Healing Halfway Home

The Veterans Home in Aarhus is more than just a place to stay. It's a haven helping veterans heal on their way back to civilian life.

Uffe raises the flag on Saturday morning holding the clip for the flag in his mouth to steady the rope. Then he goes inside for breakfast, keeping a watchful eye towards the window, naming the birds he sees fly by. After breakfast, he walks on the crunched gravel to the bus, sits in his preferred seat, the edge seat in the back of the bus closest to the door, one eye on the sign for the next stop, and one on the incoming passengers ahead of him on the bus. He’s on his way into the city to go swimming, an activity that helps him relieve stress, but he sits up straighter on the edge of his seat when a noisy passenger boards.

Uffe Kühne mostly has his PTSD under control, but he’s vigilant sometimes on his trip from the Aarhus veterans’ home, where he is temporarily living, to the city centre where he goes for a swim three times a week. 

The veterans’ home, Veteranhjem Midtjylland, in Brabrand, Aarhus is a safe haven for veterans to build community and spend time with others facing the same challenges. The home is open for drop-ins from veterans 10:00 – 14:00 and they can speak with other veterans about their days. For some, it’s a space for talking through the difficulties of returning to civilian life with other people who understand those challenges. Maybe they need a couple days of retreat, sitting by the fireplace spotting deer running through the backyard, making dinner together, or even painting in the studio adjacent to the home. For others, it’s a place to live for a couple of months when the veterans have nowhere else to turn. For Uffe it’s the latter, the home is a resting place where he can stay clean before he returns to Sønderborg in South Jutland where some of his grandchildren live.

Uffe remembers playing war with the neighborhood kids when he was little using plastic and wood guns. For him setting off for Cyprus at 19 years old was fulfilling a lifelong dream. But when he came home from the first mission he struggled to adjust to civilian life, so he served two more missions. Seven years after his first deployment, at 26 years old, he came home and started a family. But he knew he wasn’t the same.

“When I came home my aunt said to me, ‘you shouldn’t have been there, you’re not the same,’” Uffe says. But still when he looks through old photo albums of his time in the army he glows with pride at times while also remembering wanting to leave the army. 

Uffe’s story is not unique to veterans. According to the Journal of Veteran Studies, veterans are often at greater risk of drug use, alcoholism and homelessness than the average population. In 2010, in the midst of Denmark’s establishment of a veterans care model, six veterans’ homes were established around the country. The veterans’ homes provide essential support for veterans working through periods of hardship in their lives or seeking community. When veterans live at the home, it also provides critical stability that can help them get back on their feet and integrate with society. 

Like many other veterans, Uffe struggles with alcoholism. And although he has never formally been diagnosed, many therapists and doctors have treated him for PTSD. He traces his struggles back to his father’s death in 2002 which coincided with his 43rd birthday and the following recession in 2008. 

Before coming to the veterans’ home, he lived in another facility for veterans with PTSD, but he said he was always on alert. He says the people around him were unpredictable and often intoxicated. When he left he spent 35 hours on the Aarhus train station bench and then a couple days more in a cheap hotel before reaching out to the veterans’ home for a place to stay. 

Moving to the veterans’ home was like a sigh of relief. The home is quiet, calm with light dancing around the rooms from a multitude of windows and surfaces everywhere covered with plants. Uffe can be calm and rest here and finds it easier to stay sober.

“I can just relax,” he says. Sometimes he spends the afternoon on the back porch with another veteran. Separated by a few chairs, but they share whatever is on their mind the longer they sit overlooking the valley.

Uffe dances in his room to the song “Human,” by The Killers after his swimming trip as he makes a checklist for his afternoon. He sings along to the chorus, “Are we human, or are we dancers?” a line he says makes him think about spirituality. Right now, Uffe is focused on building a routine that helps him manage his mental health. Besides swimming three times a week, he walks through the park next to the home and sits at the table looking through the glass wall overlooking a valley. He looks for deer in the evening while working on some gardening with plants he plans to bring with him when he moves out.

For Uffe, it’s important to stay sober when he moves back home. He has not lived near his family for over a decade, and he wants to spend more time with his grandkids and hopefully reconnect with his adult children. The veterans’ home is a step on that path to recovering control of his life.