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41 Armed Forces & Soc'y 3 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/amdfcsad41 and id is 1 raw text is: Article The Thin Line between Crazy and Hero: Exploring the Multiple Statuses of US Veterans in a Work-therapy Program Armed Forces & Society 2015, Vol. 41(1) 3-22 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1 I 177/0095327X 13507054 afs.sagepub.com OSAGE Yuval Feinstein' Abstract This study explores how US veterans who suffer from mental health problems navigate between two primary statuses: national hero and mental patient. The analysis reveals a more nuanced understanding than previous research, which has focused on a simple negative association between positive veteran identity and stigma. Qualitative evidence collected in a work-therapy program for veterans demonstrates that the sta- tus of mental patient became salient in peer-group activities, where it engendered a sense of solidarity and mutual empathy, and in interactions outside the mental health care facility, where it involved a sense of stigma. The status of being a national hero emerged in interactions with casual visitors from whom material contributions were sought, but did not reinforce a sense of positive veteran identity because veterans were aware of its instrumental nature. When leaving the program, a strong sense of stigma emerged despite the possibility of embracing the veteran identity. Keywords veterans, mental health care, stigma, national hero, symbolic interactionism ' Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel Corresponding Author: Yuval Feinstein, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The University of Haifa, Haifa 3 1905, Israel. Email: fyuval@soc.haifa.ac.il