Tag: veteran

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Fighting Suicide Through Camaraderie and Combat Boots

(Courtesy of Irreverent Warriors)

Irreverent Warriors is an organization that was built from the ground up to address suicide. It does not use conventional methods but instead uses laughter, shared suffering, and familiarity to fight suicide. It works with those most vulnerable to suicide: the veteran population. The Irreverent Warriors mission is “to bring veterans together using humor and camaraderie to improve mental health and prevent veteran suicide.”

Suicide is a national crisis. In 2019 alone, there were an estimated 1.38 million attempts and a total of 47,511 suicides, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Unfortunately, suicide affects active military and veterans disproportionately. When separated from the national averages, it turns out that veterans are twice as likely to commit suicide over nonveterans, according to a 2018 report by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

(Courtesy of Irreverent Warriors)

Combat-related deaths of military servicemen since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, total 7,057, according to a new report released by the Pentagon. These numbers include all deaths related to combat operations all over the world.

But this number pales in comparison to the number of military and veteran suicides for the same period. The most recent numbers are estimated at somewhere just over 30,000 suicides for those who served in all the combat operations of the post-9/11 combat theaters. These numbers are just those who have served after the terrorist attacks. The actual total number of veteran suicides between 2005 and 2018 was 89,100, according to a recent Department of Veteran Affairs report.

And these numbers on suicide are not going down. Each year since 2008, the number of veteran suicides has been over 6,300.

Addressing the Crisis From Another Angle

There are no easy solutions to this crisis, but there are some creative programs fighting veteran suicide.

Since 2015, Irreverent Warriors has been hosting events it calls “hikes” that have attracted over 50,000 participants in over 100 cities in 35 states to date.

How does this nonprofit accomplish this? It organizes close to 60 hiking events a year all over the country. These events are designed to accomplish several goals. They get veterans to come out and have an enjoyable experience around other veterans, where they can meet other vets and build a network of people they trust. There are also cookouts and camping trips and other events, but the majority of the events are hikes that are held all over the country and throughout the year.

The organization has a massive network of volunteer coordinators throughout the country. They are tasked with organizing events and building relationships with local businesses and organizations to strengthen the community resources available to veterans at the local level. The national level also works to build partnerships and collaborations that can reach more veterans, with national and local media campaigns to inform veterans of resources for reducing and preventing suicide.

The events are designed to bring together veterans from all eras and from all conflicts in an environment of camaraderie and friendship. Many veterans isolate themselves from society for various reasons and have very few friends. Aside from work, they do not socialize much. These hikes provide opportunities for veterans to get together with others who are like-minded, or who served together during their time in the military. This is also a time when community organizations can speak to veterans about suicide prevention programs and invite veterans to participate in them.

There are always activities that provide information on the local services and programs to prevent suicide. There is also the community itself, which is a supportive and positive one where participants build friendships that can become the emotional support veterans might need when thoughts of suicide occur.

‘Literally Saved My Life’

Jonathan Miller, 51, an Operation Desert Storm era veteran and now a traveling construction worker, got involved with Irreverent Warriors a little over four years ago. “My mental state was a mess,” he said. He was depressed and through Facebook found a local upcoming hike. “I’ve been to close to 40 hikes since that first one.”

“IW has literally saved my life. When I lost my service animal, I spiraled downhill quickly. I’ve made friends that I can trust and open up to, without fear of being looked down on or ridiculed. I’ve had fellow veterans call me when they needed someone just to talk to.”

A Navy chaplain he met through Irreverent Warriors was able to arrange a special visit for him to Arlington National Cemetery, where he was able to say goodbye to a Marine he had served with.

“Through humor and camaraderie, my mental health was improved and prevented this veteran from committing suicide,” said Miller.

Hikes and the Number 22

The hikes themselves encourage conversation, and volunteers build in fun activities while the hike is going on, including during scheduled stops to rest and rehydrate along the way. These hikes can be from 5 to 8 kilometers (about 3 to 5 miles), usually at a relaxed pace. At the end of the hike there is always a small celebration, where old friends and new ones can exchange info or make plans for the day. The hikes are open to all military regardless of when they served, peacetime or wartime, and almost any physical disability can be accommodated.

