Veterans connect in special court program

By Doug Livingston

Anthony Salem and Mike Batchik came home in 2009 Batchik with a broken leg, a bad back and pain pills; Salem to his mother’s funeral, fist fights and heavy drinking.

Now in their early 30s, they met in 2007 on an Army base in Fort Hood, Texas, where they prepared for their first deployment to Iraq.

Batchik served again in Afghanistan. Between deployments, he remained distant.

“In the military, you’re taught to be headstrong and suck it up,” he said, recalling the struggle to cope, the lies he got so good at telling and the two times his wife almost left him. “I wasn’t prepared for life at home.”

Salem, struggling with his own demons, got clean in 2010 and joined the Army reserves. A year later, he relapsed and was honorably discharged.

Alienated, homeless and stealing from the vendors that supplied the restaurant he and his father opened, Salem faced lawsuits and criminal theft charges.

Instead of leaning on each other, the men — both from the Akron area — turned to drugs and alcohol to ease the transition home.

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