Troubled vets find helping hand in special court

As an Army combat medic serving tours in the United States and abroad, Michael Childs saw death and the horrors of war up close.

When he left the service in 1999 as part of the downsizing of the active duty ranks, Childs’ transition back to civilian life wasn’t easy.

He had indelible memories of the things he’d seen during the Persian Gulf war, in Somalia and elsewhere. He drank alcohol to cope, trying to portray the strong, tough exterior image of a soldier.

Looking back, Childs, now 43, said he didn’t realize he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or what was causing him to drink.

“I had no idea that it was stemming from something deeper, my traumas that I had seen in the combat zone and other traumas that had happened in my life,” Childs said. “I was covering those up, trying to forget about them through alcohol, anger and other issues I was having.”

In 2005, he pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide after a man was killed in a 2004 wreck on Riverside Drive while Childs was driving under the influence of alcohol.

After serving nearly two years in prison and while on probation, he went back to drinking.

“I went right back to what I knew,” he said.

About seven years later, he was charged with family violence-related aggravated battery.

That’s when he was accepted into the Macon Judicial Circuit’s Veterans Treatment Court, a program that matches veterans who’ve run afoul of the law with services provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“I finally, for the first time, was introduced to the avenues to help me with my PTSD,” Childs said.

Since starting more than two years ago, the veterans court has grown from just a few participants to nearing its 24-person capacity.

Veterans charged with a crime who are eligible for VA benefits can be considered for admission, including some who are sent to the program after they’ve been found guilty of a crime. State law prohibits veterans charged with murder, armed robbery, rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated child molestation, or child molestation from eligibility, except as part of a supervised re-entry program designed to more closely monitor them after they’ve served a prison term.

Chief Superior Court Judge Tripp Self said presiding over the group of veterans is “by far the best thing I do in my job.”

“It’s so nice to see a positive impact, changing somebody’s life,” he said.

Operated at no cost to Bibb, Crawford and Peach counties — the service area for the court — grants and the VA foot the bill.

One day last month, 34 veterans were booked into the Bibb County jail, charged with everything from murder to nonviolent misdemeanor crimes.

Sheriff David Davis said the jail population, which stayed at its 966-inmate capacity for quite a while, now is averaging closer to 800.

Some of the credit is due to the Macon Judicial Circuit’s accountability courts — the veterans, drug, mental health and child support courts — that allow certain offenders to work through their problems without incarceration, Davis said.

Veterans court meets twice a month, on Tuesdays, in one of the same courtrooms where other people charged with crimes go for trials.

But the courtroom designated for veterans court is different.

Flags from the different service branches are displayed in an upstairs balcony overlooking the gallery.

Seals from the branches are affixed to the walls.

Court participants clap in support of one another as they report on their progress to the judge, a prosecutor and a representative from the public defender’s office.

“If a person can sit through veterans court and not be encouraged and improved, they do not have a a soul,” Self said.

FIRST PARTICIPANTS

Six veterans have graduated from the program, including David Hubbard, a former military policeman.

Hubbard, the program’s first participant, said he’s learned coping strategies to help him manage PTSD and the survivor’s guilt he brought back after serving three back-to-back tours in Saudia Arabia and Iraq in 2002 and 2003.

Medically discharged due to his PTSD and a traumatic brain injury he sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated, Hubbard found his life falling apart.

In and out of treatment programs, he spent years living on the streets of Philadelphia.

“I thought nothing of myself. I didn’t really care what happened to myself,” said Hubbard, 50, who served a stint in the Air Force before enlisting in the Army. “I didn’t understand what post-traumatic stress was or that I had it.”

Like Childs, Hubbard drank heavily to forget what he’d seen in combat zones. But he also turned to drugs and became addicted.

He eventually entered a VA facility outside Philadelphia and entered a residential program in a veterans housing facility.

Seemingly back on his feet, Hubbard met a woman from Macon on the internet and moved into an apartment on Lake Tobesofkee.

Months later, he proposed.

Then, one night in 2013, they argued, and Hubbard admits he pushed the woman off him before going to Florida for a couple of weeks.

When he returned in May, seven deputies holding arrest warrants met him.

Hubbard said he sat in the Bibb County jail for more than a year before he was admitted into veterans court.

GIVING BACK

Hubbard said it was the veterans court team — Self, attorney Mark Beberman, the district attorney’s office, the court’s coordinator and others — and their belief in him that provided the extra push he needed to get his life back on track.

“I couldn’t be more thankful.”

Being a veteran means something, he said. Service to the United States instills a sense of duty, honor, respect and integrity.

“That never left me. It got shadowed by everything else,” he said. “That’s what came back in me.

“It took someone waking me up.”

Hubbard graduated from the program Feb. 2 while attending a session of the Georgia General Assembly with Self.

Self signed an order in April terminating his prison and probation sentences due to Hubbard’s completion of the veterans court program.

Since entering the program, Hubbard has married and moved to Dublin.

He said memories from his service still come to mind each day. Sometimes a smell or a sound triggers them.

“Today I know how to deal with them,” Hubbard said. “I had to go through what I went through to be the person that I am today.”

Childs is set to graduate from the program next year, but he isn’t in a hurry to finish.

He said he’s come to understand that he has issues that alcohol can’t solve, and he’s trying to spread the word to others that veterans court exists. He’s also gathering information about other services for veterans to bring it back to the group.

“It’s therapy for me,” he said of his advocacy efforts.

Structure is important to veterans and “we’re all about a mission,” Childs said.

In the military, a mission is for the betterment of the nation.

“I’m trying to do something for the betterment of my veteran nation and accomplish the mission,” he said.

Similarly, Hubbard is giving back by serving as the program’s mentor coordinator, managing a group of veterans who can lend a helping hand to those in veterans court.

“It’s imperative to the veterans to have someone to call,” he said.

For Childs, a call to the program helped him from sliding back into bad habits a couple months ago when he went through a rough patch and took a drink of alcohol.

“I stopped myself,” he said, adding that talking with someone from the program gave him the support he needed to continue his path to recovery.

“This program,” Childs said, “has been a real life saver for me.”

This story was originally published November 4, 2016 at 1:22 PM with the headline "Troubled vets find helping hand in special court."