There is also the occasional signature hike, in which the participants do a 22-kilometer hike (about 14 miles) wearing 22 kilograms (about 49 pounds) of gear in a rucksack and in combat boots. The number 22 is to remind everyone that everyday there are 22 veterans who commit suicide in America.

The hikes usually begin in spring and end in late fall. An untold number of veterans have avoided a dark path and taken the bright path offered by Irreverent Warriors.

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Features History

A Secret Language That Helped End World War II

Navajo Code Talker Peter MacDonald Sr. at his ranch, located outside Tuba City, Arizona. (Tom Brownold for American Essence)

In war, information can be more valuable than tanks, planes, ships, or soldiers. Information sent and received without detection can mean the difference between victory and defeat, even between life and death.

Protecting information means developing elaborate codes. One code, which Native Americans developed and used, played a pivotal role in helping the United States win the Pacific front during World War II and bring the conflict to an end.

In the process, it became the only spoken code in military history never to have been deciphered.

Members of the Navajo tribe combined with the Marine Corps to create a code using the Navajo language. The Navajo Marines who employed that code became known as “Navajo Code Talkers” and participated in every Marine assault in the Pacific, including Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.

The code “saved hundreds of thousands of lives and helped win the war in the Pacific,” said Peter MacDonald Sr., a 93-year-old Marine veteran and one of only four Code Talkers still living.

At Iwo Jima, six Code Talkers sent and received more than 800 messages without making a mistake.

“Were it not for the Navajos,” 5th Marine Division signals officer Major Howard Connor once said, “the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”

A Spark of Genius

The idea to use Navajo came to a civil engineer in Los Angeles. Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary, grew up on a Navajo reservation in Arizona and maintained contacts with Navajo friends. Johnston, who fought in World War I, had learned that the U.S. Army used the language spoken by the Comanche tribe for military communications during field maneuvers.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Johnston contacted the Marines and presented his idea in 1942. The Marines asked him to organize a demonstration, so Johnston chose four Navajos who were working in Los Angeles’ shipyards at the time.

The demonstration succeeded. The Navajos decoded and transmitted three lines within 20 seconds.

MacDonald Sr. with his veteran insignia. (Tom Brownold for American Essence)

So the Marines approved Johnston’s plan and recruited 29 Navajos to write a code book. But since Navajo was only spoken, not written, the authors devised an alphabet for written communication and colorful descriptions for military terms.

For example, the Code Talkers used the Navajo word for chickenhawk to describe a dive bomber.

“We had a lot of chickenhawks on the reservation,” MacDonald said. “They fly high, but when they see a raven down below, they dive real fast, and they have a nice lunch. So by using the action of the bird and the action of the airplane, we can help us memorize what those code words are.

“Code words were not very difficult to remember because they were all based on something that we’re all familiar with. All the names of different airplanes took the names of different birds that we are very familiar with on the reservation.”

Breaking New Ground

The armed forces used other Native American languages as codes during World War II, but Navajo provided several advantages. First, it remained an unwritten language. Second, only about 30 non-Navajo Americans understood the language when the program began. Third, Navajo’s grammar and syntax differ dramatically from other languages.

Though the program began in 1942, MacDonald had no idea it existed when he joined the Marines in 1944.

“It was top secret to begin with,” he said. “None of us knew that there was such a program until after we passed boot camp, combat training, and communication school. Only after that were we then introduced to a very private, top secret, confidential, Navajo code school.”

At that school, instructors who served overseas taught the students how to use and pronounce code words, how to use the new alphabet, how to write legibly on a special tablet for the code, and how to practice their new skills.

Working Under Fire

The Code Talkers who graduated became as indispensable as rifles or mess kits.

