Local News

Military Mom Promotes Mental Health Services

Mother Starts Foundation To Ensure Veterans Get Proper Mental Health Care Upon Return Home

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Some lucky servicemen and women made it home for the holidays, but others are shipping out.

As CBS 2's Mai Martinez reports, 22-year-old Travis Julian is heading to the Middle East, but his mother is doing what she can to make sure he and other veterans will have all the help they need when they get home.

Travis Julian looks like a big, strong soldier, but his mother would tell you different.

"He's going to kill me for saying this," Sondra Julian said. "He's such a sweet, gentle kind-hearted man."

Her sweet, gentle kind-hearted man is also a soldier preparing to go off to war for the first time after joining the Army in July of this year.

"I enjoy my life so much, and the freedoms I enjoy, all my family and friends enjoy, I felt it would be good to fight for them," Travis Julian said.

He says he's ready for war, but the thought terrifies his mother.

"I don't him to have to see those horrors that I know he's going to for sure face," Sondra Julian said.

After talking to many veterans about post traumatic stress disorder, Sondra Julian, a former servicewoman herself, wasn't satisfied with what was being done for servicemen and women, so she decided to come up with a solution of her own – Military HEROS Foundation, Inc. The name is an acronym -- Mental Health Extras Restoring Our Soldiers. It's a foundation she's created to help veterans cope with PTSD.

Her son was the first to make a donation.

"I think it's wonderful that she's looking out for all of us," Travis Julian said.

"When he comes home in 15 months, I don't want him to be a broken man or a different person, and if he is, if he needs help, then it needs to be there for him," Sondra Julian said.

Travis Julian is scheduled to return from the Middle East sometime in February 2009. His mother says her hope is by then, her foundation will be fully up and running so that she can help him and all other veterans of wars past, present and future.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)