- [Narrator] Students Empowered to End Dependency who produce "Voices of Hope" thank MEMIC for sponsoring this important program.

- [Female Narrator] While not all veterans struggle with the transition from military service to civilian life, many experience life-threatening conditions and trauma requiring treatment.

Please be advised that tonight's episode contains some scenes of actual war footage.

(slow ambient music) (indistinct chattering) - But I didn't truly realize the level of trauma and the exposure to trauma that combat produces until I went there and you just don't know.

Literally people are trying to kill you every day, and you're trying to kill them.

(indistinct chattering) - Pretty shortly into that deployment, you know I had to make a decision.

You know, are you gonna try and make it home?

Or are you gonna try and do your job?

And I think that was pretty common with our unit.

We just had to accept the fact that we probably weren't gonna make it home and once you were able to do that and kind of mourn yourself, then it made doing your job so much easier.

(background music playing) - When you go down the road in a vehicle, you're hyper-focused.

Again, you have to put it out of your mind that every trash bag could be an IED or you'll drive yourself crazy.

(slow ambient music) - So my name's Travis Mills, I'm a retired United States Army staff sergeant, I served in the 82nd Airborne Division.

And on my third deployment to Afghanistan, I happened to set my backpack down on an IED, the roadside bomb.

And when it went off, it took off portions of my, you know arms and legs.

I became one of five surviving quadruple amputees, and I was fortunate to make it through my injuries.

There was a lot of surgeries and doctors and nurses, and just a wide array of things that went in my recovery process.

- One of the things that was very difficult was I went to the morgue every time that one of my people was killed, my commander and I would go to the morgue and put the awards that the individuals had earned onto their body bags.

And that's something that obviously still makes me struggle, because I realized that I could be talking to a kid, and seconds later, he's gone, he's never coming back.

It was a privilege and an honor to be the last person from the unit to say goodbye to these young men before they return to Dover and to their families.

(upbeat ambient music) - [Female Narrator] These are the voices of Maine veterans, who like many of our friends and family become attached to addictive drugs and alcohol, and who often struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This series is intended to draw attention to this reality while humanizing, educating and elevating the potential for change.

For those in need, the people we profile demonstrate that transformation and serve as an inspiration for those still struggling.

Please join us as we introduce you to Maine's "Voices of Hope."

- Somebody packing the ammunition for us had laid this flag, but they had taken the time to write on this flag, "Destiny angel, be my angel.

Watch over me, for you can see my destiny.

Our hearts are full with dreams of home for those who make it, and those who don't.

Wipe away our loved ones tears.

Guide them through their daily fears.

Keep us strong, show us the way.

Bring us home, home to stay."

- [Female Narrator] Listen as Maine veterans describe the gritty role of war and their personal struggles to cope with the aftermath.

- It's not a job when you're in the military, it really is a lifestyle, so it's a 24/7 society.

And then when you think about the kind of the culture in the military that kind of, they really kind of work hard, deploy hard and then there's the hangout and party piece of that.

You know, we're gonna party hard and play hard kind of mentality, so alcohol is a huge part of that kind of culture.

- I was the first member of my family to graduate high school, attempt college, that didn't work out so well, so I joined the service.

I left when I was 17.

Interestingly enough actually on deployment was my first drink, I never really drank before that.

So I went to Iraq.

You know, it's a war zone, things happen.

Inability to adapt or readapt to a normal environment I struggled with.

And so substances allowed me to be in social settings and not freak out.

- When you join, you are basically writing a blank check for your life to the country.

You know, they harassed us.

Even our counterparts, our co-soldiers, two of us were raped because of being a lesbian, so I suppose today's terms would be considered a hate crime.

Therein began my drinking and using to escape.

- So I served in the Marine Corps from 2009 to 2013 as a heavy equipment operator.

It was a super rough deployment.

We ended up losing 25 guys, hundreds wounded.

We were actually deemed combat ineffective at one point, and they were sending guys straight from training over just to kind of fill holes, 'cause we didn't wanna, you know give up or quit, but it was over there when I realized that I was starting to struggle.

I couldn't sleep, I was getting sleep meds from the corpsman.

And just angry, like all the time.

- Giant impact for me was my best friend from college was killed two weeks into that deployment.

That's early on, that deployment was pretty rough.

And he was killed down South, he was a marine lieutenant.

I never grieved, you know, losing him.

I had no idea how to.

- Combat or combat-like situations, and maybe some of the traumas that come with that, it's not always easy to express that.

You know, I was scared, there was a lot of fear.

So it's easy to suppress a lot of that.

(sad ambient music) - When we think about veterans transitioning back from either active combat or whatever deployment they might have had, I think recalibration is an excellent word, because it is a difficult transition for many veterans.

- You know, at the time, I couldn't really identify what it was, but I mean, it was this loss of community, identity, purpose, all of those things.

Was in a relationship that was complicated.

You know, she had her stuff going on, I had a lot of my stuff going on with work and trying to figure out how to live civilian life.

And it was funny because she recommended yoga and you know, I remember at the time I was just like, I'm not gonna do yoga.

Like, why would I do yoga?

