HEALING OUR HEROES

A PLATE DROPPED at the restaurant where Kristina, a combat vet of 14 years, worked. She dove under a table. “It was around the 4th of July—that’s when the fireworks happen, which is a very stressful time for me,” she says. The national holiday is difficult for many vets, as fireworks can sound like a war zone. A younger male coworker wasn’t doing his job and ignored Kristina’s requests to pick up the slack. “I asked him repeatedly to do it, and then I lost it and almost went for the kid’s neck,” she recalls. Thankfully, a friend was present to bring her out of the flashback and into the present. “She nudged me with her elbow, and I was like, ‘Whoa, what just happened?’ I went to the VA the next day, and I haven’t been back to work since.”

While Kristina (whose last name is being withheld for legal protection) has been out of the military since 2008, it was only six months ago when she realized she was suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder. “PTSD is a huge problem regardless of the source, and we’re only starting to grapple with the implications as a society. Nowhere is going to be as difficult as the military,” says Harvard-trained holistic care and cannabis-therapeutics