Episode 88 Transcription

Welcome to episode 88 of Behind The Mission a show that sparks conversation with PsychArmor trusted partners and educational experts.

My name is Duane France and each week I'll be having conversations with podcast guests that will equip you with tools and resources to effectively engage with and support military service members, Veterans, and their families. You can find the show on your podcast player of choice or by going to www.psycharmor.org/podcast. 

Thanks again for joining us on Behind The Mission, our work and mission are supported by generous partnerships and sponsors who also believe that education changes lives. This show is brought to you by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that's free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations. 

On today's episode, I'm having a conversation with Richard Casper, a United States Marine combat Veteran, purple heart recipient, artist and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and executive director of Creativet, a nonprofit that provides art, music and writing programs for wounded Veterans with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. To find out more about Richard by taking out his bio in our show notes, let's get into my conversation with him and come back afterwards to talk about some of the key points. 

DUANE: So Rich, it's always great to connect with you, and it's great to be able to share your story and the work that you do for our fellow Veterans. A lot of times when I have these conversations, I like to start off with a story behind the organizations, why you're doing what you're doing, but for you specifically, the story is so much part of the work that you're doing. How about you share with the audience, we start off in the beginning, Marine Corps Boot Camp.

RICH: So my intention for Marine Corps boot camp, was a lot different than what ended up turning out. I joined. 2003. I only had two weeks out of high school, went straight to boot camp because I like many other Americans around that time, 2001 ish. I signed up because of 9/11. And the first opportunity I got to go serve was two weeks out of high school.

And so I get to boot camp running a gun and thinking I'm gonna be Marine Corps infantry. First one overseas fighting for my country. And I get roadblocked really quickly, as a group called special testers. And at the time I didn't know what special tester was. I honestly thought they thought I was dumb or something.

And we were going with the other special Marines over to this area, but that wasn't the case at all. Ended up being a crazy opportunity. One that I honestly couldn't turn down and it was a it's called the Yankee White Program. That's truly what it's called, not the special testers program. cause that probably wouldn't market well anyways. But it was Yankee White Program which allowed me to either guard the president of United States at Camp David or white house communications. And so I thought this was crazy because it took about two months into the three month boot camp to find out what we were actually doing. It started with a lot of psychological testing.

A lot of do you talk in your sleep? Do you have family members that go over the country? How much money do you have? All those things that they might think would make you impressionable to people asking you to certain questions or getting you to do certain things. So having a background of family who are kind of honestly really poor and a lot of siblings in jail and prison. I didn't think I was ever gonna even get this opportunity. So I went along with it, but not thinking I was gonna actually end up getting it. And, lo and behold went from 400 Marines to 20 of us. And I was one of 'em and I was selected to guard the president of the United States.

And so, my life drastically changed. I had to go to the school of infantry, just like a normal instrument. But from there I had to depart and go to security force school while all my friends were going over to Iraq. And if you imagine, around November, December timeframe in 2003, the first push to Fallujah and in the Marine Corps, we call them boots.

I was a boot. All my friends from my class went over and I lost a bunch of them. Like my name's Casper. So I was right across from Cherry and I was right across from Cartright and then horn was right. Longoria was just down past horn. All four of them died, cuz they were, one of the first people going over.

And so before I even could touch down in war, I had survivor guilt. I had this idea that I should be there. Like why am I not there? I kept trucking on, and I went through my process of going to DC for 11 months, getting my clearance to go through. And then finally to Camp David and I chose camp David because it's up in the woods and I'm more of a country boy.

And I was like, I'd rather have this than,on a air force base, somewhere flying around with the president. I chose the woods. So I was up there for about 14 months when I finally made the decision that I need to do what I joined the Marine Corps to do. And I decided from there I wanted to go to Iraq.

DUANE: And that's one of the things in a lot of the different things that amaze me about your story, Rich,  is that you could have stayed there. You could have stayed at Camp David. You didn't intend to do 20 years in the Marines. You were gonna do your stint and uou were gonna get out. And you could have stayed in Camp David safely, but instead you chose to volunteer to go to combat.