That's not gonna help with anything, that's not gonna help with any of this.

Yeah, yoga, you know, not to sound overdramatic, but it legitimately saved my life.

Our breath in particular, and meditation and physical movement in yoga and these different things, you know impact our nervous system and impact our overall health and our ability to sleep and eat and digest and our immune system.

It helped me get to a point where I felt like I could ask for help, and actually, you know dive deeper into therapy and dive deeper into just what exactly, you know is going on with myself.

- It's notable the change that took place, I began isolating from everybody.

I depersonalized my relationships with my coworkers, with my friends, with my family.

Unfortunately, as I look back during that period of time, while it served me in my career, I lost a great portion of my life.

I would be in a room with family functions and things and not have a clue what was going on, because I was so in my own head and that was the only thing that was important to me at that time.

- I wasn't, when you ask, you know, how did I reintegrate?

Well, I didn't, because I intentionally avoided it.

And I look back now, and I did that because I was afraid of who I'd become.

I was afraid that the things that I had done on the battlefield made me, I looked back and I kind of looked at myself as an animal, like a savage.

And I felt that because I had done things in combat that I would never be able to reintegrate back into society.

I didn't know how to do it, 'cause there was two sides of me.

There was the actor I used to refer to myself as, you know, when I quit this job as a contractor, I said my acting career is over and everybody started laughing.

And they're like, what are you talking about?

I said, "You don't know me, I don't even know who I am."

So I put this act on so I could be successful.

I went and got a master's degree and all this other stuff, these external validation things and yet I was still afraid of who I was and didn't know who I was.

- You know, they're very mission focused.

When they're deployed, they know exactly what they're doing every day, every minute of every day.

And so when they transition back to civilian life, sometimes just being presented with so much time and opportunity and choice can be difficult.

- When I got back from deployment, I came back to Texas and all my family's in Maine.

I was actually going through a divorce at the time, and I was just really lost.

My brain and my body were not in sync with one another and kind of running in opposite directions, so i think I turned to substances to smooth it all out, so to speak.

- I couldn't leave the house without a set of keys or something in my hand.

And looking around, I couldn't go into a restaurant without having my back to the wall.

And all the while trying to keep this a secret, you know, without telling people, this is why I'm like that.

- So I went over to Afghanistan due to addiction and looking to save my house and stuff.

I took a contracting job in Afghanistan to make up for some money, and I had to return from over there and move with my children up here to Maine.

From that point is when it really went off, I'd say for me, with my addiction and that big part of that had to do with not being able to relate to anybody out here.

I was a single father driving around a minivan with a three and a 1-year-old daughter and I couldn't really relate to people on the outside here.

And when that happens, that kind of makes you recluse into your own head.

- Came back home, and then I really knew that something was wrong.

I was getting violent at work with junior Marines, arguments at home with my wife were escalating and then I found out she had been cheating on, so we ended up getting divorced.

I was just super angry.

I was on all these meds that the docs had gave me for PTSD and and whatnot, I like to call 'em the zombie cocktail, I couldn't feel anything.

- We lost way too many veterans, especially to overdose unintentional or intentional to suicide.

And when you work with somebody in a mental health capacity and we lose them, it does, it takes an emotional toll.

It's, I'm sorry.

(sad ambient music) - I walked up to the edge of the road and I looked up at the sky at the time, my belief system was definitely flawed.

I looked up to the sky and I said to God, if you're really out there, take me.

I just, I can't do this anymore, so I closed my eyes and I walked across the street.

A vehicle went behind me and on the back of my jacket, I could literally feel the mirror scrape across the jacket and my hair splitting around my face.

The second that happened, I die inside all over again and it was because the truck didn't hit me.

- So one night I had gone out to a bar with my brother-in-law actually.

And on my way home, I was pretty drunk.

And I just decided, you know I don't wanna be alive anymore.

So I drove off the road doing 120 and somehow missed every tree in the tree line.

Made it a hundred yards in, hit a boulder and stopped, got out and immediately thought to myself, like, you're so useless you can't even kill yourself.

- The veterans are incredibly honest with it.

They will tell you if they trust what you're doing, if they trust the program, they will tell you, yeah, I think I'm gonna hurt myself today.

- Suicide is an easier way out than dealing with the conflict in front of you.

And sometimes when we don't have hope, that seems that the only door that's available.

And sometimes it just takes somebody saying, no, there's a door over here you could use too.

They come back from their service and they're really struggling with the transition of not sure what the next step should be.

And I think that's why they end up in our program in suicide prevention, because that not knowing what to do, not knowing where to turn leads sometimes to these thoughts of wanting to hurt oneself or wanting to actually act on suicidal thoughts.

- So I think sometimes this is perception that veterans have of themselves that I need to be strong enough.

I need to not let somebody else know that I'm struggling, 'cause if I do that, then I gotta admit that I need help and if I need help, what does that say about me?

(sad ambient music) - I did walk into the VA in Bangor and I didn't even have a DD214 on me, and I was always told the VA sucks this, that or the other.

It takes so long to get in.

Well, I can say full heartedly, that the VA saved my life because I walked into the clinic that day and I was at about a nine.

