Healing Suicidal Veterans

Recognizing, Supporting and Answering Their Pleas for Help

by Victor Montgomery II, MAEd., CMAC, RAS

The numbers are staggering. Today there are 24.5 millions and rising military veterans in the United States – seventeen of them each day will take their own lives. Veterans are suffering a “mental breakdown” epidemic, often linked to post-traumatic stress from the terrors of combat, traumatic brain injury, drug and alcohol abuse, the increased pace of combat operations and the number of rapid deployments. Combined with the current economic crisis, these have led to increased domestic violence and depression among our military veterans.

Having worked with thousands of veterans, crisis intervention therapist and Vietnam veteran Victor Montgomery III takes a revealing look at the impact war has on the human mind and why so many veterans return home, having safely avoided death, only to take their own lives.

Healing Suicidal Veterans: Recognizing, Supporting and Answering Their Pleas for Help takes you firsthand into the “Situation Room” where Montgomery explores the psychological wounds of war and the reasons and ways each has contributed to the tragedy of suicidal veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including males and females in combat and the lack of crisis intervention. He presents the “Montgomery Model” for ending veterans’ suffering and anguish and putting them on paths to healing. Also included are stories from armed service veterans such as “Women in the Iraqi War Zones,” “Extreme Mental Hardship: Three Tours in Afghanistan” and “The Vets of Korea.”

Healing Suicidal Veterans provides proven tips and strategies, plus the names of organizations to turn to for any veteran struggling with depression, as well as for veterans’ families and loved ones. This is the first book that will help veterans learn to accept that they are not failures if they seek aid and that will show the families and loved ones of veterans ways to accept, understand, cope and take crucial steps to aid their veterans in need.

Victor Montgomery II, MAEd., CMAC, RAS, is a skilled expert in Crisis Intervention and Addition Therapy. A Vietnam Era veteran and a former Crisis Intervention Therapist for the National Veterans Suicide Crisis Hotline, he has worked with thousands of veterans and their families through crisis hotlines and outpatient clinics. He has a Master of Arts in Education degree from the University of Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona, Graduate Studies in Clinical Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology (Summa cum Laude) from Vanguard University of Southern California in Costa Mesa, California, and received specialized training for Veteran Suicide Crisis Rescues. Vic has counseled men and women in crisis for over twenty years. He presently works as an Addition Specialist and Primary Therapist for Finger Lakes Addictions Counseling and Referral Agency and resides with his family in upstate New York.

Visit the author's website at http://healingsuicidalveterans.com.

Depression/Current Events
5 ½ x 8 ¼, 224 pages
LC #2009922795, World rights
ISBN13: 978-088282-310-2 (pb), $14.95
October 2009 Release