RICH: It was a weird feeling too, because it was such a gusy job. And you typically would only get 14 to 16 months up there before you'd separate, but they were low on bodies. And the first Sergeant still asked me saying hey, we definitely would keep you here if you wanna stay here. But I just, I, I remember replaying in my head and how would I feel if I was like 60 and someone asked me about my service and I didn't go, would I feel okay with that? And I honestly felt like I wouldn't, I was kind of thinking like the no regrets thing. I was like, will I have regrets? If there's an inkling that I would have a regret, I wasn't gonna do it.

So I just said, I have to go. I had to follow my heart and do what I think I need to do. And again, a big part of that I think was that survivor guilt, holding onto my friends doing it. So like, if they're gonna suffer, why not me suffer? Or this whole God complex being like, I can go over there. I won't die.

I could serve my country and I could do these things cuz that's what I was putting here on earth to do. And maybe they won't have to sacrifice that. So I went to a unit called two seven. And I did a workup with them for a while thinking I was gonna go to Iraq with them. And, uh, it didn't take, but maybe two months there, when they brought up the bad news saying, hey, Richard, by the way, you don't make our deployment.

You get out in June 2007, and we don't even leave for Iraq in January. So you don't make our deployment. You have to stay back. I was like, I can't do that. That's why I transitioned out here. Is there another unit going? But just my luck, there was a unit, it was first tank battalion. It was a tow gunner unit and they said this toe gunner unit just got a boot drop, a ton of Marines from just straight out of boot camp. And they have no NCOs and nobody with combat experience. So they ended up pulling 18 Marines from two seven and just plopping them in this toe gun unit. And me and my buddy, Jeremy Durbin, who was also at Camp David with me, ended up there with everyone else being combat Veterans.

And so we're the only kind of nubes to war, but we were both highly motivated. And the only two that volunteered everyone else from 27 already had two deployments on their belt and definitely didn't want to go. So we had to, I had to actually extend one month in the Marine Corps, just one month. Just to go to war with first toes. Cause again, I didn't even know, you could extend, or I would've stayed with two seven, but I learned that when I was at toes and they told me I also couldn't go with them. So I was like, what's the guy got to do to get to Iraq around here? And they said you could extend one month in the Marine Corps, two months, three months, six months, whatever you want.

I was like, okay, one month. That is, and so  I ended up going to Iraq with this tow. Became very close friends with my gunner. I was the vehicle commander of the first truck as a four truck little squad and patrolled MSR mobile. And within the first four months he was shot and killed and my humvee was blown up four separate times, leading to a traumatic brain injury.

DUANE: And I think that's really where, like you said, you think, you're gonna go over there what's gonna happen to me. I mean, we, we all had that. You and I had talked about that before. I had an opportunity similar to years where I could have stayed on recruiting duty and not going to combat.And for the same same reasons you did not wanting to have the regrets, the wanting to lead troops in combat, that kind of thing. But then that significantly changed your life. You were gonna get out anyway, but you went from, I'm gonna get out I'm a combat vet to now I'm a severely wounded combat vet, that has some significant trauma that I'm trying to deal with.

RICH: Yeah. And the crazy thing about that was, I didn't know, I had the trauma. I figured that you after the four months, I'm there for seven months total, but the first four months I'm considered untipped for duty. So for the next few months, I'm just waiting to take a plane ride back home. They're not sending me to get cat scan, not sending me to do anything outside of just staying on base and doing no brainer stuff. I legitimately didn't have to use my brain. That's why I didn't know I had brain issues besides my migraines. I had constantly, they were slowly going away. I'd have 'em for days straight. And then they'd only be like eight hours in a day or 12 hours in a day or sporadic or some days I would have hardly have 'em then the other days I would, but it still felt like it was trending downward.

I just thought I was really rocked and didn't know what. And plus I had didn't really deal with the death of my friend either. So I wasn't like feeling anxious. I wasn't feeling issues with that while I was overseas. And so I touched down and I check on the Marine Corps, don't seek help. So I didn't get medically separated.