And the guy said, "You look like you need help brother, sit down."

And I said, "I don't even have a DD214 for him to show my military career."

And he told me to take a seat.

And I think if he probably would've said, you gotta go do this, that, or the other on the computer, and I would've walked out that door, I don't know if I'd be here today.

- The VA has put a lot of time and energy into it, into helping us and I am internally grateful for it.

I would probably be dead if it weren't for this group.

And I know that sounds dramatic, but if you look at the statistics, there are so many soldiers out there, ex-soldiers, veterans that are homeless that have died via overdose, suicide, it's a pandemic out there.

- Collectively what we really do well at VA Maine is our ability to assist veterans through levels of care.

We're able to offer veterans hospitalization for detox.

We can get them referrals to residential programs, including the intensive outpatient program, which I run support groups, individual therapy.

And really what it comes down to is once they walk through the door, we're gonna take care of them from kind of nuts to bolt start to finish and move them to where they want to be within their own recovery.

- There's something that I notice a lot between veterans and civilian people is the concept of team.

Because you are broken down into the team concept or the mission, and then that's where you learn to work and not for self and I see that a lot on veterans.

They're a lot mission oriented, they're a lot team based.

And when we don't have that back here at home, we don't know what to do and I like to look at it like we're kites without weights.

- Just like anything in medicine, we do it based on life-threatening, so what's the most life-threatening issue here?

Is it the physical issue?

Is it the mental health issue?

Is it the substance issue?

You know what I mean?

So we order it in that way and then we come up with a treatment plan based on that.

- One of the vital components of recovery is our ability to offer an attentive outpatient program here at VA Maine, our whole goal is to help you reconnect with yourself throughout the six weeks.

And it's got its roots in cognitive behavior therapy, acceptance, commitment therapy, 12 steps as well as support groups.

- The VA is not the VA 20, 30 years ago or 40 years ago.

It is a new VA, it's new Veterans Affairs that understands and cares about us now, the medical care is better.

The mental health care, they put so much time and energy into it, there is help out there now.

I would succumb right back to being a closeted drunk, a closeted user.

And I don't know what would happen to me if I went back there to go to these meetings to go to Ed's group, the rehab groups keeps me alive, it's as necessary as air.

- My one message to veterans come walk through the door, that is the first and hardest step that you're ever gonna do in achieving your recovery goals.

Once you do that, you'll have a team of professionals.

You'll have my team, our team, and we're gonna do everything we can to help you achieve your goals, to rebuild your life, to find that purpose and to heal those relationships.

But the most important thing, we can't help you if you don't come through that door.

- Amongst recovery.

I mean, I think the biggest challenge for myself, people, places, things.

I had to change everything about myself, it's amazing to discover who you are all over again.

You know, or learn things about yourself that you never knew existed or the person you've become because of things, obstacles you've been through and have overcome.

- So I start from very humble beginnings.

My mother dropped out of school in eighth grade.

She had her first child when she was 15, she had four children before she was 24.

My father obtained his GED at Thomason State Prison.

In 2004 I witnessed (indistinct) beheading Nicholas Berg on TV and in Ambar province.

And that really drove me to want to go be part of rebuilding Iraq.

What was unique about Iraq and Afghanistan, I feel, is that half of our force, there were National Guard army reserves and many of us did multiple tours.

A large part of our forces is firefighter, EMT, police officers, people already have that emotional trauma from the jobs in the civilian world and then we go to Iraq and there's a lot of killing.

And the killing that happens in war isn't like in the movies, you know it's a very violent environment where in my case, in the infantry, we're trying to kill the enemy and they're trying to kill us every day, that's what we're doing, we're doing our best to find a way to kill the bad guys and they're trying to kill the bad guys too.

All depends on what side you're on, right?

And we did a lot of that.

And so when I came back from Iraq, I was still in that hypervigilant state.

I was also, I found that the trauma that I was exposed to, not just exposed to, but the trauma that I delivered on others, you know made me quick to an anger and made me quick to emotion.

And so when I'd open up those files of the traumatic events that I had witnessed and imposed on others, it made me very emotional.

And when I first come back for the first few years, I couldn't speak of Iraq really without becoming emotional.

And even to this day, 17 years later, I still am emotional sometimes when I think about the events that occurred there as a result of my anger, I think and as my emotion.

And so I went to togas Veterans Administration.

And I guess some help, I did some outpatient work, about 16 weeks of it.

And my counselor and I would sit in a darkened room with a recorder between my legs and he'd have me recount events that happened there that were particularly traumatic.

And when I first started, I wasn't able to do much of it without breaking down.

I mean, 10 seconds into it.

And I was doing the first person I would say things like, bulldog seven, bulldog seven, this is razor over, go ahead razor.

And so the radio transmissions and you know, what are you feeling?

Dirt in my teeth, dehydrated headache, diesel smell, you know the diesel engines, those sorts of things.

And over time it diminished as Sheriff Liberty, as Warden Liberty, as Commissioner Liberty as Command Sergeant Major Liberty, bronze star, Fallujah, infantry guy.

If I can say, "Hey, I need help."

and recognize I need help, you can too.

