Off Switch

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Jennifer Hutton, a counselor for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Beckley, West Virginia, has been helping veterans who struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for fifteen years. She loves her job and the veterans she serves but is frustrated by the red tape and ‘velvet handcuffs’ thrown her way by big government administration. Yet she soldiers on, providing treatment in a ‘veteran centered’ fashion, preferring emotional counseling and behavior modification over medication and institutionalization in spite of VA protocol.
And then she meets Corey Prine, a 28 year old veteran recently home from the war in Iraq. Corey eerily reminds Jennifer of her father, a Vietnam vet, who died in a single vehicle accident when she was only four years old.
Corey is intelligent, insightful, and angry- unhappy to have returned to a life resembling nothing of the one he lived before deploying; his wife and son gone- personal finances a mess- and being faced with a system that seems to say nothing more than, ‘thanks for your time, but we’re done with you.’
Jennifer provides counseling for Corey as he tries to put his post-deployment life together. As their sessions progress, and with Corey’s inability to cope and reintegrate, his anger turns to rage and his emotions begin to show potential for physical manifestation in the form of dangerous, if not deadly, behavior.
Exhausted by her own efforts, Jennifer consults Dr. Jerry Barnes, the ‘God Father’ of P.T.S.D. research and treatment. Dr. Barnes leads her to the unpleasant fact that before she can treat Corey or her other patients properly, she must first face her own demons- the truth about her father- the man he had really been after coming home from war- and whether or not his death was indeed an accident, or in truth, a well-disguised suicide, and, either way, if his death was unfortunate or a blessing in disguise.
Jennifer’s vision quest leads to a reunion with her mother, where she learns the truth about her father, a truth that will rock all of the beliefs she previously held about treatment of veterans with P.T.S.D. to the core. Then she must return and deal with Corey Prine, in the hopes of finding the ‘Off Switch’ for his condition, if one exists, and hope it’s not too late for him or those around him.

*”Off Switch” is inspired by real events from the author’s own deployment to Iraq and his experiences upon returning.