I just thought I was fine. And I remember seeing a report afterwards, but it said something like PTSD doesn't really manifest to about 90 to a hundred days out, of service typically or something data might have changed since I saw that long time ago, but that's kind of right on point with what happened to me, cuz it was right around when I started going to college again.

I think the very first semester I didn't have anxiety as a freshman but I had that's where I found out my brain injury because I started failing all my classes. Then after I started failing my classes, I started getting really sick the next semester, not being able to go to class and other things like physically throw up if I had to give a speech that day. And I started taking a bad turn and I was trying to study entrepreneurship and business, and I figured, you know what, there's two options for me. After serving at Camp, David there is a three lettered agency like C B or something, but I wanna be an agent. I don't wanna be anything else, which I need a degree for.So get my degree, but I'll do it in business in case that doesn't work out and I could be an entrepreneur or something else. But after failing that class and starting to get sick and seeing there's real big issues there that's the first time ever went to the VA hospital. I checked in, told 'em what I did, what happened to me.

And I ended up being diagnosed with my left traumatic brain injury and my PTSD, tendentious and disc protrusion and arthritis and all these other things. I had no idea I even had. And I just went even darker into a hole because as you know, in 2007, there wasn't a lot of of support for TBIs and PTSD, even in the VA space.

And so everyone was getting ratings at the time and they didn't really fully understand it. And, I didn't understand it. So I just was like, okay, what now? And they said, hey, if your brain doesn't get better in a few years, it probably won't get better. So even the messaging around it, wasn't very helpful.

And so I went down a bad path, but I was still always very optimistic about life and thought, you know what? Even though I can't do a lot of stuff I used to do, I still believe I can get into this three letter agency if I just get a degree. So if I'm failing these classes, because I can't learn new technical skills and other things, what if I had to do something that wasn't very technical like art. I was like, I could do art. I could be around kids who don't want to talk to me and I don't want talk to them. They're very artist-type. That's my brainwaves at this time and easy degree, I'll skate through it at this community college in Bloomfield, Illinois, Heartland Community College, shut up.

And I ended up just diving in and drawing and painting and creative writing. But the thing that really helped me because all of it was therapeutic because I wasn't really thinking about war when I was doing it, which was helpful. But the thing that kind of like really changed my whole trajectory on life was having a really good teacher who taught me how to use conceptual art and concept behind one of my stories.

He knew I was dealing with something. I told him a little bit about my issues only because I had to report my disabilities to him and tell him why I wasn't talking to anybody and doing the normal critiques like everyone else was. And I ended up doing this chalk pastel drawing of me at my Gunner's grave, cuz I go visit him every single year in Houston, Texas.

I haven't missed a year since, and I even had to take a final from his mom's house because I was not gonna miss that day. And I told the teachers she could fail me. But I was going to visit my friend. And wait I’m sorry my brain injury is kicked out. I lost track of where I was at.

So my uncle took a photo of me on his grave that I just absolutely love. And I said, I wanna capture this for me, nobody else, but me and I, why not do this in class? And I push myself away from everyone else. So I'm in a corner and I'm coloring in this thing the way it's supposed to be colored my skin tones, my Cammy shorts, my black cutoff t-shirt, the headstone.

And I get to the only thing left that I have not colored in yet the grass which is green. And the teacher walks up behind me and he says, hey Richard, why don't you try to do a different color than green? I know that's what you're gonna do. Cause that's what's in the image. But if you do it a different color, it's gonna make the audience in the person looking this know for one that, that something's different about this, that the artist who created this was most likely the one was in this image as well. Like you can make it so that you're not in the room and they still know your story, which I thought was dumb because I'm not an artist. I didn't understand symbolism and how people who understand art read art. And so, again, thinking, this is kind of, I didn't wanna ruin this image.

I still did it. I was like, good Marine. I said, you know, I'll do everything red. And I chalk pasted out the whole background, bright red, not knowing why. Then I start, we have to do this critique. And again, I was very art dumb, and didn't understand talking in front of people and I didn't wanna talk in front of people, but I still pretty proud of how the art piece turned out, even with the red.