And I'm here to tell you that it's not dishonorable.

It's not disgraceful to admit that you need some assistance and you deserve it, your family deserves it and there's a way back and it takes some time to do that.

- [Female Narrator] In Maine, it's not just the VA reaching out to help veterans.

Some veterans do wind up in prison, but even when the walls close in there is still hope.

- It's important for us to identify, you know, what brought people to prison.

And often with veterans, it has, you know, a direct correlation to their service and post-traumatic stress.

And that can sometimes result in you know self-medication, some anger maybe that may have brought them to incarceration, so we try to work with 'em as we do with all of our residents and so we create a veterans pod.

In the pod they also have the America vet dogs and the America vet dogs are really important for not only the dogs to train for release to veterans on the outside, but I find it's very therapeutic for the handlers also.

And the Vietnam veterans coach and mentor, the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

And that mentorship, that co-location has been very helpful in the therapeutic process for those veterans.

If somebody does become involved and you're a veteran and you're involved in the criminal justice system, you can go to the Kennebec County Jail for the short term.

If you do get state time, you can go to the main state prison and you can get that continuity of care.

So we make sure we take care of our veterans from the moment of arrest to the transfer out of the system.

And then we give a warm handoff to, we have an organization here in the state of Maine called the Maine Military Community Network.

All of the people that are doing veteran services, all of the well-meaning organizations fall under that umbrella and we all work together to make sure we have a warm handoff.

This person can get housing, treatment, get some VA assistance if they're eligible for that.

And that's worked very, very well to help these individuals to transition back from combat and back into the community.

- Because I'm serving a life sentence, I serve as a peer reentry facilitator when I got out of the military.

And when I left my house from my parents house, I failed to transition into adult society twice and that failure to transition into independence is what led to me serving a life sentence.

And I want to help people make sure when they're transitioning into society from here, they don't fail to transition as well.

- The wraparound services that happen immediately while upon arrest, they're referred to the Veterans Court all the way through the journey.

They're surrounded by other veterans, the district attorney, the judges, they all have a greater understanding and have been deliberate in saying, we recognize your service as resulted in the damage to you and to the resulting behavior.

I can say to the veterans pod, I understand I had issues also, but there's a way out.

And the way out is counseling, mentorship, you know brotherhood, all of that stuff that we missed from our active duty service.

- One of the best things for me since I've been here is in this pod, and it's raising dogs, service dogs and it's a way of completing service.

I was still in the National Guard when my crime happened, so I didn't finish.

This is to me, a way of finishing.

I'm producing a tool, the dogs are essentially tools that help people and maybe even save a life.

Somebody having a bad day with PTSD, they think about killing themselves, 'cause a lot of veterans do.

They'll look at that dog wagon as tail and change their mind.

- Don't fall into that as I did as a drill sergeant telling you, don't contaminate my army with your weakness.

Suck it up, drive on, I don't want hear complaining.

That whole mentality, that works very well in combat and in peace time in the military, that doesn't work well when you transition back into the community.

The work that we do is difficult, trauma producing and we'll leave you emotionally scarred if you don't take care of it and I'm here to tell you that there's light at the end of the tunnel.

If you get help, life will be much better for you.

(upbeat ambient music) - The bond between a dog and a soldier is deeper than most, this relationship is one of immeasurable healing and love.

Mission dogs seeks to be of service to all main veterans in need.

- Get off the counter, sit, you know better just smile over there.

- So I've always been an athlete.

I think I started about the same time that I could walk and, you know learn to run and stuff like that.

I started in soccer as a little kid, I played middle school field hockey and then high school varsity field hockey and then I got a field hockey scholarship to college.

I've always been one that goes 100% to whatever the goal is.

And so, you know, I joined the military, I didn't wanna be just in the military, I wanted to excel at it.

My whole family is Navy and Marine, so of course there's a good rivalry with me going army.

I was living in New York at the time at Long Island University when the attacks on September 11th happened.

You know, a lot of people I knew joined because of that.

A lot of the people that I'm still in touch with from the service, we all joined for that same reason.

But I joined the Army in October, 2004.

Right after college, I joined the delayed entry program and then left immediately after graduation.

And I served as a military police officer in the Army.

So I was overseas on peacekeeping missions, and unfortunately I was injured in the line of duty working with the local population where we were.

So I suffered multiple fractures, my skull and my cheekbones, my nose, my jaw, and then also got a spinal cord injury, I got stabbed in the back.

So I have a incomplete spinal cord injury that ultimately led to losing both legs.

I also crushed my left arm and lost a few fingers on that hand and some range of motion and things there.

So honestly, going from fairly elite military and always being a, you know, an athlete and active at all of that to what they called 100% disabled and severely handicapped was more mentally traumatizing, I think, than the actual physical injuries were.

Something I never really considered about getting hurt.

They told us that we might die in service of our country and I was fine with that, but they never said we'd get hurt or how to handle any of that.

Came home from the military, started at the VA.

I was introduced to the Polytrauma team and met with them regularly.

And at one of their assessments, they went through a three page list of things they said I would never do again.

That I wouldn't walk, I wouldn't talk like this.

