When I joined the Army, I thought I was 9 feet tall and bulletproof. I was Rambo. All it took was breathing in some toxic dust to change that.
My time in the service was cut far too short by a medical injury. (I was planning to retire in the military.) This caused me to go into a downward spiral of self-hate that resulted in me becoming a full-time alcoholic. During the worst of it, I’d end up drunk and sleeping on my mother’s doorstep. But after getting help and recognizing that there is life after injury, I vowed to spend my time helping other vets going through addiction.
In 2001, I was stationed at a port in Serbia with the Kosovo Force. We trekked across dirt roads with the turret doors of our tanks open, breathing in sand and dust that was laced with chemical warfare from when Yugoslavia faced off against the Soviets. We never wore gas masks.
Days later, my organs were shutting down. I had an enlarged heart. I quit breathing for long enough that it caused a brain injury. I was being read my last rites by the station’s chaplain and a plot was being picked out back home in West Virginia.
Miraculously, though, I survived. When I got back to the U.S., I was 100 pounds lighter. I looked like I had a gunshot wound in the chest or had been bit by a shark with all the staples covering my body.
The doctors gave me just a few years to live. I fought to see my children grow up, even though I recognized I probably would never play ball with my son or walk my daughter down the aisle.
But the comfort of family only went so far. After a year and a half of not being able to walk, being in rehabilitation and feeling like I was losing my mind or that my life was over, I fell into a deep depression.
I started self-medicating, and tequila was the easiest substance to get a hold of. I didn’t become a drunk overnight, but it didn’t take a long time, either, because the alcohol became the only thing that helped me function.
After about a decade of watching the disappointment in my children and parents’ eyes, I decided to get help at the Veterans Administration hospital in Huntington, W.V.
Through recreational therapy, I was truly able to turn my life around. It put me among guys just like myself — we were all injured in some way and a bit to ourselves. After I went whitewater rafting for the first time and experienced that thrill, I felt brand new.
I began to recognize that I didn’t need to be depressed about my situation. Sure, I may be disabled, but I’ve gotten awards for snowboarding.
Today, I spend my time volunteering with the VA helping veterans get through their struggles. I have my own home now. My kids and my mom have seen me crawling through a house; now they see me assisting others.
I lost more than a decade of my life to alcohol. Through recovery, I’ve learned that life’s too precious and losing one day is too much.
I joined the military out of a sense of service. And though I can’t continue to serve my country in that capacity anymore, I’ve dedicated my life to other veterans. I guide them through the process, counsel them or whatever is needed.
I want to be there and help them.
As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity and style. Read more stories of service here.
Category: Advancing National Service
The Cultivation of Post-Military Lives
Gordon Soderberg spent six years as a member of the U.S. Navy, but he found that his skills would be better served stateside tackling a different issue: natural disasters.
“Military teaches basic skills of being able to mobilize, to get a lot of work with a number of people” says Soderberg. “But for potential disasters that come, [a veteran is] a perfect responder to do that.”
From his work with groups like Team Rubicon and Detroit Blight Busters, Soderberg developed the idea of Veterans Village. Watch the video above to see how it’s helping veterans extend their service.
“Veterans bring an attitude of get the work done. They have leadership skills,” he says. “By having Blight Busters and the blight of Detroit as bootcamp for veterans, we get to help clean up Detroit while training.”
Building the Pipeline From Service Years to Successful Careers
Alisha Beyer was raised with the credo that, “No matter what else you’re doing, a portion of your time should always be dedicated to helping others.” But it wasn’t until she began her year of service as a member of AmeriCorps that she realized the impact she could make.
“I just knew I wanted to help people, and I had to figure out the capacity in which I could do that,” Beyer says.
Today, she does just that through her work as a field claims representative for Farmers Insurance. It’s a career that descends directly from her year of service working to help communities struggling to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy in 2013.
In this episode of NationSwell’s 8-part mini documentary series on service years, learn about Employers of National Service, an initiative that connects AmeriCorps, Peace Corps and other service year alumni with employers from the private, public and nonprofit sectors. More than five hundred employers are now a part of the program, which gives national service alumni additional opportunities to apply their skills in the workplace.
