Warrior Healing Campaign Aims to Support Vets and Their Families

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Bingham and Kristen Jamison
Bingham and Kristen Jamison

Bingham Jamison of White Hall told his story of recovery from the war in Iraq at The Lodge at Old Trail May 21 as part of The Lodge’s regular Third Thursday speaker series. It was the first time he had spoken publicly about his experience, which led him to co-found the Warrior Healing Campaign, a philanthropic effort to aid vets and their families as soldiers recover from the traumas of war. Today the WHC raises money for the Richmond Fisher House, a place where 21 families can reside at no cost while their family members get treatment at Richmond’s McGuire Veterans Administration Hospital.

“I went from being a frat boy at U.Va. to the crucible of the Marine Corps and Iraq—and I came home to my second war,” said Jamison, who was in U.Va.’s Class of 2002, the first to graduate after 9/11.

He was in the Commerce School. “I was being trained to be a millionaire and go to Wall Street. I had desire to change myself. I always thought the Marine Corps was special. I wanted to test myself.

“When I saw the plane go into the World Trade Center I knew my life had changed. I had an opportunity to serve a cause greater than myself. To quote Roosevelt, I wanted to be a warrior in the arena.”

So he joined the Marines and went to Officer Candidate School. He finished training at the beginning of the Iraq War.

He became a counter-intelligence officer in Anbar province whose task was to discover information from local sources. At age 24 he was in charge of all interrogations in western Iraq. “It makes a big impact on the battlefield,” said Jamison. “I had enormous responsibility. Basic training teaches you to lead Marines. I was naïve and headstrong. The thought that I could die had not entered my mind. But war is random, violent and confusing.”

He described his involvement in The Awakening in Anbar and the capture of an associate of the infamous terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. There were successes and failures. He recalled the battle of Fallujah as the worst experienced by the Marines since Khe Sanh in Viet Nam. “Not all the stories are that great,” Jamison said.

“When I came home, I was changed. Part of me died in Iraq. Thanks to my wife Kristen and the VA, I recovered.”

One night he choked his wife in his sleep. “That was the canary in the coal mine for me,” he said. Of course she was seriously scared.

“War showed me people aren’t necessarily good,” Jamison said. It changed his assumptions.

“PTSD, [post-traumatic stress disorder] is a natural response to extraordinary circumstances,” he explained. “In PTSD the flight-or-fight mechanism never turns off. When you’re under stress for so long, you become hyper-vigilant. I found a way to get better. PTSD is not a new concept. It’s been around as long as war.”

He credited his wife with his recovery. “It wasn’t until I admitted what was going on that I started to get better.” He went through cognitive processing therapy at the VA. It involves writing down detailed things about your worst days over and over again.

Eventually Jamison wrote a story for Time Magazine about what he had been through. “It came out easy, but it was hard to press send.” He was subsequently published also in Forbes, The Daily Beast, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Daily Progress.

He reads extensively in the memoirs of Iraq War vets and sufferers from PTSD. “I’m honored to be here,” he said. “Veterans are not victims.”

He keeps in touch with his Marine friends. “We have an untouchable bond.” He said it as if he didn’t expect the audience to get it.

He joined two other Marine vets in Charlottesville last year to form the Warrior Healing Campaign. Jamison, whose day job now is as a financial advisor, serves as chairman. “It connects vets with resources in central Virginia and it facilitates an honorable transition for vets,” he explained. “Families are so important to the healing of vets.” So far the fund has raised $130,000 for Richmond Fisher House, which has a top rating for efficiency as a charity, Jamison assured his listeners.

“We wanted a local organization so we could build our community.”

He said the Marine Corps is now doing more “resiliency” training to help soldiers learn how to calm down. Seventy-five percent of his interaction with the VA was positive and 25 percent was terrible, he said. “I had the intensity to get what I needed, even talking to my congressman. I went through a very dark period. Some people come home to divorce and don’t get the help I have.”

The experience has also changed Kristen’s outlook. A Ph.D. psychologist and the founder of The Loop Center in Charlottesville, which specializes in treating children’s social and emotional development issues, she now understands some cases better as the effect of traumas.

You can donate to the cause at www.warriorhealingcampaign.org.

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