VA helped vet change life Man has fought post-traumatic stress disorder for decades

VA helped vet change life Man has fought post-traumatic stress disorder for decades

BUNKER HILL - Once homeless, a Vietnam veteran now proudly flies the American and U.S. Marine Corps flags outside his one-story, red-brick home along Winchester Avenue in southern Berkeley County.

Al Tippett had the pair of flags first hoisted on Nov. 10, 2007, the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps.

"It's in honor of all veterans," said the 60-year-old Bunker Hill man as he sat in the living room of the place he's called home for the past two-and-a-half years. It's there that he enjoys the unconditional love of his 2 1/2 year old white, female cat named Baby. He said they're both survivors, pointing out that Baby was the only survivor of a litter of kittens.

"This is the first time I have ever had a house," he explained. "I have always lived in an apartment."

Tippett said he had no problem getting his landlord to allow the flag display - the landlord and his son are both veterans.

Honoring other veterans is Tippett's way of giving back to those who have helped him along the way.

He credits his treatments at the Martinsburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center with helping him turn his life around. For the past four decades, the former Marine infantryman has battled with post-traumatic stress disorder. Never married, nor a father, Tippett said for the longest time just trying to care for himself was a big enough challenge and he couldn't see himself sharing that burden.

"I went into the PTSD program at the VA in Martinsburg, and they helped change my life around," he said. "I learned how to deal with PTSD from the VA. I'm not trying to make them look good, but they saved my life."

"It's been 40 years and I still have nightmares," Tippett said of one of the symptoms of PTSD. "It's something that never goes away."

But he said the VA has helped him learn coping skills which have literally kept him alive.

"I can't stress enough that the VA saved my life," Tippett said. "They turned it around."

After serving seven-and-a-half months in Vietnam while assigned to the 1st Marine Division, where he was wounded twice, Tippett was honorably discharged from the U.S. Marine Corps.

However, the effects of serving in a combat zone were already deeply ingrained.

In January 1969, he was blown off a tank by enemy artillery while serving in Quang Tri in the Demilitarized Zone and received powder burns and a concussion. In August 1970, while helping to evacuate the wounded in Da Nang aboard a Chinook he took enemy shrapnel into his back, which ultimately led to his own evacuation.

"I fell right into a firefight," he said, recalling that he plummeted about 80 feet from the helicopter into a muddy rice paddy.

"Everytime I see one I have cold chills," he said of a Chinook helicopter. "I don't even like to hear the sound of a helicopter."

The shrapnel that he took in his back damaged the nerves in both legs. Although initially rated at 30 percent disabled, it took Tippett 10 years to navigate through the government's mounds of red tape before he was declared 100 percent disabled.

But when he first was discharged back into civilian life in the early 1970s, the Annapolis, Md., native didn't feel as though he fit in anywhere. It was then that he started to abuse marijuana and alcohol and his life began to spiral downward. Tippett said along with the substance abuse, he couldn't hold a job and moved around without setting down roots, spending more than two years homeless in Baltimore before moving to Martinsburg in 1996.

Ironically, Tippett remembers being shipped off to Vietnam on July 4, 1968. He recalled that Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July" depicted the VA hospital system in a bad light. Something that couldn't be farther from the truth in Tippett's case. He said he sought treatment for his PTSD from the VA in New Jersey and combatted his drug and alcohol addiction through a program offered at the medical center in Lebanon, Pa.

"For a while my life was pure hell," he said.

From finding it hard to focus on things to self-isolation, Tippett said PTSD was a silent enemy that he has learned how to cope with over the years.

Seeking help is the first step, he noted.

"For veterans that need help, they can get it," Tippett said. "You have to take the wall down a brick at a time. It's never too late to get help."

He said the VA taught him skills which he tries to pass on to others.

"We learn to pick up the pieces and start over again," he said. "You pick up the pieces and go on."

And not only is Tippett a survivor, but a decorated one, too.

During his service as a Marine, he earned the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, two Navy Commendation Medals with the valor device, the National Defense Ribbon, Vietnam Campaign Ribbon, U.S. Marine Corps Civil Defense Ribbon and two Vietnam combat medals.

After undergoing four major surgeries on his left leg for two knee replacements within the past four years, Tippett isn't as mobile as he used to be, but he still enjoys tinkering around his home and tending his garden. At one time he served as a member of the honor guard with the Veterans of Foreign Wars' Martinsburg post and was chaplain there.

Spending time with his beloved cat and taking each day as it comes is also a source of strength.

"For the rest of my life I want to live in the peace that I have found," Tippett said. "I know where I have been and where I am going."

Sphere: Related Content