I wouldn't ride a bike, I wouldn't gonna be allowed to live alone because from the brain injury, I have epilepsy, so I can't drive or cook or basic things that we take for granted.

They recommended that I apply for a service dog.

Unfortunately, it's usually a two year process to get a dog and get it fully trained and things like that before they graduate.

So I was paired with Moxie, I think in 2009.

Moxie was absolutely my inspiration for dog training, for service dogs, for providing these dogs to veterans and other people in need.

- I spent four years in the army, almost five, I did two tours in Afghanistan.

PTSD kind of weighed me down and started weighing down on me very heavily.

I started using drinking to self-medicate three, four years ago I thought I was gonna be dead.

I thought there was no way I was gonna be able to get my life back on track because all the steps that I were taking were just, they were hard.

It was like the, I was doing everything for the first time, just getting out, I guess it was the big thing for me.

I was very, very sheltered.

So when I started this program, it kind of jump started my life again and I was able to kind of go back to who I was before I was weighed down by PTSD.

- We came home and it was like, go home, thank you for your service.

And we didn't have the greatest welcomings, and we just left and got out of our uniforms and we went about our lives or tried to (upbeat ambient music) and this is the kind of place mission working dogs is.

I mean, they open their arms to you and they're there with you all the time.

And when you graduate from here with your dog, they've got your back.

- We tailor the dog to them and their disabilities, so some of them need more balance work.

Some of them it's PTSD skills like front where they block in front of them, or block where they block from behind so that you can't approach too close.

I know a lot of us aren't huge fans of people sneaking up behind us.

The dogs are also trained to nudge you and alert you that someone is coming.

We have them trained to fetch and retrieve a number of things, even if the person doesn't necessarily need it right now.

If we know they're aging, say Archie for example, his dog is trained on fetching skills too, so that if he accidentally drops a leash, she won't run off.

She'll pick it up and hand it back to him.

You know, skills like that.

Skills like fetching your medicine, fetching a water out of the fridge, anything you drop, opening and closing the doors, answering the door.

You know, my dog's at my house.

If I know someone's coming and they ring the doorbell, my dog can go and open that door for them, you know, stuff so that if my legs hurt or I don't have my prosthetics on at that moment, the dog can fill in for me.

They'll stay here in the cabin for two weeks and learn how to use the dog and bond with the dog and then take classes in here in the training center.

And then they'll have to take practical tests together to prove that they're a bonded team, both for the public access test and restaurant training to graduate.

- I don't think I would've had the opportunities that I've had the last, you know year or so if it wasn't for this program.

- Mission Working Dogs is a godsend, a gift from heaven, she's my hero and my angel, I told her graduation, you're my angel.

- Well, you're gonna be a future working dog, you could.

(upbeat ambient music) - I knew I was moving to Maine and we started the nonprofit with the idea to give care packages.

And we did 5,000 donation from Kelsey and I.

We did care packages for, you know, the first, you know, year we had ourselves going.

And then after going on those trips, I thought we can bring people to Maine, we can bring families out here and do things adaptively.

So we did that and we had a real proof of concept for two years at different various camps throughout Maine and we realized there was a life for this.

And then we went ahead and found this property here, the Elizabeth Arden, you know, estate she built in 1929.

We went ahead and renovated it with people believing in us.

And we opened the doors in 2017 officially, the idea of it, if you will, was because I used to go on these cool trips with Walter Reed and I learned how to go downhill mountain biking and snowboarding and mono skiing.

Believe it or not, I rode horses and just a bunch of really awesome things.

And I was injured to the point where I needed what's considered a non-medical assistant.

You know, I needed help put my arms on, my legs on, I still needed the help to this day.

I can't button my pants, you know so I gotta take somebody with me.

My wife would go on those trips with me and the adrenaline rush and the thrill and the excitement I got from those was just all time top 10 amazing.

Realizing I could still do things and not live life on the sidelines.

- So we have two sort of premier programs.

We have a family program and we have a path program, and then we have several other auxiliary programs.

The part that sets the family program different is that we bring the family here too.

We recognize that recovery is not an isolated process and nobody does it alone, people's definition of family varies.

You know, sometimes it's a spouse and kids, sometimes it's a parent or a battle buddy or a sibling, but we don't discriminate against that, you're allowed to bring a guest here regardless and that is something that's not as common.

But you know, on the hardest day, who is that veteran gonna reach out to?

Or who's gonna take the brunt of somebody's hard day?

And it's whoever is in their village.

So we take a lot of pride in being able to bring them here and then also support them while they're here.

- People come here to live life off the sidelines.

You know, that was one of Travis's main goals.

And boy, I think we hit the nail on the head by doing that here.

We have families out on the lake, out on the kayak who never thought they could do something like that.

We have families who experienced dog sledding in the snow and had never seen snow before, a man in a wheelchair can do our ropes course.

A man missing both legs can do a ropes course.

A woman who had traumatic brain injury due to service to her country, she can come here, do arts and crafts.

She can come here and learn to work out in our health and wellness center and feel comfortable doing that.

- So, warrior Path program, that's based on a concept called Post-Traumatic growth, which is simply this idea that through suffering and struggle comes this opportunity for growth.