So I put it up on the wall, they come to me, they say, Richard, do you wanna talk about your piece? I say, heck no, I'm not gonna talk about a piece. And then they said, students, what do you think Richard was doing with this piece? And one by one, they all had something to say. And one of the kids is like, I think  you put red in there because you're angry your friend died. And one other one said, I think you put red in there because you saw his blood. You were with him when he died. And that's the one that really got me. I was like how would they know that with one color? That was me with my buddy when he died. Just for a split second, I felt like I was connected to them these 18 19 kids who had no life experience at all the ones that me and you think will never connect and understand with us. They understood me for a split second. And I was like, man, if I could do that with one color, what can I do with all the colors?

What can I do with patterns? What can I like? What is this voodoo witchcraft that I just discovered? And so I decided to dive all. And just go for it. And I started really exploring, and it was so weird because I was getting excited to talk about things I never talked about. Like my brain injury. None of them knew about my brain injury. None of them knew about my back issue, but I started doing art about my back issue, my brain injuries, and talking about with them, which is crazy to me. 

And so we had this representative from the School Of Arts Institute Of Chicago come down and I never knew what the school was. It was in my own backyard, just three hours north and never heard of it. And they were like, Walt Disney went here, Georgia Keith went here, side note, Hugh Hefner went there, phenomenal artist all these people went there, these alumni and I'm sitting here like, wow, I could be in this school. That sounds pretty neat.

Maybe I'll try it. And, my teacher same awesome teacher tried to get me not to go there only because he didn't want to get my heart broken cause you have to have a lot of money or study art your whole life. And I neither. But again, optimism, man. I just went for it. I thought I would go up there. I would just sell myself.

And I went up there with my nine pieces of art. Usually, they want 15 to 20. I think seven of mine were still alive and they want all conceptual art. And so I had to pitch myself and I told them all the things I wanted to do, not all the stuff I did, but I was like, here's what I want to do. I want you to know what it feels like to be blown up without being blown up.

I want you to know what the loss of innocence looks like through art, but I can't do that without your school. And I just sold myself hard and the lady brought in another person to hear my story. And I told them too, and they said, you know what? Let's give 'em a shot. And that was probably the best thing that ever happened.

DUANE: Yeah. And, there is so much more to your story and just so you know, obstacles that you've overcome. I know listeners are hearing a lot of these obstacles, but one of the things that's always amazed me about you is how you took something that worked for you. Like you could have the Art Institute of Chicago, you could have gotten the degree, and you could have gone on and run a gallery somewhere like you could have taken this thing that's helped you and just let it help you. But then you are like, I can't keep this a secret. I have to use it to help other Veterans. And that's how CreatiVets.

RICH: Yeah, it was honestly 'cause I was in it for myself. I honestly didn't really, I’m one of those guys that didn't really like other Veterans, other Marines. Like I didn't, if I saw 'em and I know someone was, I kind of just didn't wanna talk to them really. And when I was going through it, I didn't know how much I was actually struggling in those moments.

But when I graduated from school, The Art Insitute of Chicago and I looked back in my life and said, you know what? There was no other intervention that I had besides art education, music education. I went to the VA to get diagnosed, but I never really went back there and I didn't go to any other nonprofits.

But now here I am, I had to do one on one speeches with my speech teacher in college. And now I'm out here going to get jobs and talking to people and going out and living a good life. What changed me? And I started just backtracking, looking at all these little things and yeah, I had the opportunity. I actually went to a few, a few of those job interviews with like, where they have, it's a governmental one where they had FBI, they had CIA, they had the marshalls,  they had a ATF, they had everyone there.

And I went around and I started hanging out my resume a little bit. And then I was like, you know what? I don't like, what if another Veteran is suffering like me, but they don't know art is an option. And they don't know music is an option. And then, so I started googling it and trying to find art programs and music programs that were kind of. I even got to the point, cause we do songwriting that I met Craig Morgan up in Wisconsin at this festival.

