From WPLN:
Veterans Courts Work To Fix Ex-Soldiers' Lives — Often Decades After They Leave Military
Kris Hansen sits alone in a corner of the courtroom, eating a piece of the cake baked in his honor.
Nashville's Veterans Court is throwing a graduation ceremony for Hansen and the three other men who've just completed its rehab program.
He's dressed up: A black shirt left open at the neck reveals an oversized silver cross.
There have been flags and speeches lauding the veterans' bravery. The judge gave them a certificate signed by the mayor.
But Hansen's at a loss to explain the fuss.
"To tell you the truth, I don't know why I'm being honored. I don't feel like I did anything that great."
Hansen landed in Veterans Court after trying to steal sixteen hundred dollars worth of groceries — five shopping carts full. He got four carts past the registers. Store security stopped him when he went back for the fifth.
"I was having a manic episode."
Across the country, judges and law enforcement are wrestling with how to help battle-scarred veterans adjust back to civilian life after Iraq and Afghanistan. One solution: special Veterans Courts that work specifically with ex-troops.
But the problems these courts deal with often go far beyond post-traumatic stress disorder, IEDs or the Global War on Terrorism.
Many of the vets are older. And their problems run even deeper.
After his arrest in April 2014, Hansen spent 17 days in jail, then was released to the Veterans Court.
For a year, he's met with case workers and a therapist, and he's submitted to alcohol and drugs tests — though he insists his problems have nothing to do with sobriety.
Instead, Hansen struggles with schizophrenia. The disease emerged during his first week in basic training, some 46 years ago.
He never even made it to the fighting in Vietnam.
"I enlisted for four years. I was going to change my life, and it didn't work out. I still feel bad about that after all these years. I tried, though. Maybe that's why I get the benefits that I got."
Hansen's case is not unusual for Nashville's Veterans Court. Though the focus of nationwide has been on troops just back from combat, in reality most courts take on veterans of any age, often without regard to whether they've ever seen the battlefield. In Nashville, veterans don't even have to have received an honorable discharge.
The court is part of a broader trend — sending nonviolent offenders to treatment rather than ail. Tennessee Mental Health Commissioner Doug Varney says they work much like the state's other special courts for drug offenders or people with mental illnesses, but with extra services available only to veterans.
"I believe that we need to give everyone a second chance," Varney says. "Particularly veterans, but everyone a second chance."
Tennessee is making a push to expand the number of Veterans Courts. They've already been established in Clarksville, Nashville and Memphis, and two others could open this year.
The U.S. Department of Justice is also encouraging their growth, through grants and special training for court officers. Since 2008, about 150 Veterans Courts have been set up nationwide. Like Nashville's court, many are just as often working with older veterans, men and women from previous eras who have slipped through the cracks.
Nashville Judge Melissa Blackburn says the ages of the veterans she sees surprised even her, at first. Some are in their late teens and early 20s, but the average age is 51. The oldest is 81. And tours of duty in Vietnam are as common as deployments to the Middle East.
Many have been unraveling for years — bad marriages, mental illness, drugs and alcohol. Most are running out of places to go.
"It's a very holistic approach for these veterans," says Blackburn. "If it's a bed for a night, we never let that veteran leave that court without a bed."
One advantage Veterans Courts have is more resources — VA hospitals, veteran outreach programs, drug treatment facilities that give priority to vets. Blackburn says her court works with 40 different organizations.
Seth Reynolds has just come out of a detox and rehab center in rural Tennessee. At 38, Reynolds is a generation younger than Kris Hansen. But like the Vietnam-era vet, Reynolds' stint in the military was short — just four months in the Army.
The problems that led him to Veterans Court began long before his military service.
"I think it was there before," he says. "In fact, I know that it was there before."
After the military, Reynolds started using heroin and went through two marriages. A domestic dispute led to his arrest. He was assigned first to drug court, then to mental health court. Neither worked, so he was transferred to Veterans Court.
"Within a week, I had help," he says. "They … kind of tailored what I needed."
Court officers are now working to help Reynolds get his driver's license back. It was suspended for nonpayment of child support, a debt that has grown to $30,000.
Without being allowed to drive, Reynolds can't land a full-time job. Yet he has hope.
"Since then, my life's pulled back together," he says. "Slowly. I've got a place now. I get to see my son. And things are moving along, but they're moving along in a positive way. And I'm sober. So that's what's important."
It has taken Reynolds four years to reach this point. Family and friends joined him at the graduation ceremony.
Meanwhile, Kris Hansen sat alone on a courtroom pew, contemplating what he'd accomplished. He confided yet another problem in his life, one he's tried to hide from Judge Blackburn, his therapist and case workers.
He's been gambling.
"And my latest stint has been with scratchers — lottery tickets," he says. And I went overboard on them and put myself in a bind. And I had to pawn some things and get a payday loan."
It's the sort of problem that could land Hansen in Veterans Court once more.
