I have a family of 4, myself, my husband and our 2 boys (13 & 7). My husband was in the military for almost 14yrs. We made it through two 6mo cruises and one 7and 1/2 month cruise. During the last one, from Sept 2008-April 2009, my husband began to suffer from severe depression. He was treated on the ship by a doctor, but not given any medication. when the ship returned home, he was unable to get any treatment at all. He repeatedly asked for help and was still unable to get anything. In desperation, and not in a rational state of mind, he did an illegal drug and then asked to be drug tested so that he could get help when he failed his test, not thinking about the long term consequences of his actions. He did fail his test and subsequently was told he was going to be processed out of the Navy. He still did not receive help for his depression. He suffered a major breakdown and I had to take him to the emergency room and have him admitted to the psych ward at the naval hospital because he was suicidal. He stayed in the hospital for a month, he did get medication and therapy while there, but because he told them that he had a drink occasionally they said his depression was brought on by alcoholism and then refered him to a mandatory 30 day detox program. Meanwhile, the Navy continued processing him out and they punished him further by taking away some of his rank and 2 months of pay, also they restricted him to the ship for 45 days. My children and I did what we could to maintain, of course they did not understand what was happening. After my husband got off of restriction, he was put out of the navy with an "other than honorable discharge" in Aug 2009, which means he cannot get a well paying job. We lost our home and had to move into my parents house. After a few weeks, we were unable to stay with them any longer. He was able to get a job working at Farm Fresh and we are both in school. We were able to survive for a few months off of our tax return and the refund from our financial aid, and we were expecting to be able to recieve the 9-11 GI Bill, but the Navy lumped his whole 14yrs in the Navy under the same discharge status and he was denied the GI Bill. If you know anything about the military, you know that that is impossible. Every time you reenlist you have to be discharged with an Honorable discharge. My husband has 2 of them in his record. We have obtained copies of those and have sent them to the VA with a request to appeal the GI BIll denial. Hopefully they will approve and with that we would receive an additional $1500.00/mo for housing expenses while he is in school. However, at this point, we cannot pay rent, power or phone bills. (any bills for that matter) I have already applied to social services and they give us food stamps, medicaid for my kids and they did give us $300.00 in power assistance, which has been used up already. My husband is only making about $300.00/week which gets used up on gas, toilet paper and other essentials. I am able to save very little towards rent. I am desperate, I have researched every opportunity available, we have sold our blood, taken loans on our only car and still there is not enough to pay our $1200.00/mo rent. Please help us in any way you can. My children have already had to lose their home, their pets and leave their friends. We cannot lose our home again, this time, we will have no where to go.
If there is anyone out there who can help us, I would be eternally greatful! It has not been an easy road and I do not take this request lightly, I have had to swallow my pride but I would not ask if there was any other way.