“AmeriCorps gave me a lot of training that’s very transferable,” Beyer says. “This is something I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.”
NationSwell asks you to join our partnership with Service Year Alliance. Watch the video above and learn more about how to support alums of national service. Together, we can lead a national movement to give young Americans the opportunity to help bridge the divides in our country.
The Science of Finding Life Lessons in Obituaries
If you were to die today, how would you be remembered? What would your obituary list as your greatest achievement? Odds are, it would include a story of how you helped others.
Lux Narayan, chief executive officer of UnMetric, an Artificial Intelligence-powered social media analytics platform, analyzed more than 2,000 non-paid, editorial obituaries between 2015 and 2016 for commonalities. He uncovered a consistent theme: the use of the word “help,” as in, doing a good deed or giving to others.
“Our definition of ‘life’ goes beyond our base essentials of food and shelter,” Narayan tells NationSwell. “Help could be in various forms, such as stagecraft to help wounded people or paving the way for the first black congresswoman. It’s not always help in the conventional sense.”
Your brain doesn’t just like the idea of helping others — it gets high off of it. According to a 2017 study, the act of giving causes your brain to release dopamine, the same feel-good chemicals produced during sex or celebration. Giving can also help you sleep. The end result? An increased desire to repeat the feeling and give more, which can lead to long-term benefits for the giver, the receiver and their communities.
Societies and religions have promoted kindness and generosity throughout history. But despite a near-universal agreement on the value of service, the exact amount needed to generate community-level benefits is still unknown.
Many social innovations fail to reach their potential, according to a 2014 report published by Nesta, a United Kingdom-based charity, because the ability to scale is often elusive — or not even possible.
“Not every problem needs a one-size-fits-all solution,” according to Narayan, a speaker at the recent NationSwell Summit on Solutions, who says that innovators often become trapped when forcing ideas to scale.
Narayan cites an example from his home country of India, where a news organization spotlights someone doing something positive for his or her village. By virtue of the media attention, the act of service is now scalable. But if the individual had focused on scale immediately, the efficacy of the solution at the local level might have been reduced.
“There was no need for that one person to do anything beyond helping their community,” he says. “They did it with just a few people in mind.”
Narayan acknowledges that allure of scale can be difficult to resist.
“We fall prey to the idea of touching millions of people versus one or two,” he says. “But the beauty is that if you do something beautiful and meaningful for even 10 people, it makes just as much a difference.”
This post is paid for by AARP. Lux Narayan spoke at the 2017 NationSwell Summit on Solutions as a member of the AARP Well-Lived Life panel.
My Final Act of Service
Two years ago, I was built like a tank. I’ve been built like that my entire life, having grown up as a wrestler in high school and college. Once, way back then, someone looked at me and said, “What the hell are you?”
I look much different now. It’s hard for me to speak for long periods of time, and I’m about half the size I used to be. Now, I’m happy to just get up and walk, which is a mental challenge all by itself. The guy I used to be has been destroyed by chemotherapy.
In late 2015, I was diagnosed with stage-four cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer that starts in the bile ducts. I don’t know how much time I have left; I may not even make it to my 55th birthday this December. But I’m happy that I can go knowing I’ve lived my life in complete service to others and to my family.
Except I have a teenage son, and there’s still so much to teach him.
I won’t be able to impart my wisdom to Mason as he grows up. That’s why I’m making sure he knows now the importance of living a life in service, like I have. The lessons are simple: Be humble, be open and be helpful.
Growing up, my father was constantly working, which meant he wasn’t around a ton. He did the best he could though, and I considered him my best friend. But I didn’t have someone who could mentally challenge me. I got into wrestling in the seventh grade, and my coach became that person for me instead. He ended up being a formidable figure in my life, and I’m still in touch with him today.
