Growing up, some people are sent to a military school. But for Tom Horvath, military school was a choice. From a young age, he knew he wanted to serve his country, and he enrolled at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Illinois, to explore this interest.
While there, he soon found out it was more than an interest; it was a calling.
“It felt like something I needed to do,” Tom said.
After graduating from Marmion in 2006, Tom joined the U.S. Army Infantry and was part of an airborne division that conducted parachute missions. He remembers basic training as being a culture shock.
“I joined just a couple of days after I turned 18,” he said. “I graduated in May and left for basic training in July. It was a weird transition. They tell you everything you need to do to the point where you don’t have to think anymore.”
At basic training in Georgia, the experiences Tom shared with his peers, like testing protective equipment in a gas chamber and gaining confidence climbing tall structures, bonded them as a team. After earning his crossed rifles, there was a lull before training ramped up again.
Because of his experience at Marmion, Tom was able to enter the Army as an E-3, as opposed to an E-1 or E-2.
“I progressed in rank more quickly than the average person,” he said. “This gave me almost immediate exposure to leadership positions.”
Tom went on to Fort Irwin National Training Center, where he thought he was preparing for deployment to Iraq. But soon, Tom was given a map of mountains and understood his orders had shifted from Iraq to Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan was a crazy experience,” Tom said. “At the time, we had a journalist embedded in our unit, and he wrote an article for Vanity Fair called ‘Into the Valley of Death.’ There was no running water or electricity. Some groups spoke different languages from others, making it difficult to communicate between neighboring places.”
Tom’s unit was stationed close to the Pakistan border, which, at the time, was traveled by members of the Taliban. His unit was tasked with keeping members out of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital city.
“There was a lot of fighting,” he said. “After I hit my deployment goal and completed four years, it was time to be done. We came back with a lot fewer people than we went with. Everybody who joins the service is willing to do that.”
Beginning young adulthood as a veteran
A few weeks after he returned home, Tom started college classes.
It wasn’t long before he realized how different military and civilian life can be. He needed to take a few days off to attend a friend’s wedding. Used to providing thorough details in the military, he shared his full plan with his professor but noticed the professor stopped listening midway through.
“You don’t need that level of detail outside of the military,” Tom said. “That’s when I realized that if I decided to stay in bed and do nothing, the world would go on, and no one would look for me. It’s completely different from the military. There, if you’re not in formation 15 minutes ahead of time, your phone would be blowing up.”
He also experienced shifts in his friendships with old high school friends.
“The connection was not the same anymore,” he said. “I felt like a fish out of water. It took time for this stuff to materialize and for me to realize it. I was doing things to fill these voids that leaving the military created.”
Tom began to suspect he had a problem with alcohol, especially moderating the amount he drank when he went out. He also noticed times his heart would race in class.
“When you think about it, it makes sense,” he said. “In the Army, we’d all be sitting around, hear shots and need to go from zero to 100 in a few seconds. The brain produced a ton of stress hormones. I wasn’t prepared for coming away from that. Without that accountability and camaraderie, it ended up being destructive.”
About a year after his military service, Tom sought help.
He tried a couple of counselors, but none were a good fit. Some seemed unprepared to discuss details of his combat. He had some success with counseling through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but sessions were too few and far between. Then, a family member recommended he try the Road Home Program.
“The first time I got in touch with Brian Klassen, PhD, clinical psychologist and Road Home’s director of strategic partnerships, he said he could meet later that same week or the next week,” Tom said. “Ultimately, that’s where things turned around. The frequency of care was a noticeable difference from day one. If something happened in my life, I knew I’d have a place to talk about it in a week and could get through it.”
Though Dr. Klassen is not a veteran, his military cultural competency helped Tom feel like he was talking to a fellow veteran, free from judgment. He asked questions others didn’t. And he offered therapy over the phone, making it more convenient for Tom to get the care he needed.
“He told me the brain remembers trauma like a disconnected jigsaw puzzle,” Tom said. “If you don’t link the pieces, your brain uses the time when you’re sleeping or moments throughout the day to connect things.”
The tools Tom learned in therapy helped him process his trauma and confront excuses to drink in excess.
Experiencing a better quality of life
Since starting therapy with the Road Home Program, Tom feels his days aren’t interrupted by his military experiences anymore.
“Everything is different,” he said. “Before, there would be little triggers. I’d be fine talking about it, but I’d feel it for the whole day afterwards. It would take me a while to recalibrate. Now, things are OK after discussing my experiences. I have a lot less anxiety.”
With a greater awareness of triggers and the tools to process them, life opened up for Tom. He could relate to his family and friends again and build relationships where he previously felt closed off.
“I tell my family that they served, too, and in some ways, it was even more stressful for them,” he said. “If you’re not calling home for whatever reason, could be you’re just watching a movie, they have no idea what’s going on. There’s that not knowing part of it.”
And following a lifelong interest in sports and movement, Tom finished college with a degree in exercise science and went to a physical therapy assistant school.
“In the military, there’s heavy physical demand, and even with as active as we were, people were getting injured and hurt,” Tom said. “I didn’t know the answer at the time, but it seemed there would be a better solution than pushing ourselves until something hurt.”
Today, in his work as a physical therapy assistant, Tom sometimes meets other veterans, and he feels an immediate connection with them, even if their branch or era is different from his. He encourages other veterans in need of help to ask for it and keep trying to find the right therapist.
Looking back on his growth, Tom said he’s proudest of being open to therapy at Road Home and giving them a call.
“Not talking about your deployment is viewed as a sense of strength, but now, I’m more comfortable speaking about it and recognizing how to acknowledge it.
“You have to ask people for help. The whole ‘suck it up and drive on’ thing doesn’t work. In trying not to become a burden, I actually did become a burden. It’s OK to admit that things aren’t good and that you need to find someone. There’s a lot below the surface that I didn’t realize. Therapy takes it away so you can have more energy and feel better.”
