dangerous situation that he had instigated with his honking and "Buddy, don't even say anything" comment.

He called Keyes out, and then he decided to teach him a lesson. I personally believe that Keyes was totally wrong to have the weapon in the first place, but then the war he was made to serve two tours in was also wrong, and so was the lack of care he received from his own often ungrateful country.

It is not unusual for an Iraq War veteran to arm themselves after returning from the war, in case anyone didn't know that. In fact it is more common than you would expect.

While being pursued by Petrilli, Keyes did eventually fire his gun, as they made a u-turn trying to get away from him.

Keyes later explained that after he told Petrilli to stop following him, who would not stop, that he experienced a flashback to wartime.

This soldier responded to the situation the way that he was trained to in Iraq. The procedure he described, is to show your weapon and to fire a warning shot before firing to actually take someone out.

He told staugustine.com, "Obviously I overreacted."

"In the past couple years I've been in a similar situation where underestimation of threat was not an option."

In talking about his service in Lebanon with the Marines, Petrilli said he too had seen horrible things. He insisted though, that Keyes' Post Traumatic Stress Disorder did not provide an excuse for endangering his and his daughter's lives.

"I wasn't going to let him get away," Petrilli said. "He could've done it to someone else."

But it seems exceedingly clear that Petrilli's initial attitude; causing grief in traffic with his horn blaring, and his desire to place his daughter in much more danger than she had been in initially, is also a criminal act. Of course this is Florida, and I think vigilantism is discouraged, but perhaps not, since all charges against Petrilli were dropped.

Jamie Keyes says as hard as it is, her son had originally faced a twenty-year sentence. The substantially lesser sentence came about after she launched a letter-writing campaign to educate the various people involved with the case about PTSD.

"That kind of got me going on personal advocacy," Keyes said. "Rather than crying over it, I decided to get out and make a difference."

Jamie said she won't back off any time soon, and she is excited about a documentary coming out very soon about her son and incarcerated veterans.

"It was done by intheirboots.com. They are telling me that it will be ready for release in March and will show on PBS and intheirboots.com."

This mom is keenly aware of the treatment, or lack of treatment, that the VA all too frequently reserves for veterans. Like so many of us, she laments the lack of real creative and thoughtful approaches to this severe problem in our society, and the overall lack of awareness in the United States of America.

"The more aware this country is about our returning soldiers and their issues, the better chance we have of changing a system that is failing them horribly. It has become my mission in life to promote awareness and to give a voice to the many veterans and their families who are going through what we do on a daily basis."

Those families that give the most, also pay the most.

Keyes says her son never received the help he needed to readjust to civilian life. Now this Statham grandmother is devoting her time to state- and nation-wide efforts that will provide the badly needed readjustment for other soldiers returning home.

"Obviously they need a lot more support than they’re getting," Keyes said. "A lot of them are released from the military and having problems and not going to the VA, and a lot of them end up committing suicide or incarcerated... [We need to] do what we can to help them get their lives back instead of incarcerating them."

Nathan Keyes is no longer a soldier, but his obligation to fight continues, and probably will for the rest of his life with or without his choice or consent. It's the path his country laid out for him.

His mom is now fighting a battle with the VA over his care when he gets out of prison. In their book, he's terminated from services.

"Yes, this is the VA that failed to treat him appropriately when he got home. Now they are telling me that since he has a court order for PTSD inpatient treatment, they wont touch him when he gets out." Jamie says this is a VA policy.

"I have found that fighting the VA and trying to get him help (which he has been asking for all along) has become a battle each step of the way. And they wonder why there are so many suicides."

One project Keyes dedicates time to is a pilot jail diversion program in DeKalb County, Georgia, where she volunteers on the advisory board. Georgia is one of 12 states implementing the diversion program, which directs veterans diagnosed with PTSD and charged with non-violent crimes into treatment and case management rather than incarceration.

She has issued a call for lawyers willing to donate their services to veterans with PTSD.

"If it hadn’t been for an attorney who was a vet, who heard about my son and offered to work for him pro bono, I don’t know what would have happened to my son," she said.

So for now, this mom is continuing to work for the nation's veterans, hoping that her fellow Barrow County residents will join in, and help local veterans and their families readjust.

"There are many ways that the community can reach out and help them," she said.

"It could come in the form of giving them jobs, affordable housing, childcare, household expenses, pro bono legal help, free services such as home repairs or modifications for vets who are disabled, donating to many of the veterans charities or free counseling... Something as simple as being a friend to a military spouse and letting them know that you are there for them when their loved one is deployed or at home after a deployment can make a huge difference."