An update on two vets struggling to put the war behind them

Jim Zenner, fresh out of college, was program director at a new veterans recovery program in Hollywood. Greg Valentini, who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, was one of his first clients.

The first impressions they had of each other when they met last August were not positive. Zenner, a reservist, had just gotten back from a mission in Korea to learn that Valentini and some other vets had partied at the residential recovery center, throwing back beers while he was away.

“I was thinking this guy ain’t gonna make it,” said Zenner, who thought Valentini looked like a hardboiled, hotheaded convict. “But I was thinking I wasn’t going to make it, either.”

Valentini, meanwhile, thought Zenner was too starched, as if he’d just graduated with honors from officers’ school. And Zenner was such a rookie social worker that Valentini began calling him Green. Even today, they see the drinking incident differently.

“Tell him why,” Valentini pleaded, explaining that the beers were to celebrate President Obama declaring the end of the combat mission in Iraq.

President Obama? That’s another issue.

Zenner, 34, was pro-Bush, anti-Obama. A Republican.

Valentini, 33, was anti-Bush, pro-Obama. A Democrat.

Valentini enlisted in the Army in 2000 primarily for the G.I. Bill and ended up in heavy combat a year later, even though he’s generally antiwar. He hung a “Veterans for Peace” sign on his dorm room door at the vet center, and when Zenner objected, Valentini hung it on Zenner’s door.

Zenner, on the other hand, enlisted in the Army in 2004, gung-ho for a trip to Iraq.

But with Valentini assigned to the room next to Zenner’s office, the odd couple couldn’t get through a day without stepping on each other.

And here’s what’s really crazy about these two: for all the differences, the push-backs, the puffed-chest pronouncements and taunts, they’ve bonded.

Not that they don’t still jab fingers at each other and toss insults. But after 11 months of forced togetherness at the Volunteers of America center on Sunset Boulevard, with only a few weeks to go before Valentini graduates and moves out on his own, I get the sense they’re going to miss each other.

Part of the draw is that they’re both smart and enjoy a good challenge. But the deeper connections have to do with the fact that both went to war, both struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, and both know what it’s like to be hooked on meth.

They also had to figure out how to survive the last year, even as the program grew from 14 vets to 40, all of whom came out of Iraq and Afghanistan with anxieties, demons, hopes and fears.

“He was the biggest handful and at the same time, the biggest help,” Zenner said of Valentini.

Zenner, whose life was a mess several years ago when his father died unexpectedly and his war-related issues flared, now has a master’s degree, book sense, and the job Valentini wants to have one day.

Valentini, who became a scavenging, drug-addled thief after the war, has shared his humbling experience in ways that helped Zenner better understand the boundaries of addiction and despair, as well as the inventions of a trained, street-savvy con.

When Valentini got high in October, on a weekend pass, Zenner broke down and cried.

“I have such high expectations for Greg,” he said.

Back then, Zenner doubted whether Valentini was even close to being ready for recovery, especially when Valentini would argue, as only he can, that there’s a big difference between being an addict and merely having a fondness for getting high all the time. Zenner has also worried about the way Valentini “glamorized pulling off heists and getting high,” back before all that glamour landed him in the slammer.

He does have his charms, though, Zenner said of Valentini, who thinks he’s owed credit for twice calling Zenner and telling him he’d gotten loaded on a weekend pass. That kind of personal honesty and respect for the staff, Valentini insists, should have earned him the right to refuse whizzing into a cup every time he’s asked.

Because of Valentini’s resistance to aspects of the program, both Zenner and Valentini’s case manager felt that Valentini — who is only obligated to complete one year at the vet center in lieu of jail time for theft — ought to stay in the program another year.

But Valentini wants to move on, and Zenner says he’s seen a lot of progress in recent months.

When people say or do things that set him off, like the classmate who charged that vets fake post-traumatic stress disorder so they can get government handouts, Valentini’s natural reaction is to blow. But Zenner has taught him to build some emotional distance in that kind of situation.

The two vets have often talked about the sense of entitlement they brought home from the war, and the way in which that can be used to rationalize vices and lack of initiative. Valentini now admits he used to craft excuses for his lapses when his time would have been better spent building more self-respect.

But now, as Valentini prepares to move out, he’s convinced he’s ready, thanks in part to help from Zenner, who in some ways has become his role model. And Zenner thinks his friend will be OK, and make a great social worker, even though some battles have no end.

Valentini has found a new apartment, and it is walking distance from the vet center, a nice arrangement for both of them.

steve.lopez@latimes.com