Veterans just back from Iraq or Afghanistan ask Sheila Sebron that all the time. She’s a volunteer counselor who left the Air Force with a leg injury in the 1980s and later ended up homeless. Today, after fighting for her own VA benefits and getting out of a wheelchair, Sebron helps others do the same through the National Association of Black Veterans.

Sebron often sees ex–National Guard or reserve members who can’t figure out why they aren’t their old selves again. Many, she says, haven’t connected their erratic or suicidal thoughts to the pain of an injury or post-traumatic stress. Some tell her of horrors they’ve seen, then throw up. When they’re ready, she guides them through the VA system for help.

“They need to give themselves permission to figure out who they are now and evolve,” says Sebron, who wants to get a master’s degree in rehabilitation and go on to work as a counselor. That is, if the VA ever grants her vocational training request. She’s still fighting.

—Cydney Gillis