You could tell immediately that this man had served in the military — through his mannerisms, his attention to detail and his level of concentration. I thought, “This guy is incredible.” At an early age, my coach gave me advice that to this day I continue to take to heart:
“Don’t be a wise guy,” he would tell me. “Don’t be a showboat.”
Eventually, I joined the Marines, and that advice is what got me through basic training. Now, it’s something I teach Mason at every opportunity. We have a lot of big talks these days — especially now that I don’t know how long I have left to live — and I try to tell him who I was before the military.
I tell him not to be that guy.
When I enlisted in 1982, I was a very private person. In fact, you could say I was pretty closed off. But interaction with people is important, and you have to be open and outgoing. There is just something about being open to new experiences that makes life more meaningful. It also makes you not afraid to help people.
There is nothing more gratifying than helping others, and there are many avenues for doing that — not just through the military.
I joined the Marines after one year of college because I simply didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. In fact, the movie “An Officer and a Gentleman,” about a guy who joins the Navy, came out right before I signed up, and that shaped what I thought the military was going to be like.
I was wrong.
My time in the military wasn’t like a Richard Gere action-romance film. It was tough, and it was terrifying. But it also made me grow into a man that started to think to myself, “What can I do to give back?” What the Marines did was laser-focus my attention and instilled in me the idea that, “Hey, you’re capable of a hell of a lot more than what you’re doing now.”
I left the service in 1988, and it haunted me for a long time. I just missed it so badly. I still say that the Marine Corps was the best job I ever had. But I can no longer regret leaving, because I have the best family God could give me, and I would never have met my wife and had Mason if I had stayed.
But here’s the thing: When you serve, the experience never truly leaves you; it always stays with you. Every time something tragic occurred, I would quietly shed a tear. When 9/11 happened, I was choked up watching the coverage on TV. I felt like I should be there — I needed to help.
So off I went to Ground Zero, wearing my old and dated fatigues from the ’80s, and was able to get my way onto the search and rescue team that pulled out the first five people. It was surreal; everyone had the same look on their face, much like how they talk about the empty thousand-yard stare of soldiers who served in Vietnam. There was a gray, pinkish powder in the air, like debris mixed with blood. And it covered everything.
My cancer, my family and I believe, has a direct correlation to my time helping on the pile. But I wouldn’t take any of it back, and Mason knows that.
And that’s because service is part of me, now. I tell Mason constantly that being in service is such a selfless act. It’s contributing to something bigger than yourself. It just requires humility and the willingness to be open to help others.
Luckily for me, Mason already has most of these traits. But he’s only 14 and has a lot of growing up ahead of him and will face situations where I won’t be there to talk to him.
And that is the one thing that kills me — figuratively, of course — feeling like I’ve let down my son by dying too soon.
He’s talking right now of going to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. I hope he does. He’s smart and creative, and good in science and math. I can see him being a biomechanical engineer or something similar.
But even if he doesn’t go into military, I just want him to be happy helping people. I tell him that if he sees someone who needs help, help them. It’s a really good feeling. I promise.
As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity an style. Read more stories of service here.
Update: Anthony Egan passed away on Sunday, Nov. 19, 2017, with his family by his side. He served as a corporal in the intelligence unit of the U.S. Marines from 1982 until 1988. He then spent more than 20 years working in the pharmaceutical industry. He is survived by his wife and son in New Jersey.
Invest in What Works: National Service
National news can be jarring. We thrust from one exhausting story to the next. Just this week, we’re trying to make sense of new indictments and what they mean for our country and democracy.
These are crucial conversations, and we need to follow the facts wherever they lead. But we also need to keep our eye on immediate problems facing our communities — and come up with real solutions.
One obvious answer? National service. We should take to heart the wisdom of Fred Rogers’s mother and “look for the helpers.” They are all around us, and it’s easy to join them.
Each year, more than 80,000 Americans engage in an intensive service year through AmeriCorps. These Americans are reframing challenges as opportunities and taking action to make a difference in their communities.
I’ve seen this in my home state of Colorado where more than 2,500 people spend a year serving our local communities through national service programs like AmeriCorps.
