Marine Studies at Montclair State to Help Veterans with Mental Illness
Alfredo Garcia has a reason for feeling sad and lonely.
“What made me open my eyes was the fact that I’ve seen very close friends take their own lives,” Garcia said.
After four years in the military, the Marine started studying psychology at Montclair State in hopes of helping veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Garcia moved to the United States from the Dominican Republic with his father in 2003 at 9-years-old. Seeing skyscrapers was a “culture shock” from living with his mother and grandparents in a wooden house, he said.
Garcia joined the military age 20.
“I was at this point in my life,” he said. “I was thinking ‘What is the meaning of life?’ Or like, ‘what am I doing with my life?’”
While in community college in New York, Garcia saw a recruitment station for the Marines. He said the country had given him many opportunities and he wanted to give back.
“My way of helping out and doing something for the people was joining the military,” Garcia said.
Garcia worked as an Aviation Supply Specialist for the Marines. He was deployed in July 2016 overseas, traveling all over to countries such as Afghanistan, Syria, Greece, Germany, Italy and parts of Africa. He returned to America right before Thanksgiving.
When the veteran went to community college, he didn’t declare a major because he didn’t know what he wanted to do. After serving in the military, the 24-year-old realized he wanted to get a psychology degree to help fellow veterans struggling with mental illness.
Garcia said he has seen veterans have their mental and physical states affected by war and said they need support through the aftermath. He wants to help the military community because they are important to us.
Garcia chose Montclair State to go to school with his wife, Babee, who studies journalism. The pair met in the Marines after boot camp training. She was his squad leader in Marine combat training in North Carolina, where he learned strategy and weapon training, he said.
“She was so energetic and this person who had so much courage and I was like, ‘you know what? This is the girl I want to go for,’” said Garcia.
“PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) have gained a lot of popularity because there have been a lot of military coming back,” psychology adjunct professor Diane Hefferon said. “We really need a lot of people willing to work with veterans and really work with PTSD, both groups individual.”
Hefferon has taught at the school for ten years and is one of Garcia’s professors.
She said most of the clients she works on outside of school suffer from brain or spinal injury and substance abuse and usually PTSD is a common affect. Pet therapy is her favorite way to treat clients.
Hefferon says the psychology field is a rewarding experience. One of your big strengths is you need to have empathy, so if you’re going into the field you need to be empathetic.”
Garcia said in the Marines he felt united with the others, but has felt depression since returning to the United States.
“I wanted a family, I joined the military and I feel like I found it,” said the veteran. “Now that I’m out — I told Babee — I’m very lonely.”
Although he feels lonely sometimes, he said one of the good things about joining the military is that even if he doesn’t communicate a lot with his brothers at arms, if he needed to reach out to them for support, he could.
Garcia said his mother and wife are proud of his decision to go for psychology.
After completing his Bachelors, Garcia will look into getting his Masters.
