Storytellers: You don’t have to go it alone

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Robert L. McIlrath
  • 82nd Training Wing Public Affairs

SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas – Service members, civilians and dependents filled the Solid Rock Café for a Storytellers event Nov. 9, 2018, to hear stories of resiliency and overcoming difficult times through the help of others.

 

The Storytellers event, a first at Sheppard, allowed individuals to share their stories and inspire others to seek help during troubling times.

 

Master Sgt. William Adams, 82nd Mission Support Group first sergeant, shared his story of overcoming anger and being able to put the mission first when a family member was sexually assaulted by someone in his unit.

 

During a deployment shortly after the sexual assault was reported, Adams became the supervisor for Airmen who knew of the assaults and never reported it.

 

“If you’re ever forced into a situation where your moral code comes into question, let someone know,” Adams said. “Most men hold information back and just try to deal with it themselves, but you got to talk to someone when things happen instead of waiting, because it can potentially affect you long term.”

 

Meguel Copeland, 82nd Force Support Squadron contracting officer representative, shared his story of overcoming post-traumatic stress after serving as a mortuary technician at Dover AFB, Delaware, in 2012. Mortuary technicians are the first to prepare the bodies of fallen service members for funerals when they return from combat zones.

 

“I remember unzipping body bags and blood spilling out,” Copeland said. “That’s what I think of anytime I unzip anything now. I started having nightmares and sleep paralysis after leaving Dover.”

 

Copeland said he started drinking to try to forget and developed an anger problem as well.

 

He turned to mental health, the chaplain and other programs to start his road to recovery, but also noted it takes more than just showing up to get better.

 

“All those programs work but they don’t have a magic pill to make you just get better,” he said. “You have got to put in the work, don’t be ashamed and get help. Don’t worry about what it could do to your career because your career needs your best you.”

 

Master Sgt. Deondra Parks, 88th Air Base Wing executive assistant to the command chief, traveled from Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio to tell her story of resilience after facing almost certain death at the hands of a gunman while she was in technical school at Sheppard.

 

In April 2010, Parks and a few of her fellow classmates were at a local bookstore in Wichita Falls, Texas, drinking coffee and studying for their class when a man armed with a shotgun walked in and told them that it was Hitler’s birthday. He made a racial slur and shot her friend in the head, killing him.

Parks got up to run and he shot at her. A bullet grazed her head and she fell to the floor and pretended to be dead in hopes the gunman would leave.

 

He didn’t.

 

The gunman shot her in the legs to make sure he finished his crazed plan.

 

Parks didn’t move a muscle, the gunman fled and she survived.

 

“My recovery started that night,” Parks said. “I didn’t want my dreams to be shattered because of someone else’s ignorance.”

 

Parks talked about her road to recovery and what she learned along the way.

 

“From experience, no one will know you’re hurting, you have to let people know,” she said. “What helped my recovery the most was talking to people.”

 

Airman and their families in need can reach the base chaplain at 940-676-4370, mental health at 940-676-6075 and the Airman and Family Readiness Center at 940-676-4358.