Never underestimate the power of a mother’s love.
“If not for my mother, I would probably be dead, in jail or on the street somewhere homeless,” said U.S. Marine Corps veteran Jerome Brown, who spoke to the Jacksonville Breakfast Rotary Club on Friday.
His mother is Million Heir-Williams, a former Onslow County Commissioner and the author of Military Mom on a Mission: An Advocate for Mental Health, a book inspired by the experience of helping her son through his bout with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a nine-month deployment to Iraq.
“We went through a lot of hell,” Heir-Williams said, who joined Brown in Jacksonville last week to speak about the book.
Six weeks after Brown's discharge from the military, he suffered a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed with PTSD, severe psychosis, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
“I don’t think anyone who goes to war is the same person when they come back,” said Brown, who recalled erratic behavior post-deployment and bizarre …More