And we specifically kind of point that towards veterans or first responders because when you look at our training, things that, you know, kept us alive, these valuable skills like situational awareness, right?

Being able to kind of detach your emotions, those are extremely valuable, they keep you alive downrange.

But when you apply those things here back at home, the way that you did in combat or you know, on the streets as a police officer or a EMS firefighter, whatever it is, they're not really conducive for building relationships.

And one thing that we do know is, you know, relationships are extremely important to being happy.

There's actually studies that say that that's really the only thing that matters.

But if you can't connect with yourself, you can't connect with other people, you're gonna be miserable.

(upbeat ambient music) - So when I went the path, like I said, I got this answer of, okay, first of all, this is the way, this is the reason that you're like this, it makes perfect sense.

And secondly, there's everyone out there that's had trauma is like me, just nobody's talking about it.

So then I was like, well, so I wasn't the only actor it turned out, and that alleviated a huge thing.

So with that gone, then I started to get educated about what post-traumatic growth is.

And I don't want to be labeled by, 'cause you get sympathy.

Oh, I'm a combat veteran, people feel sorry for you.

I didn't ever want that.

I wanted to just live a life of meaning because I had witnessed so much sacrifice and experience so many things that it made no sense that my life would not be of value, so I got this education about post-traumatic growth.

And then that led me to be able to, the most rewarding part of my life, which I'm having now exceptional relationships with people that I never would've had before.

The connection that I have with these path guides.

We talk about things that even I wouldn't talk about with guys that I was in combat with, my relationship with my wife, my sisters and then the students.

This is the, I would say probably the most profound act of service I've ever had is to serve as a path guide.

And to have someone come up to me and say, you know, something that you said kept me from killing myself.

- Oftentimes we talk about emotions and feelings and that's not a subject that the warrior community is really comfortable with, but the reality of it is, and we tell 'em, human beings, you have emotions for a reason as a part of your function, right?

And in order to express and get out some of this stuff that you're holding back, right?

That's why you have these feelings, don't hold 'em back, don't repress 'em, we were trained to repress 'em from a young age when a lot of times in our childhood and then through our service, you have to keep it together, you can't show weakness.

Well, the reality of it is it's not showing weakness, it's being human.

(upbeat ambient music) - These three things can decide where you are living your life, right?

Are you sad?

You're living in the past, right?

'Cause we're sad about grief, some kind of loss and it doesn't necessarily have to be a person, it could be identity, it could be a job, it could be whatever.

Are you afraid then you're in the future, right?

Anxiety, you're afraid that something that's happened in the past is gonna happen again, right?

Or you can experience joy, which is in the present.

And the present is the only place where change is possible, right?

We can't change the past and we can't control the future, so we need to be able to focus and live in the present.

We teach breathing and grounding exercises to help people come back to the present, path isn't about removing struggle from our lives, it's about being able to struggle well.

I know that what I do every month, I give people the skills that they need to be better.

Whether or not they take that, that's not on me.

You can lead a horse to water, as they say.

But that's, I mean, that's my purpose, that's why I'm here.

- You are just as deserving.

You cannot help others until you can help yourself, until you love yourself.

Until you are living a productive life where you were learning, where you're still struggling, but you're struggling well, this is training for you to help others.

And if you're already in that field, you're already privy to wanting to serve.

This is a way to help you to continue to serve.

That's what this place is all about.

It doesn't matter if you have one arm, one leg, if you have a TBI or you know, if you've got, if you're in a wheelchair, we'll get you up on the ropes course.

If you want to stroll the grounds, we'll get you a track chair and you can stroll the grounds with your family, we'll make anything happen here.

- All right guys, ready?

- [Female Narrator] Just like Travis Mills, other main veterans are finding ways to make a difference with their own unique programs.

- I ended up having to, after about five years of kind of shutting myself off up here, that I couldn't relate to anybody and almost checking out.

At 32 years old, I had to get rushed into the hospital and I was needing to give four pints of blood for gastro bleeding inside.

I was in the ICU for five days.

I'll remember my children beside me at the bed.

I think they were seven and five, or six and four.

And the doctor was talking to my father at the end of the bed, and he said he's got three to five years left at this.

I wasn't even gonna see my children graduate high school.

My family offered to me, Nick, would you like to go in and get some help?

And I had just gotten back from a place I had been to two places on the outside to get help, one down in Florida and one in New Hampshire.

And once again, I couldn't relate to anybody there, I didn't feel in place, my story was different that I thought.

I almost didn't make it into the VA, I almost made it in because a coworker at the time suggested I should go in there to get help.

But in my mind, I was an Air Force veteran, didn't seek combat.

So I didn't deserve to have the benefits of the VA and they should be there for people that really were in conflict.

The team I work for now, I feel almost saved my life in the VA and I got down to a place that helps veterans in Bath, New York.

And I got off the bus and walked across a pathway there and a veteran got off his riding lawnmower and came over to me and said, you look lost, brother, you here for the domiciliary.

And when I walked into that place, I felt at home.