“Every ship used in the landing—battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines, aircraft carriers—all had Navajo Code Talkers along with the English [language] network guys,” MacDonald said. “Every Marine air wing, Marine tank unit, and Marine artillery unit also had Navajo Code Talkers assigned to them.”

So how did the whole system work under fire?

“There are two tables [where Marines worked], one for the Navajo communication network, a second table for the English communication network,” MacDonald said. “As soon as the first shot is fired, messages are coming in Navajo as well as in English. All Navajo messages are received by Navajo Code Talkers.

“The message comes in, you write it down in English, and hand it over your shoulder to the runner standing behind us. He takes it up to the bridge and gives it to the general or the admiral. He reads it, he answers, and the runner brings it back down to us.”

The runner had his own special way to determine a communication’s importance.

“If he says ‘Nevada,’ ‘New Mexico,’ or ‘Arizona,’ we send a message back out in Navajo code,” indicating the message was important, MacDonald said. “If there is a top secret or confidential message that needs to be sent to another unit or another location, it’s given to a Navajo Code Talker.”

By the time World War II ended, more than 400 Marines served as Navajo Code Talkers. Their secret vocabulary grew from 260 code words used during Guadalcanal, the Code Talkers’ first battle, to more than 600, MacDonald said.

Preserving a Legacy

Yet not until 1968, when the government declassified the program, did Americans know about the Navajo Code Talkers. Now, 80 years after serving, the surviving Code Talkers are trying to preserve their legacy for future generations.

“We have been going across the country, via invitations, to tell our story,” MacDonald said, “and we are making headway to get American people to know this legacy.”

MacDonald Sr. with his grandchildren. (Tom Brownold for American Essence)

Part of that campaign involves plans for building a museum dedicated to that legacy.

“We found that many Americans and foreign nations didn’t know anything about this unique World War II legacy,” said MacDonald, who is spearheading the project. “The museum will tell the story of who we are, our heritage, our culture, our language, and the sacrifices we’ve made like so many other peoples.”

Those sacrifices enabled the United States to help protect the world from tyrants, he added.

Joseph D’Hippolito is a freelance writer based in Fullerton, California. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Federalist, The Guardian, The New York Times, and the Jerusalem Post, among other outlets.

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Entrepreneurs Features

Sugar’s Restaurant in Utah: How a US Marine Fought to Keep His Wife’s Dream Alive

Jamie and Brandon Ashby, a Marine veteran, chat as they prepare to open Sugar's for the lunch rush. (David Dudley)

Brandon and Jamie Ashby were married just shy of one year, when the latter decided that it was time to make her dream of opening a restaurant a reality. Jamie said that she’d wanted to open a restaurant since she was 15, when she worked at a small cafe in Nevada. “They did everything wrong,” Jamie said, “and I used to imagine how I’d do it differently.”

But due to her strict Mormon upbringing, she wasn’t encouraged to pursue such dreams. As she was preparing to graduate, she asked her parents if they’d set aside any money to help her pay for college. “My mom said, ‘Why would we do that? You’re just going to get married and have children,'” Jamie said.

So, she spent much of her adult life working for other people. “I felt like I was helping their businesses succeed, through management,” she said, “but not being brave enough to follow my dream.”

But when she met Brandon four years ago, she finally found the courage to pursue her dream. They were living in Boulder City, Nevada. Brandon, a 45-year-old veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and a career policeman, agreed to help fund Jamie’s dream.

They opened a bakery in Boulder City in June 2020. Jamie made spudnuts—essentially donuts, but with mashed potatoes folded into the dough—according to her grandmother’s recipe. “She was small-town famous for that recipe,” Jamie said. The bakery was a small family business; Jamie only worked with one other person. Then, when Brandon retired from the Boulder City Police Department later that month, he joined Jamie at the bakery.

Jamie keeps this picture at the restaurant to honor her grandparents, Enid and Dan Stewart. (David Dudley)

“He started by washing dishes,” Jamie said. “Then he began helping me with baking. I thought it might take him a while, because he’d never really done this kind of thing before. But he took to it almost immediately.”

