Veterans on environmental mission

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Story by Jeff Young, “Living on Earth”

Young Americans returning from war sometimes struggle to readjust to civilian life. And a growing number of those coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan are making that transition via the environment.

In Washington State, an innovative program called the Veterans Conservation Corps helps connect veterans with environmental work.

Mark Fischer helped create the program five years ago, inspired by a Vietnam vet from Seattle named John Beal.

According to Fischer, Beal returned from Vietnam with a number of serious medical problems, including cancer and diabetes . His doctors gave him six months to live.

“So he went down to a little creek that runs by his house, Ham Creek, and saw all the crap and junk, and invasive weeds in that creek. And he said, ‘well, if I’ve only got six months to live, I might as well do something with my time.’ He started pulling out old refrigerators and started to remove invasive vegetation and replant things. And 26 years later, John died.”

In those 26 years, Beal recruited other veterans to work on habitat restoration, and involved many others in the Seattle area.

Fischer says the work might have contributed to Beal living beyond the six months his doctors gave him.

“It’s something we talk about a lot — it’s creating a new mission or purpose in life. The original mission of most military folks is fairly clean to them, and then when they come back into civilian life they don’t really always connect up with another mission.

“And so we try to in our work try to help people find a new mission or purpose that gives them that energy to continue on in life and be productive. And usually if they find it, they’re gangbusters; it’s hard to stop them, it’s hard to keep them from going forward.”

Today, veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are introduced to environmental work through the Veterans Conservation Corps.

“A lot of them are attracted to green jobs, they understand that purpose and that mission is pretty clear to them,” says Fischer. “So, we have a number of folks who’ve entered colleges in natural resources programs, energy auditing, weatherization, alternative energy — a variety of things that speaks to them in terms of providing a new mission in their life.”

To date, about 1,000 veterans in Washington have participated in ecological restoration work.

Michael Farnum, a retired army soldier in the Tacoma area, says the work helps him keep active in a calm environment.

“They call it eco-therapy. I think a good majority of veterans, combat veterans and non-combat veterans, when they get out, they want some solace, some peace.”

Jeremy Grisham served for 12 years in the Navy as a hospital corpsman. He was medically retired in 2005, after being deployed in Iraq. Grisham was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.

“Doing this sort of thing, like this sort of labor, gives me a chance to get exercise, a little workout, and kind of let some aggression go,” says Grisham. “It’s helpful because when I’m having a bad day, instead of cutting myself or thinking about suicide or something, I have an outlet. Maybe I’ll go chop blackberries and vent some frustration, you know, or maybe just go for a walk. But, it helps me think about other options.”

Phil Hansen, who was medically discharged after serving ten years in the Army, says finding a support group like the Veterans Conservation Corps was immensely helpful.

“Coming through, removing invasives, planting natural shrubs and wildflowers and trees and things like that … there’s kind of an instant gratification you get from knowing that you’re creating something that has pretty much been neglected and probably destroyed by us in the past. It’s therapeutical.”

In a different part of the country, other veterans are coming home with strong views about energy.

Former Army captain Dan Leary co-founded Nexamp, a clean energy integration company in Massachusetts. The company builds solar electric and solar hot water systems, as well as wind turbines, geothermal and other systems.

“I think that veterans have been able to see it firsthand, what is sustainable and what’s not sustainable,” says Leary. “As soon as you’ve seen a massive desalinization plant running on oil that has to be pumped from thousands of feet below the ground to sustain large populations, you understand just how fragile the whole system is. And I think that’s what veterans certainly understand firsthand, and the more that we can generate on site … it’s more than just national security, it’s really just the right thing to do.”

Leary’s not alone in that thinking. A recent poll of Iraq and Afghanistan vets found an overwhelming majority see our energy policy undermining national security. And just over 70 percent support policy changes to promote clean energy and address climate change.

The poll was sponsored by the group Vote Vets, which is also part of a rolling public outreach program called Operation Free.

Recently Operation Free rolled through 22 states on a bus — powered by biodiesel — to drum up support for legislation on clean energy and climate change. Army vet Robin Eckstine of Wisconsin, Marine vet Matt Victoriano of Arkansas, and Navy vet Wade Barnes of Massachusetts are some of the vets riding the Operation Free bus.

Barnes says he had an epiphany while watching his ship refuel. “It takes one million gallons of diesel at a shot. When you watch diesel fuel flow through a one and a half foot diameter pipe for four hours under high pressure, and you realize that’s something that’s done every seven to ten days, it doesn’t take a lot to kind of extrapolate that out and think about that same flow going through each of our fuel pumps, into our vehicles, things like that.

“When I learned through Operation Free that we’re really transferring one billion dollars a day overseas to fuel our oil addiction, it really hammered it home. That really was probably the turning point for me.”

Army vet Robin Eckstine says she understands how climate change can be a threat to national security.

“Currently, we can see it in Afghanistan and Somalia, where climate change has disrupted these areas that were already unstable in the first place. It’s accelerated the problems with famine and drought, and the areas become breeding grounds for terrorists.”

Marine vet Matt Victoriano says he’s hearing deep concern about national security and economic uncertainty from people around the country.

“We spend billions and billions of dollars on oil subsidies on foreign jobs. We get 60 percent of our oil from overseas. We have a manufacturing sector that has dwindled. They see the jobs going overseas and they say what can we do.”

To Victoriano, Operation Free is a way for him to keep serving his country.

“All veterans want to keep on serving their country once their service in the military is over, and you can’t find a better way to do it than this.”

Hosted by Steve Curwood, “Living on Earth” is an award-winning environmental news program that delves into the leading issues affecting the world we inhabit. More “Living on Earth.”