And I got mean greet passes just to ask him if he knew of any organizations that did songwriting with Veterans to tell them stories. And he said, no, and he's a Veteran himself. And so I said, if Craig Morgan, who right at that moment, two, this is like 2010, 2011 when he was like his heyday. And I was like, if a Veteran at his stature in country music at this level doesn't know of any songwriting programs, they must not. That's when I went back and I decided I need to do something, I need to create something because I didn't want Veterans like myself to suffer. And my, and we didn't even go into my full story, but the whole way I even got there is ridiculous. And nobody else is gonna take that path I did. So I was like, I need to make a path for them that they instantly see and they can't turn down.

And so, yeah, CreatiVets was built off my story and it was how do I get Veterans so excited? That I outweigh their anxieties and their depression with this happiness excitement because I was the test dummy. I was the subject I used to be like, okay, I couldn't do anything without a battle buddy.

That's the first thing I need in my program, a battle buddy. I didn't have a lot of money to do anything. And I was, going broke going to this private school cuz my Montgomery GI bill didn't pay for private school. I need to be able to make sure everything's paid for, the excitement thing. I was like, I wouldn't go to a normal community like college art class, just a three week thing if I wasn't enrolled in school. So this has to be somewhere like very prestigious, kinda like the Art Insitute of Chicago. And so I'm taking all these things that made me move the needle to be a better human and just better mental health wise. I just said, you know what, first thing I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna take Veterans to Nashville and I'm gonna pair them with number one writers, because who's gonna turn down no matter where you're at in life, who's gonna turn down a free trip to Nashville with another Veteran, to experience music and write with a number one writer.

And I was right because nobody has turned it down since we started. And it, yeah, it's something I needed to do. Honestly, I it's another regret thing. If I would've never started it, I would've regretted it the rest of my life. Wondering if I could have saved lives.

DUANE: And again, I think that's one of the things that makes your story and not to say unique because there are many people that do that. What helps me? What works for me and then how do I help other Veterans find that? But really through your passion and like you said, really, to be honest, your optimism, you've not let it slow you down.

And so you've talked about your journey and how art and creativity helped you. But for listeners who I may be surprised if they don't know about CreatiVets, but talk a little bit about CreatiVets, the work that do in the programs and how others can get.

RICH: Yeah. Our main mission is to help empower wounded Veterans, to heal through arts and music. And it started with combat Veterans. And then we changed it to wounded Veterans just to try to get encompassing more of the Veteran, who cause a lot of people didn't think they were in combat like a cook who's on a Ford operating base with 40 Rangers and he's losing people like that's combat, but it's not combat-related.

So we had to change the wording just to make sure they also felt included into applying for our programs, but that's who we mainly serve for major programs. And we spend three weeks fully accredited it's an art program in Chicago. Mainly it's in Chicago. We've hosted this in the Art Insitute of Chicago, Virginia Commonwealth, University of Southern California and Belmont University.

And what we do is we pay for the Veterans tuition, housing food all three weeks, while they're at this Art Institute of Chicago, learning how to tell their story for the first time. Doesn't matter where you live in the country, we will fly you out to make sure you have access to it. And we teach this worry brain to our brain transition.

It's not art therapy, not music therapy. You're legitimately learning art education about your story. It is therapeutic in nature. What you're doing is gonna like you're gonna be lost in this art form, and it's gonna make you not think about war then on top of that, we layer it with education that makes you more emotional intelligent, and how to take away your triggers and attack things through art and think thinking like an artist.

And so it's a phenomenal program, mainly hosted in the summers. And then we have our four day songwriting program in Nashville where we'll fly Veterans from anywhere in the country to Nashville, Tennessee. And now we write backstage at the grand old Opry with number one, songwriters and artists. We bring five Veterans at a time and they're all paired up with five battle buddies who've been through our program to mentor them for the whole four days that they're here, help them tell the story they need to tell. Not the one they think they want to tell, but the one they need to tell, the only way you get to that is peer to peer interaction, discovering what truly is going on with you.

And it's a phenomenal program, but those are our two main ones that people know. Some that they don't know about is like we just got back, from Astrophotography at Big Bend with the McDonald Observatory, part of University of Texas Observatory, teaching Veterans how to do Astrophotography. We did a partnership with the Dallas Museum Art with the art box program and sending people down there.

