She said she understands pain. That’s partly how she can be so supportive of her husband, a Vietnam veteran who’s experienced post-traumatic stress disorder, and why she’s also so supportive of any military veteran.
Valencia resident Sharon Ventrice, 78, said she met her husband, Bob, over 32 years ago in a singles prayer group at Valencia United Methodist Church. The group was made up of mostly men and women who’d lost a spouse or were divorced. Again, Ventrice understood the pain.
“I met and married Martin, and we ended up in Santa Clarita, and that didn’t work, so then I met Lee, and he and I had Susie, and then he killed himself,” Ventrice said during a recent telephone interview. “So, I was divorced once and widowed once.”
She described meeting her current husband, Bob, who’s now 82 years old, as something like love at first sight. They looked at each other and just knew. Within a year, they were “thrown out” of the singles prayer group because they’d gotten married. Ventrice said she immediately responded to her husband’s pain from Vietnam.
She talked about how he’d have nightmares regularly. He even warned her when they started dating not to come up behind him too quietly.
“He said, ‘I’m liable to deck you,’” Ventrice said. “That was the PTSD talking. Seeing and hearing him say those things, well, I got really cautious for a while. Every once in a while, I’d hear him muttering in his sleep, and I’d know he was having a bad dream. So, I’d gently wake him. Because I didn’t want to get decked.”
Gradually, she said, her husband’s nightmares went away. She believes a big reason for that is how he’s dealt with his memories of the war over the years, by spending time with other veterans, helping other veterans and allowing other veterans to help him.
Ventrice has been alongside her husband the whole time. The couple is mostly involved with the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 355, but also with the Santa Clarita Veteran Services Collaborative, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and, some years back, they worked quite a bit with Prayer Angels for the Military.
“Prayer Angels for the Military do a lot, sending packages overseas to the active duty,” Ventrice said. “These troops who are away from home can be under fire, they miss their kids growing up, so, when you send them something, you try to send them something that reminds them of home or something that they’ll really need.”
Among things like food and paperback books, the group would send condoms to the troops. People often said to them, “Why are you doing that? You don’t want them using those over there.” Ventrice replied, with a laugh, that they did want them using the condoms — they used them over the barrels of their rifles to keep the sand out.
She and her husband go to almost all the monthly Vietnam Veterans of America meetings. She talked about the camaraderie and about guest speakers who come in and share information about, for example, what to do when a veteran dies, details about Agent Orange and Agent Orange testing for Vietnam veterans who might’ve been exposed to it, and how to get the most of their veteran benefits. Ventrice’s husband has taken it upon himself to help others in the group receive 100% disability benefits, if they’re qualified.
“There are things you can do that they (other veterans) don’t always know about,” Ventrice said. “The government doesn’t bother to tell you all those wonderful things. He (her husband) has helped folks get their 100%, and of course, once you get that, you get a pretty good stipend and all kinds of great things like no California tax on your home.”
Helping veterans with their benefits is not unlike what Ventrice’s husband did when he served in the Vietnam War. He was 25 years old when he went over in December 1967. He left a year later. He was in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in finance, largely in charge of making sure that when those serving died in battle, their families got the maximum amount of money they could get.
Ventrice’s husband said that, in addition to guard duty and KP (kitchen patrol), he had the difficult job of dealing with the families of the dead.
“I felt immensely sorry for the person who would have been killed,” he said. “I closed their records out, and I meticulously went through the file and made sure that the next of kin got every penny coming to them — all that the deceased would have had.”
Ventrice spoke about how Vietnam veterans, for so long, had been treated unfairly over the years, especially when they came home from the war. Even World War II veterans and Korean War veterans looked down on those who served in Vietnam.
“But over the last few years, it’s been better,” she said. “People see Bob’s hat, which says Vietnam veteran or 101st Airborne, and they’ll stop and thank him for his service, which was not happening when they came home. We’re 50 years down the road, and people are finally realizing that they were drafted. It wasn’t like they ran to get into the war.”
But even veterans looked down on her husband. That’s because he worked in finance when he served.
Her husband spoke about that.
“I remember when I came home,” he said, “somebody asked me what I did in the Army, and I said, ‘Well, I was in finance.’ They immediately thought I was sitting in some gorgeous, air-conditioned office, eating ice cream sandwiches and just taking it easy. You ever see something like ‘M*A*S*H’ on TV? You know, we were out in the field, and we worked seven days a week, and it was extremely hot, and there were times we were in mortal danger. We got rocketed and I was shot at. I was also gassed.”
He added that computer programmers would get gunned down in the streets over there. Everyone there was in danger, he said, explaining that the whole country was hostile.
Ventrice said there were times when her husband should’ve been killed. She recalled a particular story he’d once told her.
“There was one time,” she said, “he was supposed to go on guard duty on a Wednesday, and they came to him and said, ‘You’re going to guard duty tonight.’ He says, ‘No, that’s tomorrow.’ They said, ‘No, the guy who’s supposed to be there tonight is sick, so you’re going tonight.’ So, instead of going to the movies, he went to guard duty, and then they (the enemy) bombed the movie (house).”
Someone was watching over him, Ventrice said.
There’s no doubt Ventrice is there for her husband. Her husband seemed more than thankful. Asked where he thought her understanding came from, he said most likely from her dad.
“Her father was in World War II, and he came back from a horrendous experience,” he said. “He was in Okinawa, which had the most vicious, worst fighting that there was. I never met her father, but he had it pretty rough, and he apparently didn’t want to talk about it very much. I understand that. You don’t want to relive it. He would’ve probably been better off, if he had to talk to somebody, it be another vet.”
Only another veteran can relate, Ventrice’s husband said. Veterans understand each other.
Ventrice has seen what those kinds of relationships have done for her husband and for others in the groups that surround them.
“The guys who go to the meetings are in better shape than most,” Ventrice said, “because they have other people who’ve been there to talk to, who know what they’ve gone through. That makes a big, big difference. Like, I have no idea what they really went through. They all get to talking to each other, and then they’re fine — or they’re at least better off.”
Ventrice’s husband said he’s been going to the meetings so long that he’s not sure when he started. But one thing he knows for sure, veterans are almost always there for one another.
He spoke about a veteran’s instinct to help a fellow veteran.
“You see another serviceman in trouble, you just go right over and help them out,” he said. “I mean, I had total strangers helping me out. One night, I actually got cold, and somebody literally took the shirt off his back and put it around me. Others have just given me money suddenly — if I happened to need it. They don’t want anything back. They just jump in and give you a break.”
Ventrice is just as willing to help. Perhaps through her own pain, she’s learned how to stand beside others when they hurt. The bond between her and her husband, born in a prayer group and tested by trauma, is rooted in compassion and deep understanding. Together, they’ve turned their experiences into purpose by helping other veterans find connection, benefits and peace.
In the end, the couple’s story is not just one of love — it’s a testament to resilience, service and the power of simply being there for one another, no matter what.
Know any unsung heroes or people in the SCV with an interesting life story to tell? Email [email protected].
