Schools

War Veteran, Katrina Survivor Helps Others

As a war veteran and a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, the KSU student suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I’m a very complicated person these days. I never wanted to be a complicated person," says John Breckenridge, a cool Louisiana accent sliding off the tongue.

Breckenridge, 40, is a former member of the U.S. Navy. He currently works as transitions coordinator at where he counsels fellow veterans looking to pursue college educations.

In addition to a number of physical ailments, Breckenridge suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

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As both a war veteran and a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, he represents two groups at a significantly increased risk of developing PTSD.

"Our culture, our way of life, our people—it was the closest thing to a mass extinction that you can think of. And we’ll never be the same."

Boy from the Bayou

There's nothing like the smell of the bayou water, says Breckenridge.

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The single father lives in Woodstock with his 17-year-old daughter but originally hails from St. Bernard Parish, LA—"a close-knit fishing community with a couple of oil refineries and a gas plant."

Breckenridge grew up fishing and duck-hunting on the bayou—"Every now and then, you’d go with one of your buddies and go drag the net and catch some shrimp."

"You could turn to anyone in the community and get the same help and support of someone you would who was blood descent," he says of his hometown.

"We have this rich culture, all these people that want to help each other, that want to work together," says Breckenridge. He describes the annual Italian-Irish Parade and the influence of the Isleños—Spanish Cajuns who migrated from the Canary Islands in the 1700s.

"We have our own language," he says. "Who dat, true dat, where you at—that’s the way we’ve been talking forever."

Upon completing high school, Breckenridge says, "I was mature enough to understand I couldn’t leech off my parents. I also realized I wasn’t ready to go to college. I didn’t have the discipline, and I wasn’t college material education-wise. I was a C/D student. And I had to do something."

Military Service and Katrina

On June 13, 1991, Breckenridge enlisted in the Navy on advice from his uncle that it offered the best electronics school in the Armed Forces.

"The Navy taught me to be that person I needed to be," he says. "I wound up in the submarine fleet, which winded up being the greatest thing since sliced bread."

Breckenridge says he started off as an Electronics Technician 3rd Class. By the time he ended his service some 15 years later, he was a Master-at-Arms 1st Class (Submarines), essentially a military police officer.

During the course of his military career, Breckenridge would have three children, serve on a special boat unit, defeat testicular cancer, work as a sheriff's deputy and a motorcycle cop—and lose nearly everything to Hurricane Katrina.

On the subject of Katrina, Breckenridge sinks into his seat, his hands planted firmly on his knees. His eyes water, unblinking, and the corners of his mouth part—but the words escape him.

"Our whole parish was under at least 12 foot of water for weeks," he says, finally breaking the silence.

"The houses were completely destroyed. Most of the neighborhod had been torn down. The house I grew up in, my parents' house, was demolished. The church I grew up in was demolished. All of my friends’ houses, people that I knew, everything was.

"It set St. Bernard Parish back 50 years. It was a dangerous place to live because of the toxins in the air. My parents couldn’t go back because an hour in St. Bernard Parish made them sick, physically."

"A few people didn’t lose a few things," he says. "Everybody lost everything.

"Our culture, our way of life, our people—it was the closest thing to a mass extinction that you can think of. And we’ll never be the same."

Scars Beneath the Surface

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit, Breckenridge was deployed to Africa. Based out of Bahrain, he says he worked on a 12-man team, setting up security and protecting against terrorism along the coast of Africa.

Breckenridge says he found it increasingly difficult to function and get along with others. He was angry all the time, he says.

"It was a combination of Katrina, and then, my immediate deployment overseas. It just, it all just set my brain off. It just didn’t set right," he says.

Breckenridge says he was sent home early after being diagnosed with severe depression and PTSD, among a laundry list of physical problems—a bad knee, a herniated disc, degenerative arthritis, and physical remnants from his bout with cancer.

A 2007 study found that New Orleans residents were 10 times likelier to suffer from PTSD than the general population in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Post-9/11 veterans also face an increased risk. In an October 2011 study, 37 percent of post-9/11 veterans reported suffering from post-traumatic stress. Fifty-eight percent said they know someone who suffers from it.

“PTSD is like a switch that is turned on that can’t be turned off. You’ve heard of the fight or flight syndrome? It’s like that fight syndrome, that switch, is always on," says Breckenridge.

"I don’t like to go out in public like I used to. I don’t like being a social butterfly like I used to be. I don’t sleep well. When I do sleep, I have bad dreams," he says.

Breckenridge sometimes loses his train of thought as he speaks. His face visibly strains, and the lines of his forehead deepen as he tries to remember what he was saying. He says he suffers from memory loss and word association problems—symptoms of his PTSD.

"I consider myself lucky." He says many veterans are far worse off.

Breckenridge says military scars, both physical and mental, often go unseen.

"I know service members who have been hit by IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and have shards of metal in their bodies and a plate in their head," he says.

Breckrenridge says a lot of the scarring occurs underneath the clothing. One veteran he knows got a tattoo on his arm to "literally blackout the scarring," he says.

"Because they’re proud, they don’t go around whining about it. And that’s the problem. You don’t see, so you assume that there’s nothing wrong with them," he says.

He recounts how one friend was yelled at by an elderly woman in a parking lot for taking up a disabled parking space. Breckenridge says his friend finally reached his breaking point, removed his prosthetic arm and asked, "Is this disabled enough for you?"

"The lady nearly had a heart attack," he says.

Veterans Resource Center

After his service in Africa, Breckenridge ended up working in Marietta until "the economy tanked."

In 2008, he enrolled part-time at Kennesaw State University under the vocational rehabilitation program for injured veterans. He's currently a full-time student and a senior studying political science. He provides other veterans with career, benefits and educational guidance through his work at the university's Veterans Resource Center.

On a more personal level,  Breckenridge says the center not only allows him to help other veterans, but it provides him with a sense of community—something he misses being so far away from many of his friends and family, now scattered across the country due to Katrina.

He says a deep sense of camaraderie exists among the student veterans at KSU: "I mean, we get really close. We really go out of our way to understand that there is not another group of people that’s going to understand you, for the good and the bad, other than someone that’s family.

"I would not be where I’m at if it wasn’t for them," says Breckenridge. "The personal trials and tribulations in my life—I would not be standing if it wasn’t for the support of the Veterans Resource Center."

This semester has been tough, but Breckenridge says he hopes to complete his degree and continue to work with the veteran community.

When he's not studying or working at the center, he says he just enjoys being a dad—his number one priority.

"My family is what I want now. My interest now is my family. And trying to ride my motorcycle whenever I can."

Eventually, he hopes to go down to Key West and be a bartender—an uncomplicated dream for a life complicated by so many things.

This article is part of "Dispatches: The Changing American Dream," our ongoing series about how people in Kennesaw are adapting to the challenges of life in the 21st century. You can find more Dispatches from across the country at The Huffington Post.

This article is the first of a series of profiles we'll be doing on student veterans at KSU in an effort to learn more about the university's veteran community—one story at a time. about the university's Veterans Resource Center.


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