Warrior Exchange: Tom Fleming's Story

Content Warning: This story contains references to childhood trauma, abuse, mental health struggles, and suicidal ideation.

The following account is a raw and personal reflection from a member of our community who bravely shares his journey through trauma, crisis, and recovery. While this story may be deeply moving and potentially triggering, it is shared with the intention of helping others who may be struggling in silence.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, help is available. Please reach out to a mental health professional or contact a crisis hotline in your area.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a retired police officer. This July will mark three years since I left the force. I recently had the privilege of sharing my story during a Warrior Exchange community event hosted by Fireside Pine and Zero Dark Thirty Coffee.

I want to keep telling my story in case someone else out there hears it and thinks, “Okay, maybe I do need help. Maybe I need to talk to somebody. Maybe I need to reach out.” If that happens for even one person, then this is worth it.

A huge part of my story involves the Save A Warrior program and when I was there, you had to start up with, “So here's the deal”, and then finish with “And that's what happened.”

So in the spirit of SAW, so here's the deal.

So Here's the Deal

I was born into a family that did the best they could with what they had. My dad didn’t experience a lot of turmoil growing up, but my mom did. She was raised in a heavily abusive home, and she carried that abuse forward. My sister and I grew up walking on eggshells every day. We’d come home and try to gauge my mom’s mood the moment we stepped inside. Was she angry? