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People love stories about the challenges and the benefits of overcoming adversity and the belief that what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger and smarter and more compassionate.
Former U.S. Army Captain Luis Carlos Montalván knows this firsthand. After serving two tours of duty overseas, Montalván returned home physically broken and emotionally scarred. A recipient of the Combat Action Badge, two Bronze Stars and the Purple Heart, Montalván suffered from physical pain, debilitating agoraphobia and post-traumatic stress disorder after his time in Iraq. But with the help of a service dog named Tuesday, Montalván overcame these hurdles and found a new purpose for his life.
Montalván credits Tuesday with helping him find a renewed vigor and purpose in life. “I talk about the importance of a network of support for people, be they disabled or not. The first being in my network of support is Tuesday,” Montalván says. “Tuesday is hugely important to me every day.”
With the aid of the 5-year-old golden retriever, Montalván now serves as an advocate for his fellow veterans, for those suffering from both visible and invisible disabilities. He has experienced a broken system and is now doing his best to speak for those who cannot.
Because of his personal experiences, Montalván has a special passion for those living with invisible disabilities – the devastating mental and emotional results of serving in a war zone. He dedicates many of his efforts to raising awareness for these often-silent sufferers. His memoir, Until Tuesday, a New York Times bestseller, chronicles his journey from post-war isolation to his current public role as an activist and writer, and addresses the recovery process aspect of Montalván’s life in particular. “The book speaks mostly to the day-to-day saga of millions of service members and veterans of different wars who are suffering, mostly from invisible disabilities,” Montalván says.
As he began his journey to recovery, Montalván began to write. “It really sort of began as a journal, and it morphed over the years. But, I think, like most writers, you write as an outlet, which is a means of therapy,” Montalván explains. “But it became much more than my own therapy. But it was sort of a de facto call to arms – a call to arms for what’s going on in the hearts and minds of so many. If people are informed, then they get moved. For those that are in trouble, they feel connected, that they are not alone and that there are methods, and there is light.”
Montalván explains that the majority of American civilians “think that the visibly physically disabled [veteran] is the norm, when their percentage is infinitesimally smaller. There have been less than 1,900 amputees in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan out of the 2.2 million who have served over there, and yet, the Wounded Warrior Project and the news would have you think that we have hundreds of thousands of amputees.”
However, Montalván believes that, while the sacrifice and the suffering of amputees is tragic, it is important that people put it in perspective. “You take a statistic like that,” Montalván continues, “and you put it against 18 veterans a day committing suicide, and what you have is the fundamental truth that most veterans who are committing suicide, most veterans who are suffering, languishing silently in their apartments and largely drinking themselves into oblivion, divorce, bankruptcy, homelessness, unemployment, etc. are those suffering from invisible disabilities, namely, traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
But Montalván does not just dwell on darkness in his book. He does not shy away from these difficult truths or from relating his own journey of pain, but neither does he leave his readers without a sense of optimism.
“The other major part of the book is that there is healing to be had. That though society, though the VA, though the military, though our loved ones, though so many just don’t know what they’re going through, there is, in fact, help to be had. And that while suffering is understandable, getting on a journey of healing is possible,” Montalván remarks. “Though they are broken, though they have scars, psychological scars and physical scars, though their lives may not be the same, they still have unlimited potential in life.”
Montalván has taken the pain that he experienced firsthand and that he sees other veterans experiencing, and he has channeled it into a remarkable and productive life. “To me, 18 veterans a day committing suicide is an utter failure of leadership because far more veterans are dying here than are actually in combat…It drives me, fuels my advocacy, particularly when you meet these people,” he explains.
With a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, one might think that Montalván is already more than qualified to increase awareness of the challenges that veterans suffer when they return home from war. He has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle; featured on NPR, in National Geographic and on the Late Show. If those qualifications don’t impress you, Montalván is also the 2011 recipient of the Voice Award by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But still, he is not satisfied with these achievements; he is currently pursuing another advanced degree from Columbia in strategic communications with the goal of being able to better convey the needs of fellow wounded warriors.
When Montalván isn’t furthering his education in New York City, he travels the U.S. to raise awareness of veterans’ issues and to champion organizations dedicated to improving the quality of life for those who served. Tuesday’s contribution to these efforts is crucial to Montalván’s day-to-day comfort. “It sounds kind of cheesy, but he makes me feel at home, even if we’re on the road,” he comments.
In September, Montalván and Tuesday visited Harrisburg as a part of their book tour. A native of Maryland, Montalván has personal connections in the area; he cites friends as a reason he has often come to the central Pennsylvania area. This year, Woofstock was also a draw. But the state represents more to Montalván. He and Tuesday have visited Pennsylvania in a professional capacity numerous times to raise awareness for service dog programs, PTSD or simply to visit with veterans of World War II.
But he is also aware of Pennsylvania’s national strategic significance. “If we are to make a lot of shifts to veterans’ policies that need to happen, then it’s going to take Pennsylvania. It’s going to take Pennsylvania’s legislators. It’s going to take Pennsylvania’s veterans, in conjunction with a number of other states, to come together and collaborate,” Montalván says. “Pennsylvania is the closest state to D.C. that has the highest population of veterans. That’s important because if you want to mobilize veterans’ service organizations, be they the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, nonveteran service organizations or service-dog nonprofits, to lobby Washington, this is a great staging place for that.”
Montalván hopes to see great reforms come out of Washington as a result of his advocacy and the work of others like him. But he recognizes that it will take the voices of many to affect the truly radical change that is necessary to meet veterans’ needs. Montalván firmly believes that the Department of Veterans Affairs needs to be overhauled much in the same way that it was after the Bonus Army marched on Washington. Montalván explained that, as a result of this mass demonstration, Eisenhower appointed General Omar Bradley to re-evaluate the way the system functioned, and Bradley’s recommendations created the change that was needed. However, in the post-Vietnam era, the military has not been able to effectively help its many veterans.
“The Vietnam veterans were just a mess, and the federal government was not supportive of them. That created a culture, ever since, of a bureaucratic culture that is just a behemoth that is really not friendly, is really not supportive of veterans,” Montalván explains. “You walk into a V.A., and they have all kinds of signage that will tell you otherwise. Then you had an influx back in the Gulf War of 500,000 – you had an influx there that they couldn’t handle, which led to a bubble of care that they could not deal with. And then you have the wars after 9/11. The same thing happened. We’re always playing catch-up.”
But Montalván has hope that someday this will change, that someday the system will be reformed – and he and Tuesday will have had a part in that.
If you’re looking for an inspirational and thought-provoking read, look no further than Until Tuesday. This moving memoir is also on its way to cinemas – according to the L.A. Times, Patrick Sheane Duncan, the writer who gave audiences Mr. Holland’s Opus is working to turn Luis’ and Tuesday’s story into a movie, set to begin production next summer. And if you’re a dog lover looking for a cause to champion, consider volunteering with Educated Canines Assisting with Disabilities or another service-dog organization.
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