He calls it a case of “classic conditioning.”
The Army told Col. Calvin Neptune III that it needed him. He jumped, eagerly and immediately – even though he had already put in 26 years. Even though he had retired 14 years earlier.
Even at age 62.
“They say the magic words – they need people to support the young soldiers – and I’m there,” says Neptune, who recently left his Aurora home and wife of 38 years to spend a one-year hitch in Arizona.
Neptune is serving as chief of behavioral health at the Army hospital at Fort Huachuca, a major communications and intelligence center about 75 miles southeast of Tucson. As a psychologist and social worker, he specializes in dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder among soldiers trying to cope with their combat experience.
“Once you go to war, it’s a life-changing event,” says Neptune, who began his counseling work with Vietnam veterans. “You don’t come back and pick up where you left off. It’s a side of war that doesn’t come out in the movies.”
Mary Neptune, a middle school music teacher in the Cherry Creek district, understood that when her husband retired from the military so the family could keep its roots in Colorado, the move seemed premature.
“He always felt like he wasn’t quite finished,” she says. “This is doing it for him. He feels it’s his lucky chance to finish it up right, on his own terms.”
And though returning to duty meant a year spent mostly apart, except for her occasional trips to Arizona, the couple had managed before, when Neptune was stationed in Washington, D.C., during Desert Storm.
Mary wholeheartedly encouraged him to seize the opportunity. And Neptune, despite loving the work he has done for the past four years with the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s PTSD residential treatment program, didn’t hesitate.
“How many people get to retire, be nostalgic about the past and then come back again and not just be a potted-plant artifact?” he says.
In Arizona, Neptune deals largely with combat veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
He notes similarities and defining differences in their PTSD-related issues compared with those of Vietnam vets.
Like Vietnam, he says, Iraq and Afghanistan have few well-defined battle lines and inspire a constant state of anxiety. But Neptune’s work with returning soldiers also has revealed some unique symptoms: They have trouble letting go of wartime driving habits.
When they return stateside, they tend to hug the center line, a technique developed to avoid roadside bombs, and drive too fast, because “on convoys, speed is your friend.”
Neptune’s hitch ends in March. Until then, he’ll continue to help soldiers deal with the stresses of returning from combat – and feel lucky to have the chance.
“Every day I get up and put this uniform on,” he says, “I see soldiers walk in, asking for advice, and realize I have something to offer.”