The bakery was becoming self-sufficient, until October rolled around. Due to pandemic-related shutdowns and limited-capacity dining, the bakery quickly went from a successful small business to being on the verge of failure. “We had to change our whole business model,” Jamie said. “When the state dropped dining capacity from 50 to 25 percent, we had to find another way to survive.”

They had to close the bakery’s doors because they weren’t making enough money. Jamie had already begun to accept the looming reality of abandoning her dream, but Brandon had acquired a never-say-die approach to work and life, from his time in the U.S. Marine Corps. “He told me that this was good,” she said. “He said that we’ll come out the other end stronger.”

From the Military Police to Restaurateur

Brandon attended high school in Anchorage, Alaska. He joined the Marines after graduating in 1994, when he was 19. His older brother, who had joined the Army, tried to convince Brandon to join the Air Force. “According to my brother, they had it easier,” Brandon said. “They had the best barracks, the best food, the best training.”

Brandon’s brother thought he wouldn’t make it in the Marines. “So, I enlisted in the Marines,” Brandon said, smiling. Brandon knew he wanted to join the military police, but his recruiter said there were no openings at the time. Brandon accepted that he’d be an infantryman, but then he was assigned to the military police force. “It was the luck of the draw, I guess,” Brandon said.

He was sent to Ft. McClellan, in Anniston, Alabama, for recruit training. He did seven weeks of infantry training, then three more weeks training with weapons and land navigation. “Then, I learned military law, and how to enforce it. The last month was like a police academy.” After completing his training, he was sent to Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps base in San Diego, California. He was eventually invited to join the Special Reaction Team, the military police equivalent of SWAT.

Brandon, who spent his career as a military and civilian policeman, skillfully cuts spudnuts from a disk of kneaded dough. (David Dudley)

Brandon said he feels lucky to have received the training he did. “It was the perfect path to a career in law enforcement.” He left the Marines after four years, then worked in construction and security. Then, Brandon was invited to join the Hoover Dam Federal Police. “This was just after 9/11,” Brandon said. “Hoover Dam was thought to be a terrorist target.”

After working there for two years, Brandon joined the Boulder City Police Department, where he worked for 12 years before retiring. “Then, I joined Jamie in the bakery. It was the best thing that could’ve happened to me then.”

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

After the bakery failed in Nevada, the Ashbys decided to move to St. George, Utah, because Utah took a much more lax approach to COVID restrictions. They packed their belongings into a moving truck, and headed for St. George in November 2020. As they crossed the Nevada-Utah border, Jamie Ashby’s phone buzzed.

“It was an automated message from the governor of Utah,” she said. “He’d passed a mask mandate. I looked at Brandon and said: ‘We almost made it. We almost escaped.’”

Again, Jamie felt her dream slipping through her fingers. Moving to St. George and opening a full-service restaurant was her last shot. The couple had to jump through a series of costly hurdles in order to get their restaurant, Sugar’s, up to code before opening its doors to the public on February 11, 2021. 

A platter of fried chicken tenders, parmesan-dusted French fries, and cheesy mashed potatoes at Sugar’s. (David Dudley)

“When we opened, we were broke,” Jamie said. “We had to borrow money to stay open long enough to start earning money.” After a turbulent period, the Ashbys are finally making a name for themselves, and earning enough to keep their doors open.

“We came to St. George on a wing and a prayer,” Jamie said. “Throughout this emotional rollercoaster ride, Brandon has supported me in every way imaginable.”

“During my time in the Marines,” Brandon said, “I learned that you never give up. You fight until you can’t fight anymore.”

Watching Brandon knead dough, it’s apparent that he puts a great deal of care into what he’s doing. One may also get the sense that, as he and Jamie move through the kitchen, they’re fighting for their livelihood. That fighting spirit is the reason Sugar’s is open for business, and Jamie’s dream—which is a version of the American dream—is still alive.