And so we do arts and music program around the country, and we also do a ton of what I call B2B in the nonprofit space.We partner with Mission Continues and Wounded Warrior Project and Camp Resilience and the National Ability Center,Heroes Haven, National Military Family Association. We actually build our programs inside of their programs that are already phenomenal, and we include arts and music programming on top of it.

And again, it's to track more Veterans. When we bring these hit writers to these organizations, they're getting a lot more people applying for the programs to meet songwriters and do that process, but they also get these touch points of seeing their life changing work. And it's a huge win-win for all of us, cuz we all get to serve and just enhance our programs.

So we do a ton of stuff and we also, the songs that we create with Veterans, we started releasing. So we have our 40 songs released that are free on, any of the streaming platforms that Veterans and spouses and anybody who wants to learn more about Veterans to definitely listen to, because there are songs about relationships with their kids for the first time, with relationship with their spouses, with sort of war story songs, inspirational songs, almost anything you could think of we've written about and we've released it.

DUANE: You know how big a fan I am of the work that you do and the work that your organization does. For those who are listening, who aren't familiar with CreatiVets, it is a phenomenal organization. And I know you've heard it from a lot of people that, that you really are doing a lot of things to help a lot of people. So if people wanted to find out more about CreatiVets, if they're a Veteran, if they're a family member or Veteran, they think they wanna help them get connected how can they do that? 

RICH: You go to www.CreatiVets.org.There's only one V. And so we get this a lot. People will spell it creative, and then vets is two separate words. Just spell out creative, and then just add a little Ts to the end of it. But Instagram is one of the best ways to keep in touch and our newsletter. If you're on our newsletter or your phone or Instagram, cause we're still a small team.

We do so much around the country. In fact, we have about 30-something programs or, or events happening between now and December 3rd. And there's only four full-time people on staff. So we, and we're all around the country. So newsletter and Instagram are two major resources. We try to update all of them, but those seem to be the quickest. So please follow us on. Listen to our music, sign up for our newsletter, and you're gonna find a lot more about us.

DUANE: Absolutely. I'm gonna make sure all of those links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

RICH: Thank you for helping me share my story and spread the word.

Once again, we would like to thank this week's sponsor, PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory that is free individual learners, as well as custom trading options for organizations. 

So Richard and I spent more time than usual on a story and not as much time on the work of CreatiVets, but as I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, Richard's story is so much a part of the work of the organization that I knew it would be helpful for you, the listener to go on that journey with us.

As he said he was the model for the program. He went through the experience and then he built the program based on what he learned. 

One of the things I want to point out is something that Richard said, which points to the unique nature of military and Veteran mental health. And sharing his experience at bootcamp he identified all of the buddies he was in training with who immediately deployed and ultimately died in combat. Richard said before I even touched down in war, I had survivor's guilt. Even without setting foot on the battlefield without experiencing any direct combat whatsoever he experienced traumatic loss of a uniquely military nature. 

When I talk about mental health, I'm sometimes ask why we should focus on trauma treatment in the military and Veteran community and not address trauma broadly. This is especially the case when I talk about suicide prevention in the military, don't we want to reduce suicide in the entire population? 

Don't the lives of those who didn't serve matter as much as the lives of those who did? My answer is of course we want to reduce suicide for everyone in our country. But the mental health needs of those who served especially combat Veterans is so different that it requires special attention and unique skills to address them. This is one example Richard's experience of traumatic loss and the guilty felt for taking an amazing opportunity, led him to make decisions years later, to deploy to combat when he didn't have to leave in that decision, which may seem surprising to some makes total sense to me. Because as I mentioned, I had a similar experience. And it would make sense to many who served. 

The other point that I'd like to make is how CreatiVets helps Veterans tell the story they need to tell. I just like art helped Richard tell the stories he needed to tell. He's got countless examples of how art helps Veterans tell their own stories either through conceptual art or their music. 

