For Veterans in Wurzweiler’s Social Work With the Military Certificate Program, a Personal Mission to Help Comrades When Emanuel Alvarez decided to study social work practice with the military at Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work, it wasn’t just because he wanted to give back—it was because he knew firsthand how badly mental health outreach to the veteran community is needed. https://youtu.be/6B11vZx8-bI The son of poor Ecuadorian immigrants, Alvarez had enlisted in the Navy as a teenager because he saw it as the only path to college and a better life for himself and his family. He’d admired friends who joined for similar reasons and seemed to come back “changed for the better.” And in many ways he was proud of the deep impact his own service had left on him, honing his sense of integrity and responsibility and preparing him to be calm in the face of any crisis.

Emanuel Alvarez during his Navy service.

Yet toward the end of an almost seven-year career as a machinist second-class on two submarines, constant isolation from normal civilian life began to take its toll on Alvarez. “I’d be in port for a day, out to sea for a month,” he said. “I stopped talking to my family even when I was home because it felt like there was no point talking to them then when I wouldn’t be able to speak to them again for so long when I was at sea. It was miserable for romantic relationships. I had good shipmates and some great superiors, but I wasn’t happy.” But these weren’t the kinds of thoughts he could share with those shipmates or superiors, so Alvarez began to manage his growing unhappiness through alcohol. “Veterans go through a lot, and while we don’t necessarily talk about it there’s this idea that drinking is great and drinking together is how you bond,” he said. “The government has realized that this has become part of military culture and it’s started making efforts to change that and to tone it down, but in my career, it became a coping mechanism.” Alvarez started eating less and drinking more. His work never suffered, but he was never entirely sober in port, either. He sensed himself entering a dangerous spiral, but it wasn’t until a superior sat down and had a frank conversation with him that he realized he needed—and could ask for—help. “I self-referred myself for treatment at an outpatient facility,” Alvarez said. It was the first time he had any kind of contact with a social worker since childhood, when they had seemed like distant authority figures to him, and he was amazed by how much the experience changed him. “I realized that this man had helped me and that I had the potential to help others based on my encounters and the experiences I had gone through.” After completing his service with the Navy, Alvarez knew he wanted to pursue a career in social work. When a mentor at his undergraduate institution mentioned Wurzweiler to him, he became fascinated with its Social Work Practice with the Military Certificate Program, led by Dr. Joan Beder. The program includes coursework geared specifically toward helping students understand the range of mindsets and experiences veterans needing treatment may bring to the table and seeks to provide future social workers with the tools to help ease their transition back to civilian life. “While working with the military taps many basic social work skills, there are some areas of social work intervention and understanding that are discussed only in our military program,” said Beder, professor of social work at Wurzweiler. “The experience of serving in the military, with military cultural nuances and complex circumstances of service, requires special training and content that are unique to the military class in order to be understood. Due to a number of factors—stigma, the warrior culture of the military and limitations of Veterans Administration care—the mental health needs of our military are often underserved.” These were factors that Alvarez understood all too well. “The Certificate Program was really exciting to me because veterans don’t talk to other people about the trauma they go through,” he said. “In the military, we aren’t taught self-care. We’re taught to serve God, our country, our family, then finally ourselves—we’re always last on that list. We go to doctors when they ask us to show up. I intern at the VA in Manhattan now and some of my clients have this perspective that I’m an authority they report to.”

Alvarez and his crew on their submarine.

Yet even coming into the program with a military background, Alvarez was surprised by how much more there was to learn. “What I’ve encountered in the classes I’ve taken is that there’s a lot more going on than Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he said. “It’s about family dynamics and histories of other trauma that re-emerge. They’re coming to see us for problems with their family, anger management, insecurity and anxiety and fear that they don’t know how to process just yet. These men and women have been through hell and they're looking for guidance about their questions and concerns.” For Darwin Cruz, a former specialist in the National Guard who has been working as a substance abuse counselor for almost 20 years, it was the thought of those soldiers starting to come back from the United States’ recent engagements in the Middle East that prompted him to join the program at Wurzweiler. “When I think of how many people came back from Vietnam and years later are still dealing with the trauma, you can’t imagine how many young men and women have been deployed in the last 10 years and are going to need to return to civilian life—this is just the beginning,” he said. “Ten years from now, 15 years from now—these kids are still young today, but as they transition back to society, how much support is out there for them? Or will they fall through the cracks, like veterans have in so many other wars before this?” Cruz enlisted and was trained in the early 1990s, during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm. He hopes that his experience in the military and in the civilian world, combined with the insight of Wurzweiler's Social Work Practice with the Military Certificate Program, will enable him to better care for other veterans. “Wurzweiler is doing a service for students as well as the community, because there’s no way in the world the VA is going to be able to keep up with the veterans who need services,” he said. “All these social workers who are training now are going to have to know how to work with these kinds of clients, and this program helps them get a better insight and understanding about the military, the culture and everything that veterans experience.” But the program also emphasizes meeting the veteran population where they are—and recognizing that while veterans face unique struggles, they possess unique strengths, as well. “Not every veteran is the same, and not every veteran comes back with an issue,” said Alvarez. “It’s about being aware of what risks and protective barriers veterans have, but also recognizing the support networks that may be open to them, knowing the difference in mindset between a Vietnam veteran and an Operation Enduring Freedom veteran and being able to tailor your treatment and engagement accordingly.” “It’s hugely important to reach out to veterans, to invite them to be a part of the community and welcome them back,” said Alvarez. “Even just as a thank you. If the mental health community can start doing more outreach, it will open the doors to a lot of veterans who don’t even know where to look for help.”