After returning from the front lines, a Ukrainian veteran works to help others
A 45-member team in Lviv works to help veterans adjust to civilian life.
LVIV, Ukraine -- For about a year, Andriy Zholob, a 44-year-old former senior lieutenant, has been running the veterans' office in Lviv.
As a former commander of the Ukrainian forces medical company, he decided to quit his career of a doctor-orthopedist and traumatologist, he told ABC News.
After being retired from army due to his mother's illness, he had no idea what to do in the civilian life.
"For three weeks I was doing nothing but staring at the ceiling and then, my friend from Lviv City Council called me with a proposal to meet the mayor," said Zholob, who accepted the offer without a shadow of any doubt.
"I felt that it will be a commander's work again," he explained.
Although the office was established in 2017, Zholob said he knew almost nothing about its operations as he was never before a part of military or veterans' community, but 21 months of service at the front lines have changed the situation.
Currently there are 45 members of the office's team, who are responsible for providing multiple services to dozens of their clients every day.
"We are trying to satisfy basic needs of the servicemen, servicewomen, veterans and their families," said Zholob.
Among others, the office provides legal and psychotherapeutic and employment consultations for veterans, runs support groups for families of servicemen who are the prisoners of war in Russian captivity or are considered missing in action.
The highest-priority goal of the Office is to build a healthy and responsible veterans' community.
Besides providing information on veterans' rights, vacancies, and other consultations, the Office team may also face some extraordinary challenges: "Sometimes we have aggressive clients, some may be drunk, some are full of rage, shouting at us and calling us responsible for all their problems," said Zholob.
He said he considers those actions to be normal for many veterans, and that he's proud to be a veteran among them, although there is also a profound gap between veterans and civilians -- due to absolutely different experiences in Russia's ongoing war.
"And this abyss is absolutely normal situation, but both need to work hard to decrease it during years and decades," admits Zholob said.
At the same time, he said that Ukrainian society should not treat the veterans as some kind of animals in a zoo or stereotype them. Instead, he would like to see more special micro-offices opened in Ukraine for veterans in different sectors -- not only in governmental institutions but in private companies as well.
"There is no such art therapy, sport activities or some other kind of treatment to comfort and heal veterans' souls if they are not able to re-discover themselves as useful members of civil society," argues Zholob.
He considers his new appointment to become that kind of reincarnation for himself, as he got tired of working to work in Ukraine's medical system. He said he considers it to be disrespectful to him as a professional in terms of the salary: "Only the army paid me enough for saving lives," he admits. Before he was called up, was underpaid, he said, and working in a system he described as corrupt.
Now he has more time and money, he said. Every week he hosts a radio show called "Without Armor" at local radio station, discussing with current and former soldiers their problems, inviting psychologists, psychiatrists and other professionals to support the veterans and strengthen their families in faith for the better future.
Even though almost every program is another painful hard talk, Zholob said he feels like he's landed himself in the right place: "These radio projects are my big love and that's why every interview I do with a great pleasure," he said.
For Zholob, his war scars will be part of him until the end of his days. But he says, he knows how to deal with it: "My music is my therapy, my family is my therapy, my Harley-Davidson is my therapy."
But, at the same time, he understands that the war is not over yet -- especially for those who are still on the front lines fighting with Russia for the Ukrainian people, Ukrainian land, including those who are in need of professional medical help.
"To be true, every day I think: maybe I should not have retired and have left my boys," Zholob said.
Related Topics
Popular Reads
ABC News Live