And the reason I felt at home, 'cause I was back around my brothers and sisters, that I didn't realize how much I was missing over the last six years that I almost checked out from.

I wrote a song about my daughters.

I think for me, writing stuff down has always been hard.

And you know, even in therapy and stuff like that, they're always saying journal, journal.

And that's never been something I've been able to do, so I tried to sit down and put some of my thoughts down in a song.

(guitar music playing) - (indistinct) - These groups, like let's just say the guitar.

You say you wanna learn to play the guitar, but when you say you wanna learn to play the guitar, that in turn is giving you something to focus your mind on to get you outta here, 'cause I know I don't like being alone up here, this guy comes up with some crazy thoughts, so it gets your mind out of that and then it gets you playing.

(guitar music playing) Like this afternoon, we're gonna be going to a guitar jam get together, so it's like-minded people.

But that in turn gets you friends, gets you part of something, gives you purpose.

- I played guitar since I was 14, about 40, 45 years.

I played it off and on, had a problem with PTSD and depression and wouldn't really play my instrument at all if I did.

I didn't get much enjoyment out of it and I rarely played it.

Counselor asked me if I wanted to go to guitars for vets and play guitar with a group and I decided I'd sign up for lessons and I did it, this was about two years ago.

Graduated the program after 10 weeks of one hour instructions.

And now I'm an instructor, and I meet with Guitars for Vets three times a week.

- We have a whole fleet of loaner guitars we give them so they can take a guitar home, they don't have to have a guitar, they don't have to ever have played.

Then when they finish that, they are a graduate of the program and they get a brand new acoustic guitar either donated by the National Guitars for vets or in our case, we have a lot of community support from various organizations in particular the Elks who have given us guitars to give our graduates.

- The guitar is there as a constant, it's something I go to every day and starts my day with structure.

I often can't sleep at night.

And I wake up, I play guitar for an hour or so and can I able to go back to sleep.

Before that, I would wake up at night and I would be awake for hours staring at the ceiling, not able to sleep.

So that's one of the ways the guitar is healed for me.

- Well, so a couple of my students, former students, they have had issues with addiction, prescription medications and other, and it's almost therapeutic sometimes just to sit there on the couch at night, take a simple cord and just strum that cord.

You know, you can feel the vibration of the guitar.

It's calming to people a lot of times, and it's a way to focus on something other than whatever the addiction is.

So people do tell me that's very helpful.

- For me it's been a way to give back.

I had a long 25 year career in the Air Force.

I'm not a combat veteran, I haven't gone through what some of these people have, I like being able to support them and give them something back.

- Yeah.

- Very nice.

- That was awesome.

- That was cool.

(upbeat ambient music) - Well, I had sought services from the VA several years ago, and through that I was introduced to Nick, Nick was running a group that I was assigned to.

And one day Nick shared this vision he had, he was reluctant and he said, "I got this idea."

And we got to talking about it and he said he wanted to start a pen-making group.

I'd never heard of it, I actually laughed, I laughed quite heartly about it.

- It was about two and a half years ago when it comes to this group.

I had heard from some gentlemen at PTSD clinics and stuff that were turning pens and stuff out there to keep themselves occupied.

And I thought with our long winters and stuff that we have up here, it almost sounded like a great outlet for our veterans up here to keep themselves occupied.

- I just happened to have a lot of tools and a lot of space to do that.

And I was very appreciative to open my home up to veterans to do this.

And we've put a lot of time and effort into making this a safe place and making sure it's a place that people want to be and can comfortably come here and learn a trade, so to speak.

Also, to get ourselves out of our heads, off the couch and outta the bars and that's sort of our mental health aspect of this.

We want to be productive, we want to feel like we belong to something.

And being a part of a group like this has given me a lot of strength in myself, knowing that I can be a part of something bigger than me, I was addicted to a lot of drugs and stuff in my past.

We'll, keep it simple as that.

It's huge part of any recovery is to be productive in something.

Even if you're drug free, alcohol free, you're sitting at home with nothing to do, you're thinking about the wrong stuff.

You're thinking, oh, okay, where's my next fix?

Where's my next shot?

Instead, where's my next pen?

I'm gonna get down here and shop and turn something and it's so much better.

- Well, it's about veterans getting together and supporting each other.

We make cool stuff like pens, bottle stoppers, all kinds of different things, but that's not our main product.

What we're doing is we show success by helping veterans become well adjusted members of society and we support each other and help each other along the way.

And we kind of find, at least I find that the camaraderie of being together with other people, sharing similar experiences and even different experiences, we're genuinely a support group that, you know, we support each other.

- Well, I think the beauty of this group and why it is so awesome and empowering is that we don't know where it's going yet, but the vision has enough people are seeing it now and jumping on board with it.

That I see this coming into something bigger.

- Which one of our vets come into this group, and he might have been here before me actually, I'm not sure, I think he was.

But when we first got ahold of him and started showing him how to do this and putting him in front of a crowd at a craft show, I've watched him just open up.

He can now talk to a crowd, he can talk with confidence about his product that he's turned.

It's been amazing to watch the transformation of somebody who really shy, quiet.

You put him in a crowd, he'd be in the back corner sitting down somewhere.