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Features

Inspiring a Son

Paul Dong (R) with his son Harvey, at a backyard award ceremony for the Congressional Gold Medal held on May 15, 2021. (Courtesy of Harvey Dong)

Growing up in a Chinese-American community in downtown Sacramento, California, Paul C. Dong rose above adversity. He was the eldest child in a single-mother household and bore adult responsibilities as a youth growing up during the Depression. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, he inspired Harvey, his eldest son, to believe and achieve no matter the odds.

Currently a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, who has won teaching awards, Harvey faced discrimination when his father bought a home in a predominantly white Sacramento neighborhood during the 1950s. Some neighborhood kids hurled racial slurs at Harvey. He had never before experienced such verbal aggression, and he struggled to figure out that animosity, he said.

It was difficult to process the experience of discriminatory insults from peers, who added the injury of often misidentifying his ethnic background. This experience occurred during the United States’ wars, cold and hot, with China and Korea, and previously with Japan. The elder Dong was there for Harvey in deed and word as he faced adverse social relations.

“My dad urged me to not do anything about it,” Harvey said. “He encouraged me to study harder. His generation had gone through the experience of Chinese Exclusion and segregation,” referring to the law that prohibited all immigration from China until it was repealed in 1943. Despite his dad’s emphasis on pursuing a formal education, Harvey took a rebellious turn, common among youth finding their way in the world. He hung out with peers who lacked a school focus.

Eventually, though, he enrolled at UC Berkeley during the turbulent 1960s. Harvey even joined the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program there briefly, following the example of his father and uncles. Their active duty had taken them to the Philippines as the United States fought Japan during World War II. Paul, who turns 100 this year, recently received a Congressional Gold Medal, awarded in recognition of his dedicated service during World War II.

“Dad, after he retired,” Harvey said, “provided his engineering expertise to my construction crew and me. He was super excited about that, helping us to draw up plans to use a pulley system to install heavy beams. He even helped design heat and ventilating systems.”

Harvey drew on his father’s construction expertise in a personal way, too. “I was interested in remodeling our apartment into a handicapped-accessible place for my wife, who uses a wheelchair,” Harvey said. “And he lent his construction design know-how. Later, when I took on a bigger task of building our own house, he enthusiastically helped. So when I went on into construction general contractor work, he was all for it.”

The elder Dong had worked as a mechanical engineer for the state of California for decades before retiring. “As kids, we never really knew what he did as an engineer—just that he was the breadwinner,” Harvey said. His dad’s example of working day in and day out impressed Harvey. “The idea of being a self-made person rubbed off on me,” he said.

World War II-era photo with Paul (bottom left) and his three brothers. (Courtesy of Harvey Dong)

The elder Dong took advantage of the GI housing bill to purchase a home directly from a builder; at the time, there were restrictive racial covenants that discriminated against Chinese-Americans and other minorities who sought to buy real estate. “No Realtor would show him properties for sale,” Harvey said, “so Dad bought directly from a fellow veteran and home-builder.”

Harvey took a midlife interest in education, a pursuit that his dad had long supported. To this end, Harvey earned a doctorate at UC Berkeley in 2002, and he began a new career as a lecturer in the school’s Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies Program. His father helped in that undertaking, inspiring Harvey to dig ever deeper into his research and teaching of Asian-American history and issues that concern the Chinese-American community today.

“Dad helped me to translate old Chinese-language newspapers,” Harvey said. “We communicated very well on that.”

The elder Dong had a lifelong love of learning that rubbed off on Harvey. “As a young person, he had secured a study place in the family’s one-bedroom apartment,” Harvey said. “Dad carved a small piece out of a wall to find a quiet spot for his studies. My aunt got a kick out of that, as she thought that Dad had broken the law.”

One thing is certain: Paul was there for Harvey, his country, and his family when it mattered.

“Dad struggled and succeeded,” Harvey said. “He had the idea that his kids could do the same thing, which we did growing up.”

The apples do not fall far from the tree. Like dad, like son.

Seth Sandronsky is a freelance journalist based in Sacramento, California, married to a wonderful woman for the past 37 years. In a previous lifetime, he was a Division II college football player and competitive powerlifter.