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Local veterans fraternity seeking to aid recovery from PTSD

Mirror photo by Gary M. Baranec/Mirror photo illustration by Lindsey Shinn Rob Williams (left) of Altoona leads a weekly meeting of Penn State Altoona students who belong to a campus fraternity for veterans.

The perception of a military veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder diving under a table after a benign noise isn’t all accurate.

“For me it’s a lot of simple things,” John Dibert of Claysburg said. “I’m weird about garbage on the road. That’s how they hide bombs.”

An infantryman having served two Army deployments in Iraq and Kosovo, Dibert was released from the Army after being injured by a roadside bomb.

Dibert is a new member of Penn State Altoona’s co-ed Omega Delta Sigma National Veterans Fraternity, which is planning a program at 8 p.m. Thursday at the Slep Student Center featuring speakers about PTSD.

“There is definitely a lot of it in the community, and it’s just not talked about. I want to break the stigma,” fraternity Vice President Ashley Smith said.

The program will provide causes of PTSD, affects and treatments.

“The program is for more than just veterans. It’s for rape victims, seeing a shooting, many people suffer from PTSD,” she said.

Based on last year’s event, she hopes for about 350 people to attend.

The program is one of numerous projects the fraternity organizes for the community and veterans in particular.

The fraternity was started at Penn State Altoona — the Beta Chapter of the fraternity — in the fall of 2013.

Membership has grown from a few core members in 2013 to 20 members this year, Smith said.

There’s a stark contrast from military life to civilian life, but the constant that veterans returning to school find at Penn State Altoona is fraternity.

Tyler Smith, Ashley Smith’s husband, has been in Omega Delta Sigma for two years.

“Mostly for me it’s a camaraderie thing,” he said. “When you get out it’s the biggest thing missing. This (fraternity) fills that void.”

Within a month of returning from his second tour of Afghanistan, he began to suffer from PTSD.

Smith served two Army infantry tours in Afghanistan. He was a team leader. He drove trucks, led fire teams up mountains and performed many other duties.

For him, the adrenaline elicited from events proved to be more traumatic than the events themselves.

“It’s fast-paced in the Army,” he said. “When you get back, you finally have time to ponder. I’ve seen a lot of (messed) up things, but it’s more the adrenaline than anything. Now nothing is exciting, nothing is fun. It’s depression.”

He said Thursday’s program will present an opportunity for people to begin healing from PTSD.

“People hate to be labeled by PTSD because it’s a frightening disorder,” Smith said. “(At) this event people will be encouraged to speak openly about it. You are not going to get better unless you take the steps to solve the problem.”

Dibert, a Penn State Altoona student and a new member of Omega Sigma Delta, is a trained peer support specialist.

He expects the scheduled event to help bust myths about PTSD and raise awareness of subconscious triggers.

“I don’t want people to sit and accept that they are labeled with something,” he said.

Mirror Staff Writer Russ O’Reilly is at 946-7435.

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