He's got amazing examples, such as one Veteran who created a miniature sculpture of a bedroom with a closet. The bed is messed up and unmade the closet doors open, and there's a sleeping bag on the floor inside demonstrating how the artists found that the only way that they could sleep is curled up inside a sleeping bag in the floor of their closet, which felt like the bunker they lived in when they deployed to combat. Even that brief description, doesn't do the peace justice and art can go deep and be so full of meaning. Even to the point of the number of tiny hangers in the miniature closet, representing the people they lost. And I know this, not just from learning about CreatiVets as an organization, but experiencing it directly. 

I had the opportunity to experience the healing power of what Richard and his organization does. Several years ago, Richard reached out and asked if there were any Veterans in Colorado who would like to write a song about their experiences. CreatiVets had been asked to come to speak at a local bunker labs event and they usually wanted to share how they wrote a song with a local Veteran. Then perform that song at the event. 

You offered to find him someone and he said, what he really meant was they wanted to come out and help me tell a story that I needed to tell. In 2009 and 2010, I was part of a unit that was providing security escort for logistics patrols and regional command in East Afghanistan. Every two or three days, we would escort supplies from the main base in Jalalabad to one of the farthest forward operating bases in our sector. Fab Bostik. 120 miles away. Given the roads in the terrain would usually take six or eight hours to go the first 100 miles And another six to eight hours to go the last 20. The roads were narrow, unpaved, winding with the mountains on one side and the Qunar river on the other. In the fall of 2009 in the spring of 2010, we knew that it wasn't a matter of if we would get attacked in those last 20 miles, it was when. 

October of 2009 was an extremely difficult time for our brigade. And the beginning of the month, one of the most significant battles of the war in Afghanistan occurred, the battle of Kadesh also known as Cop Keating. The movie outpost books have been written about it. The most decorated battle with two medals of honor awarded and countless other metals for baller. These soldiers were in the Calvary Squadron we supported. 

In October alone, our brigade lost nearly 20 soldiers to combat action beginning with the eight casualties at Cop Keating and ending with the loss of someone in my unit Sergeant EduvigesWolf on October 25th. For a number of reasons, as we were planning this particular patrol, one of the vehicles was one crew member short. 

We usually ran a crew of four and a vehicle, but three was the bare minimum. One of our platoon leaders was going to be without a radio operator and Sergeant Wolf volunteered to go on. My role at the time was to build the crew list along with my fellow platoon Sergeant. He and I went back and forth about whether or not to put a fourth person in that crew or not. And ultimately he convinced me and we recommended that Sergeant Wolf joined the crew. 

On that mission, a rocket-propelled grenade pierced the side of the vehicle and we lost Sergeant Wolfe. Every year on October 25th, I visit the Fort Carson Memorial that includes Sergeant Wolf's name and leave a white rose in her memory just as Richard never misses a year of visiting his friends headstone in Texas. My pain and yes, my guilt at her loss is still significant. 

And that's the story that I needed to tell. And that's the one that CreatiVets helped me tell. Over the course of a day, me Richard and the songwriting buddy that he brought with him, went back and forth and wrote a song that's not only brought me healing, but it's been helpful for all of us who have felt a measure of guilt at her passing, but also has been able to be shared with her family. 

I had the honor of being able to communicate with a couple of Sergeant Wolf sisters who shared their appreciation for the song. If you're interested in hearing it, I have a link to the song in the show notes, and you can hear the song in its entirety after the end of this episode. 

Like all stories, there is much more to it than this, but I wanted to provide you an example of the work that CreatiVets does and how it has helped me personally. There are many paths to healing and art is one of them. And Richard and CreatiVets is an example of how art is helping those who served tell the stories they need to tell. 

So hopefully you found this conversation beneficial, again, a heavy subject, but also important. If you appreciated my conversation with Richard, let us know. Leave us a  review in your podcast player of choice and send us an email at info@psycharmor.org. We would appreciate knowing that you're listening, what you think and what you would like to hear about in future episodes.

For this week's PsychArmor Resource of the Week, I'd like to share the link to the PsychArmor course, Traumatic Brain Injury. TBI is considered a signature wound of the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and its prevalence in military service members. And Veterans makes it an important topic to review for those who support veterans. You can find a link to the resource in our show notes.