Kenny McAnally served as a combat engineer in Iraq. Photo courtesy of Spokesman-Review.

Kudos to the Spokesman-Review in Idaho for this article on Iraq war veteran Kenny McAnally.

McAnally was suffering from combat-related post traumatic stress disorder until a North Idaho College class prompted him to write about his experiences as a class project. Seeing these harrowing incidents on paper led McAnnally to follow the advice of his social worker wife Christy and get counseling.

McAnally did well in counseling and is now studying to follow his wife’s lead and become a social worker so he can help other vets.

“Writing what happened down makes it so you don’t have to think about it every day,” he said. “Helping someone else do that would, I mean, that would be awesome. It would free them.”

To learn more about how social workers help veterans visit the National Association of Social Workers’ “Help Starts Here” Veterans Affairs Web site by clicking here.