Can you tell me a little bit about your time in the Marines?

I did aviation supply in the Marine Corps… I was in for just under four years. I went in after 9/11, and I was actually in Iraq in February through May of 2004.

I was deployed, I guess, at a really challenging time of the war in western Iraq. And I was in several rocket attacks. I was in a rocket attack on March 18th of 2004 that killed one of my guys, and it blew up a few other guys. I was right there next to it.

And you experienced PTSD as a result?

I had a lot of struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. [When] I came home, it was very difficult to transition back into normal life coming out of that situation…It was a lot for me.

While in Iraq, Ware’s wife had complications during her first pregnancy. At the time, Ware said, they weren’t sending anyone home.

Even my roommate who had gotten a hole blown through his hip and another piece of
shrapnel in his head and another piece in his hand – He didn’t even leave the country. [And] we were out of crutches. We had run out of crutches. So we helped him hobble around for several weeks, and he got back to work. So, they weren’t trying to send anybody home unless you had a medical issue so bad that they couldn’t deal with it [there]. Another one of our guys… took some shrapnel through his stomach and into his spine, and they flew him to Germany. My roommate Fleming, one of the pieces of shrapnel went in his knuckle, and they couldn’t remove it in Iraq – they could only remove it in Germany… They wouldn’t even let him go to Germany for the surgery, so they made him get back to work.

So we were stuck there, and [my wife was pregnant with our first child].

[Eventually] she told me over the phone that the baby had tested positive for a very bad
genetic disorder, and that they were sending her to a specialist. So of course, I was scared to death… I was young and helpless, you know? [I was] thousands of miles away.

How did you end up coming home?

My wife sent a Red Cross message for them to bring me home… Initially, my command
denied it.

[But] my wife is very strong-headed. I never would have gotten a lot of the help that I did if she hadn’t pushed for it. But she went and tracked down the commanding officer’s wife, and she told him, ‘you better let him go home.’

You stayed in the states from that point on?

I really had a challenge readjusting. [I] ended up getting medically separated because of the post-traumatic stress disorder… It was real tough. I mean, the Marine Corps had me on 16 different medications when I got out, and I was like a zombie.

Were the medications for PTSD specifically?

It was just terrible care is what it was. They were outsourcing it through the VA and there [are] all these other controversies… But that’s a long story.

Where did you go from there?

I ended up going back to school [using the] GI bill, and my wife and I started businesses
together. In the last several years [we’ve] had a lot of success in business. And I’ve traveled the country with the storms, because our company [has me traveling the country]. But I’m on social media a lot, so I’ve built a little bit of an industry following, and I’ve been able to use that to gather resources and things to help people after natural disasters.

On helping survivors after Hurricane Laura in Lake Charles, Louisiana:

It was like an f3 tornado hit the entire town for two hours straight. It was destroyed. There was no running water. We ran on generators for eight weeks straight. So two months after the storm, there [were] a lot of parts of the city that still did not have electricity. And the people that live there, they had nowhere else to go. And if they had insurance or something like that, they had to be there to meet with the insurance adjusters or whatever, but all of the hotels were destroyed also. Any hotels that weren’t destroyed, the energy company came in and rented them all out. So all of the people were camping in their busted, wet, moldy homes, where all of their belongings were destroyed and rotting.

And they were just forced to stay there. [It’s] 90 degrees and 90% humidity, and it was brutal. At some point, if the mold and everything in the house gets so bad, it’s not habitable at all. And we saw families move to the yard and put up a camping tent and live in there with their small children in 90-degree heat.

What is it like for you to go out and help in the center of the aftermath?

I remember [having] extreme empathy for what they had gone through. There’s an element of chaos that I feel like I’ve thrived in. I’m able to go there and serve them in that way.

But you know, their trauma is different [from] my trauma. I mean, there are a lot of those
challenging situations where you do meet people who are veterans and stuff like that in
those situations, and their house got destroyed. And that really breaks your heart. But I’m really still trying to figure it out… There’s something that draws me to those situations where we can go help and be of service.

On keeping things in perspective:

I try to encourage them and introduce them to the positive. I try not to, to dwell on the misery of their situation. But that’s something that’s always hanging over your head because even if I’m deployed… I have a warm bed to go home to if I want to, I can get on a plane and leave tomorrow and go back to my home that’s not destroyed.

How do you think survivors of trauma are uniquely qualified to help others?

I never put two and two together until Doug and I were sitting down talking about the
hurricane. I’ve been helping Doug for a long time, and we had never specifically spoken
about that trauma… And he began talking to me about trauma, you know, and how me and other people with the USDR have done this. …It’s both a way for us to be in a situation where we feel that we’re competent and have a lot to offer, but also in a way where we can help people. And I guess it’s therapeutic for us at the same time.

I don’t sugarcoat it to people, when they’re in those situations where their stuff has been destroyed. Because unfortunately I’m in an industry where the insurance companies are gonna treat [people poorly], and everything in their life is going to collapse. And that sounds horrible, but for a lot of people, it’s so true. Like, everything is destroyed, your finances are destroyed, your home is destroyed, your family relationships get destroyed, your kids don’t have a school to go to anymore – total destruction. So I sometimes give people some tips for dealing with all of that, and I encourage them to find different resources.

That’s one of the best things that we can do… Just be a resource. Let me take one worry off your mind. And I think that ability, that little bit of ability to help people through that struggle, [makes] sense for people who have suffered trauma – [it makes sense for us] to give back in that way.

What would you say to trauma survivors who are considering volunteering?

It can be a scary proposition for people that have gone through trauma, that still struggle with the effects of that trauma. But I guess, for me… I’ve come so far, since I struggled so much after coming back from being overseas. I’ve come so far, that overall, I have an optimistic outlook. And when you have been able to triumph over a lot of tragedy and turn your life around for good, which I very much feel like one of those people, I think there is an extra bit of inspiration that you can provide [to survivors].

I know that they can rebuild their life because I’ve struggled through that.