Veterans graduate from program at Yountville

Napa Valley Register

Roughly one year after the group of veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan arrived at the Veterans Home of California at Yountville for treatment, dozens of young men can call themselves graduates.

On Friday, 11 men in their 20s and 30s graduated from the Pathway Home, a program designed to help them to cope with their combat experience and readjust to civilian life. The graduation ceremony took place Friday at Mont La Salle, the Christian Brothers' center in the mountains west of Napa.
“I have put a lot of pieces together since I've been here,” said Tom Schoettler, a

U.S. Army sergeant wounded in Iraq two years ago, before he and his fellow veterans received certificates of completion, chocolate and yellow roses at a noontime ceremony.
“I'm really grateful for everyone who's made this program available,” said the

26-year-old who plans to complete a business degree this fall at Napa Valley College after his medical discharge papers are completed later this year.
The Pathway Home was created to meet the need traditional medical programs for veterans could not meet. Through the privately-funded program, a staff of psychologists, nurses, counselors and others help the program's participants cope with the traumas they have endured in a war zone.

Fred Gusman, the executive director of the program, told guests the participants in the program have confronted experiences that could give anybody pain and grief.

“It takes a tremendous amount of courage to do that,” he said.

Secretary Thomas Johnson of the California Department of Veterans Affairs, Yountville Vice Mayor John Dunbar and Marcella McCormack, administrator of the Veterans Home of California at Yountville, were among those who thanked the veterans for their service. Melissa Rodezno, a representative of Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, presented each graduate a Congressional certificate during the ceremony sponsored by the Latino Adult Institute of Napa.

The men now are at a crossroads as they begin to realize the goals they have set for themselves, Gusman said during the ceremony.

“There is a tremendous amount of anxiety, no matter what kind of plans one puts together,” he said.

Although Schoettler will live in Napa while he continues outpatient treatment in Yountville, others plan to try to find jobs in the area or move close to family.

US Marine Cpl. David Wells, 28, a combat mortician in Iraq who remains on active duty, eventually wants to pursue graduate studies in psychology and help other veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Brendan Schnitzler, 21, a U.S. Marine from Paris, Ky., said he will go to acting school in Los Angeles.

Christopher Cousins, a 22-year-old U.S. Marine who underwent six eye surgeries after being injured in a blast in Iraq in 2005, said he plans to move to Sacramento, enroll in a community college and study sociology to “help out the other guys.”

“We turn over a new leaf,” he said after the veterans and the guests attended a lunch sponsored by Napa's Rotary clubs at Mont La Salle following the graduation ceremony.

Karen Asay, a marriage and family therapy intern with the program, said the veterans work hard at getting better.

U.S. Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jason Deitschman, a military liaison who oversees the care given to active duty personnel, said the Pathway Home is the top program of its kind available to veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Thousands more need help for their post-traumatic stress disorder, the veterans said.

After he received his certificate, Matthew Eyre, a U.S. Army captain who readily admits he still has a long way to go before he fully recovers from his war experience in Iraq, urged people to lobby their representatives for more funding for veterans.

The first veterans arrived at the Pathway Home in January 2008. The Pathway Home was created with a $5.6 million, three-year private grant. The residential program, open to 35 veterans, cost about $2.8 million a year to run, according to the Pathway Home. Each veteran resides on average three to four months in Yountville.