After Vincent Tourville deployed to Iraq in 2009, he was angry and out of control with what would later be diagnosed as combat PTSD. Tourville tried to outrun his problems, all the way from Maine to California.
“I went from truck stop to truck stop, just drinking and just begging for money and didn’t have any, and just whatever it takes to get from Portland, Maine, to LA,” he says.
“And I finally made it to Venice Beach, and I just sat there and I felt like I accomplished something. But I had no idea where I was going or what I was gonna do. I ended up at the VA.”
To be precise, Tourville ended up at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Campus, a 387-acre plot bequeathed to this country’s veterans in 1888, nestled among some of California’s most expensive ZIP codes. Lawsuits, homeless encampments and corruption scandals have dogged the campus for decades, but luckily for Tourville, the West LA VA has come a long way. He says going there saved his life.