How do you prevent military servicemembers, veterans and emergency first responders – many of whom have witnessed things that most people will never see – from harming themselves?
It’s not an easy question to answer, but Ken Kiernan and his fledgling Bootprints nonprofit organization think they have the answer.
The objective of Bootprints is simple – to provide responders and their families with a peer support group, said Kiernan, who is a military veteran and a former emergency medical technician.
Bootprints started as an idea, then a vision and finally a mission, said Kiernan, a Lawrence Township resident. The mission is to get ahead of the emotional distress that many of them experience – from military service members and veterans to police officers, emergency medical technicians and firefighters.
Post traumatic stress disorder – or PTSD – is often what happens to servicemembers, veterans, police officers, emergency medical technicians and firefighters who have experienced traumatic or stressful events, Kiernan said. Untreated, it can lead to substance abuse or suicide.
Nationwide, an average of one to three first responders commit suicide every day, while about 22 military veterans choose to end their lives daily. The cause is PTSD, he said.
“I want to see a reduction in suicides. When you join the military, you have a higher purpose. You come home (from the battlefield) and you are forgotten. Especially with PTSD, you want to feel hope again,” he said.
“If you look at every other veteran nonprofit or whatever, they deal with physical pains. The first thing they say is, ‘If you need help, call the government.’ You call this 800 number, ‘press # 88 for help.’ That’s great for one time, but this needs to happen all the time,” he said.
PTSD is not the same for everyone, Kiernan said. There is a different type of PTSD experienced by those in the military and the PTSD that is experienced by first responders.
‘The difference is that the military servicemember will go to war, be affected by that and come home. You see your best friend get blown up or lose a leg next to you. Bottle it up,” Kiernan said.
“First responders go on a call for an incident, come back and get another call. It’s cumulative. You see three people killed unnecessarily by a drunk driver. That stays with you. As EMTs, we used to joke that you can go to a car accident and then have lunch,” he said.
While servicemembers, veterans and first responders see the carnage and its effects up close, they are not the only ones affected by PTSD. It is their families, too, that carry the weight of PTSD – even if silently.
So how does Bootprints help them cope with – and overcome – PTSD?
Through monthly meetings, in which the men sit around a figurative campfire, tell stories and talk about their experiences. Their families are invited to the monthly meetings, too.
“Most military and first responders won’t talk to even their spouses about the stress, but they will talk to each other. The idea and the mission is to get people together to talk to each other,” Kiernan said.
“It’s the camaraderie they can build with each other. Just like they did during the event – the accident or whatever. If they talk to each other, they will start opening up,” he said.
Another feature of Bootprints is the quarterly workshops, in which Kiernan brings in a professional to sit down and work with the veterans and first responders. Families are invited to the workshops, which last about four to six hours.
“If you get the families there, they might hear for the first time and start to understand. As long as their friends are there, (the veterans and first responders) will talk with the family around,” he said.
“We can’t heal on our own. Your family has to heal around you, as well,” Kiernan said.
Asked why he became interested in helping servicemembers, veterans and first responders to deal with PTSD, Kiernan said it grew out of his own military service and his work as an EMT.
He said he still remembers one of the first calls that he went on as an EMT, which was to help a young woman who had suffered a seizure.
“The police officers were doing CPR. This beautiful girl – they couldn’t save her. That was 37 years ago. Things like that, you don’t forget,” he said.
Kiernan, who grew up in Princeton Junction and Levittown, Pa., said he joined the U.S. Army Reserve after graduating from high school. He spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve before transferring to the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
He served in the 469th Engineer Battalion in the U.S. Army Reserve and as a flight medic with the 72nd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.
Kiernan’s U.S. Air Force Reserve unit picked up injured servicemembers from Europe and brought them back to the U.S. for treatment. He observed how their military experiences affected them – and not always in a positive way.
“They don’t see the hope,” Kiernan said of those who survived the battlefield, but came home and committed suicide – many times because of the effects of PTSD.
“I want to give back. (Forming Bootprints) is a better goal for me. Not enough people are giving back to the military. Just doing it once a year by saying ‘Thank you’ and confusing when Veterans Day and Memorial Day is every year, is not enough,” he said.
Only about 1% of the eligible population signs up for military service, Kiernan said. The other 99% don’t even understand what the military servicemembers go through every day.
“We need to do it,” Kiernan said of Bootprints. “I need to call attention to PTSD. If not, it’s only going to get worse. Help is where you look for it. Nobody is coming to save you.”
“You know, there’s wounds, scabs and scars. You’re not going to be willing to talk while it’s still a wound, and a scab might be too early, too,” he said.
“But when it’s a scar, you’re ready to talk. It doesn’t make you vulnerable. It makes you accessible. It makes you human.”
