Angelia "Angie" Peacock, MSW, joined the U.S. Army in 1998 because she wanted a job with meaning that empowered her to help others. When she deployed to Iraq in 2003, just after the initial invasion of Baghdad, her role was to set up and maintain the communication lines for her unit. While in Iraq, she came down with a mysterious illness that caused her to lose 40 pounds and eventually be medevac’d out of the country. But the day after she got to the hospital in Germany, her platoon’s convoy was hit by an improvised explosive device.
By 2006, she was on 16 medications to combat her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). That year, she attempted suicide more times than she can remember.
The next ten years of her life, she felt numb. She went through rehab four times to try to get off her prescribed medications. But she also found Wounded Warrior Project® (WWP).
Now, armed with her master’s degree in social work, she is a mental health advocate, a writer, and a YouTube creator who travels in her RV across the United States in an effort to improve the mental health care system and bring voice to patients who have been harmed by it.
Read Angela's Feature Story, A Dog and the Open Road: One Veteran's Prescription for PTSD >