Our State Service Commission, Serve Colorado, awards AmeriCorps program grants to organizations statewide that use “people power” to address our most critical community needs. From battling the opioid epidemic, to boosting educational outcomes for our students, to fighting hunger and housing instability — national service programs are working.
This fall, 12 AmeriCorps members will serve with the Colorado AmeriCorps Community Opioid Response Program to reduce the impact of opioid abuse. Meanwhile in Denver, where AmeriCorps members are serving in classrooms with City Year, three out of four schools served by the program have moved up in the city’s school ratings. In the San Luis Valley, members serving with La Puente Home are providing wrap-around services to people experiencing homelessness and helping their food bank network.
National service is a powerful force in times of crisis. Right now, more than 2,200 AmeriCorps members are supporting and rebuilding communities impacted by the recent hurricanes. Here in Colorado, we know all too well what an important role national service plays in disaster recovery. In 2012, during the Waldo Canyon Fire that devastated our state, more than 175 AmeriCorps members responded working with fire crews on the front lines, operating evacuation shelters, and managing volunteers. I personally saw the impact that these members had and will forever be grateful for their service.
But the time to invest in national service is not only when we need it most, but in times of shaping what our future could be.
National service programs not only address critical challenges, but are incredibly cost-effective — saving money for both local communities and taxpayers.
Through a unique public-private partnership, federal investment in national service is matched by private sources to magnify impact and increase return on taxpayer money. For every federal dollar invested in AmeriCorps, more than two dollars is matched by donations and in-kind support from private sources.
National service sees a nearly four to one return on investment to society from things like higher earnings to increased output. That’s incredible for any organization or business.
That’s why we are looking to double our investment in national service in Colorado. Plain and simple, AmeriCorps works — but it requires our investment.
National service doesn’t just strengthen our communities; it reminds us that we are changemakers. In a time when too many try to divide us — left versus right, urban versus rural — national service is exactly what we should be investing in. It’s how we can cut through the noise to make real change.
We all have a role in shaping our future. So let’s pick up a shovel, a book or a clipboard and get to work.
John Hickenlooper is the 42nd governor of Colorado and the former mayor of Denver.
How a Service Year Helps Turn Four Walls Into a Home
“A home, to me, is much more than four walls and a roof,” says Adam Hunt, a site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity in Charlotte, N.C. “I try to build homes — where you have Christmas and where you have birthdays, where you come home soaking wet after a rainy day, those kinds of things. That’s home.” As a child growing up in Lynn Haven, Fla., Hunt lived in a home built by Habitat for Humanity, an organization that constructs affordable housing and promotes home ownership for low-income families. While Hunt’s house was being built, he put in a 5-year-old’s version of “sweat equity” — picking up stray nails around the property — just like every other Habitat resident.
In this episode of NationSwell’s eight-part mini documentary series on service years, watch how AmeriCorps service year corps members help increase Habitat’s ability to provide affordable housing in Charlotte.
“[Habitat] meant a great deal of stability for myself and my family,” Hunt says. “I want to be able to give other families that same opportunity.”
NationSwell asks you to join our partnership with Service Year Alliance. Watch the video above and ask Congress to support federal funding for national service. Together, we can lead a national movement to give young Americans the opportunity to help bridge the divides in our country.
Two Women Inspiring Families of the Fallen
In the spring of 2007, during his second tour of duty in Iraq, 1st Lt. Travis Manion was killed by a sniper’s bullet. His sister, Ryan, has always remembered his courage and his dedication to service and to doing the right thing. So much so, that she thought of herself as his younger sister, even though she was 15 months older.
After her brother’s death, Ryan and her family established the Travis Manion Foundation in his honor. Their goal was to highlight the strength of character within the military community and inspire others to serve — both in their local communities and abroad.
Among the friends and family who helped Ryan and her family through their grief was Lt. (SEAL) Brendan Looney, Travis’s roommate at the United States Naval Academy. In direct support of the foundation’s mission, he dedicated his next tour of duty in Afghanistan to Travis.
