Photos: When a living casualty returns from war

Candace Desmond-Woods tries to comfort her husband, Tom, an Iraq war veteran who suffers from PTSD and alcoholism. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Sept. 8, 2013 12 AM PT

An Irvine wife and mother stands strong in her husband’s battle against invisible wounds upon his return from the war in Iraq.

Candy writes a to-do list for her husband, Tom, as they prepare to pack up and move out of their Irvine home. They were evicted after Tom tried to kick in the door one night, thinking he was back in Iraq. He recalls little of the incident. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Candy grows exasperated with her husband, Tom, as they prepare to move out of their Irvine rental home. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

After her family is evicted from their Irvine rental home, the job of packing up falls mostly on Candy as her husband descends deeper into depression. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom Woods sits alone at home after his third DUI. “I don’t know what it feels like to be happy anymore,” he told his wife. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom wakes after a few hours’ sleep under a moving blanket in his family’s rental home, from which they were evicted. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom, who served as a sergeant in the Army’s 1-4 Cavalry Regiment, unloads a moving van at a storage unit after the eviction. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Candy with her son, Blake, at Mission Hospital, where he is being treated for pneumonia. The night before, her husband, Tom, had been arrested on suspicion of his third DUI. He was convicted and spent two weeks in jail before entering a last-resort rehab program. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom looks at a photo his wife sent of their son, Blake, who was being treated at the hospital for pneumonia. Police had impounded Tom’s Jeep after his latest DUI arrest. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom has a beer at the war memorial at Northwood Community Park in Irvine. He found the names of men he had served with in Iraq and told one, “Rushing you to the hospital was the worst day of my life.” (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Candy gives husband Tom directions to the car lot where she is trying to sell his Jeep. On his Army base in Kansas, he would drive the Jeep around with an open bottle of whiskey in the cup holder. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

With son Blake nearby, Candy looks through her bills. To her, Irvine meant security and stability, and she clung to her home there at all costs -- even if her family had to go without gas or water for a time because of the high rent. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom adjusts his Army service uniform as he prepares to face a judge after a DUI arrest. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom faces an Orange County judge on DUI charges. During the hearing, he asks for his case to be transferred to Combat Veterans Court. The judge consents. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Candy faces a sense of growing isolation after her husband’s homecoming. She tries desperately to get him help. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Holding their son, Blake, at the central jail in Santa Ana, Candy gives her husband an ultimatum. After two weeks in jail, he agreed to enter a last-resort rehabilitation program. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

During a 15-minute family visit at central jail in Santa Ana, Tom sees his wife, Candy, and their son, Blake. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Tom appears in Combat Veterans Court in Santa Ana to be evaluated on his progress in rehab. Months earlier the presiding judge told him, “It is no excuse that you are a combat veteran. You are a mess.” (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Candy and son Blake visit Rio’s pawnshop in Costa Mesa to sell some belongings to help pay her bills while husband Tom was in rehab. “It was super uncomfortable for me,” she said about stepping into a pawnshop for the first time. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Blake wails as Candy awaits a tally for items she brought into Rio’s pawnshop in Costa Mesa. To help pay her bills while her husband was in a rehabilitation program, she sold her wedding ring and the treasured Tiffany necklaces her daughters gave her for Mother’s Day. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Candy celebrates Christmas Day with her children, from left, Addy, Lizzie and Blake. She didn’t tell the children that the holiday baskets were donated by strangers. She sold the Target gift cards to pay the electric bill. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Lizzie Desmond, 17, Candy’s eldest daughter from a previous marriage, watches cartoons with her half brother, Blake. Candy began worrying about how Tom would adjust to “our very busy, crazy, chaotic life” when he got home from the structured environment of the rehab program. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Photos of Blake and Tom sit on a shelf in the Woodses’ living room. Candy wants them to be among of the first things Tom sees when he comes home to rejoin his family after more than a year in a rehab program. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Blake, nearly 2, examines a book of photos his mom assembled during his father’s absence, “The Year Without My Daddy.” (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Lizzie pours beer down the sink in preparation for her stepfather’s return from Beacon House, a rehabilitation facility in San Pedro. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Lizzie helps her mom, Candy, get ready to see her husband for the first time in nearly a year. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

During her husband’s long absence, Candy felt like a war widow. As part of the recovery process, Tom makes amends to his family at Northwood Community Park in Irvine. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)