Now he's standing up there in the front talking to people, showing what he's done on a lay, it's been very rewarding to watch him come out of his shell.

- They may be going through like some kind of recovery.

You know, they may have gone through a program through the VA and once they get through that, and they're kind of, okay, we've done this, now this gives them an opportunity to keep their mind busy.

- I think it's something hard that people always trying to define, like what recovery is one way or another, but I think this is pretty easy to show.

This is recovery and this is what it looks like.

And this weight, like this could be multiplied over and over with activities for these guys, amongst each other when they return home.

(upbeat ambient music) - [Female Narrator] Other organizations in Maine try to help keep veterans from being isolated and live a healthier life, one of them is called VAST.

- So this is the VAST program, the veterans adaptive sports and training program at Pineland Farms.

And in addition to like a hike we just did yesterday with a group of seven veterans, we meet every Wednesday at nine to noon at Pineland Farms for our weekly program.

And today, we are, since it's the shoulder season, we really can't ski, we've been walking every inch of this campus.

We decide to take a tour of the Sugar Shack, so we're gonna go to the Pineland Sugar Shack.

I've got some ice cream.

We're gonna put some warm maple syrup over the, of the ice cream.

See how the whole production of making maple syrup is.

We have a campfire because it's 34 degrees, so we brought some provisions to make it more enjoyable and it's really about getting veterans together - As a veteran, it's helped me link and bond with other veterans.

And the really interesting thing is I'm a Navy veteran, but when I come here, I get to spend time with Air Force Veterans, Marines, Coast Guard, other Navy, army veterans.

So it's a good way to learn about the other services and see what they did, what they experienced when they went through.

- I needed something to help me through some struggles and all these groups.

And as I said earlier, I go to a lot of different activities, not every day, but knowing that I can, that's a big help.

Yeah certainly someone that's struggling with addiction, they need something to focus on in any activity, but particularly activities such as this, very helpful.

- A lot of times the people you hang with will basically, if you're having a problem, they see it.

I mean, I can see somebody come in, and I can tell that he's got a problem that day, you know, just looking at him and then basically, you know, I'll say, what's wrong?

You know, and let him vent.

Let him tell you what the problem is.

And usually if somebody's, you know, dealing with addiction and stuff, it basically gets their mind off that for a while.

- A great program and it's very important in a lot of the lives of the veterans that come here.

You know, we're an adaptive sports and training program, but the bigger part is the social part that gets the veterans out of their homes and out of their heads and into their bodies and moving around and talking to other veterans.

The other big part I think is just getting outside.

When you're outside, it just lifts your spirits.

You get the fresh air, you get the sunshine and a lot of our activities are outside.

- The other important part of the VAST program is that some of our veterans certainly struggle with addictions.

And VAST allows you to come here and talk to other veterans who may be suffering similar addictions that you have and you can learn different coping mechanisms and strategies and might find other resources that'll help you address some of the issues you might be having with addiction.

And I know Christina's done a great job at linking this program with other programs in the area so that our veterans feel like they have a much larger resources available to them for support, for things that might be troubling them mentally or physically.

- I think it has to do with camaraderie.

But most veterans need something, in my experience, if they're disabled, they need to get out, they need to have an activity and some sort of a schedule and this is something that I see people every week come to this.

- Veterans can come, you know, once a year, they can come every single week.

Some veterans we don't see for the winter, we don't see for the summer and it's just that comradery and welcoming fellow veterans.

(upbeat ambient music) - The labyrinth it's an ancient design.

It's basically, if you've seen 'em, there's some different types.

Probably the biggest thing that people confuse a labyrinth with is a maze and it's not the same thing.

A maze has a lot of dead ends in it.

The labyrinth is one path with twists and turns, it causes you to slow down.

And it's an ancient warrior practice that's utilized to either prepare for battle or when returning from battle to prepare yourself to go back into your family and your society.

And that's truly what we use it for.

It's a place where, you know, they travel this path individually, although the group all do it, and they get to the center.

And the whole objective of the labyrinth is to reflect on what's going on with you.

Things that you need to let go of, right?

To unload some of those burdens when they get in the middle or they receive the gifts that they have in their lives, they think about those good things that they have, they set down those burdens, right?

They'll set down that rock that represents those burdens they've been carrying.

And then on the way out, they're preparing themselves to return to who they are And so it's an amazing process to watch unfold.

It's where the students truly get an opportunity to, metaphorically, but physically set down some of the weight that they've been carrying.

(upbeat ambient music) - ♪ If I get lost, please come and find me.

♪ ♪ Send a sparrow to remind me.

♪ Put a soft word behind you.

♪ To take away the bloom, ♪ and if I'm late, don't give up on me ♪ ♪ 'Cause you know, (indistinct).

♪ ♪ On the dark side of the moon.

♪ ♪ On the dark side of the moon.

♪ ♪ As if my thoughts do not come clearly.

♪ ♪ And if you find that you can give me.

♪ ♪ And if the judge don't clear me (indistinct).

♪ - [Female Narrator] You have been watching "Voices of Hope," the rugged road to recovery to our veterans and first responders, thank you for your service.

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