Iraq

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Legion offers assistance to families, veterans coping with PTSD

Jason Mullis waited patiently for the funeral to end. People paid their respects at a coffin draped with the Canadian flag and with flowers all around the gravesite.

“I knew something was different,” he said, “so I stood there for … hours waiting for everyone to leave.”

That’s when he finally spoke to Denise, the mother of the deceased veteran being buried. Mullis simply wanted to offer his assistance to her. He recognized the difficulties she might have faced as the mother of a former soldier who died by suicide.




Veteran recalls service during surge in Iraq

Fidelis Oketch was on just his seventh mission in Iraq when his war ended. “The scariest (part) was knowing friends who died,” he said, “getting blown up by IEDs each day and taking fire fights.” Though he had always wanted to be a military pilot, Oketch got his first chance to serve in the military after 9/11 when President George W. Bush declared war on Iraq and U.S. troops were sent out almost immediately.