Safe harbor
Combat psychologist Leslie Lightfoot will soon open the Northeast Veteran Training and Rehabilitation Center in Gardner to help vets wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is the fifth program you’ve started in New England as part of your nonprofit, Veteran Homestead. How did you begin working with veterans?
I was an Army medic from 1967 to 1970. When I got out, I used my VA benefits to go back to school and get degrees in counseling. Most of the people that came to me for counseling were veterans. It just kind of happened. I try to find where people are falling through the cracks and do something about it.
The center is believed to be the first private facility of its kind. What makes it different?
It’s the first place in the country that takes a veteran from the front gate of the military or directly from the hospital and puts them into a housing unit with their family. While the vets are getting their rehab, their families get counseling. The family piece is really important. You come back, and if you want to talk about what happened, your family may not want to hear it. Or you may not want to talk about it, and they’re trying to force you to. The vet and their spouse can also take classes at Mount Wachusett Community College and work toward a degree for free.
Why include education benefits?
A huge percentage of our troops are not high school graduates. They may only be trained to be infantry, and that’s pretty useless when you get out, especially now that jobs are hard to come by.
What are some of the other challenges?
Post-traumatic stress disorder has always been an issue -- from World War I to Korea to today. The name gets changed, but the quality of care hasn’t improved significantly. Then there’s traumatic brain injury. These blast injuries make it difficult for people to function normally in society.
What services will you provide that veterans can’t get elsewhere?
We want to give them some quality of life. Not just the education but the small things -- like teach them to fly-fish or golf -- the things everyone else takes for granted.