But in 2010, tragedy struck again. Watch the video above to see how Ryan and Brendan Looney’s wife, Amy, have become the leaders of one of the country’s top veterans’ organizations.
E-Cycle Your Smartphone. Help a Veteran
Life on a forward operating base is dirty (no showers, only water bottles and baby wipes) and isolating. Supplies arrive via airdrops and internet connection can be fickle at best. On most military bases, deployed soldiers use WhatsApp to communicate with loved ones at home, but those living on remote ones are forced to make expensive, long-distance phone calls.
For those service members, seemingly antiquated calling cards remain the go-to.
Providing free talk time is the nonprofit Cell Phones for Soldiers. With more than 4,500 drop-off locations nationwide, the organization accepts donated devices: The newest are sold for market value, and the oldest are scraped for precious metals. (More below on the ones in between.) Profit from those sales goes towards purchasing calling card minutes. During the height of the troop surge in the Middle East, Cell Phones for Soldiers sent more than 15,000 calling cards each week.
With the number of deployed troops decreasing in recent years, Cell Phones for Soldiers has expanded its services to serve veterans here at home. It works with all the major wireless providers to give free airtime — more than 500,000 minutes each month — to former service members.
As for those donated cell phones that are in good enough shape to be used? They’re given to vets, too. By the end of 2017, the organization hopes to sign up 100,000 veterans for free cell phones and service.
Bruce Jewett, a 55-year-old veteran living in Vermont describes the phone he received from the organization as “a godsend” and says that it helps him manage the 10 to 12 doctors’ appointments he has each month to treat his shoulder and back problems.
The organization also issues one-time $500 grants to service members who find themselves in a financial hardship, such as being unable to afford rent, dental bills or car repairs.
This Unconventional Method of Treating Veterans’ Trauma Is No Joke
After losing a close family member to suicide, Sam Pressler turned to sketch comedy as a means to cope, and later, to grow from the trauma and its consequences.
While in college several years later, he learned that the suicide rate among veterans at the time was 22 deaths per day.
“My mind immediately jumped to standup comedy as a solution,” he says, softly chuckling as if to acknowledge his slightly unconventional way of thinking.
Pressler created the first comedy class for veterans while still a college student. Today, as the founder of the Armed Services Arts Partnership (ASAP), his organization holds comedy stand-up bootcamps and improv workshops at no cost for veterans, service members and military families.
Comedy is a salve… For the veterans and military families, but it’s also deeply impactful for the audience. Too often, the veteran and military experience is focused on tragedy and ignores all of the ridiculous things that happen while you’re serving. Comedy plays to the other side of that, but it also gives a space to process experiences and flip them on their heads. Things that used to upset soldiers now become the basis for their material. It turns anger into something positive.
Performing… Is a very deliberate movement to bring civilian and military worlds closer together. Fewer than 20 percent of ASAP participants have engaged in the arts in the previous year. Anecdotally speaking, that’s a result of the civilian-military gap creating apprehension in engaging in the broader civilian world. Performing allows civilians to connect with veterans in a military space. It also shows veterans and military families that their community cares about them and that they belong.
When you laugh… You form a connection with the people around you. Comedy is a communal art form. Laughter requires community. You lean into one another; you feed off of one another. You also form a connection with the person performing. When veterans are on stage, it gives them the feeling that they have an engaging, accessible voice in their community.
Once you’re an artist… You’re often drawn to use a unique voice to speak on behalf of others. One of our comics who has a service dog advocates on Capitol Hill for service dog organizations and has become an advocacy leader in other parts of his life. Another speaks at conferences about what life is like after three traumatic brain injuries.
To help veterans reintegrating… Communities need to boost their understanding and connection to returning service members. A very important part of the reintegration process is not feeling isolated. Veterans need to feel like they belong and that they’re respected. People should listen to their experiences and not just thank them for their service. We need to understand how their service impacted them.
Reporting by Chris Peak
MORE: This Is Why Hollywood’s Depiction of Veterans Must Change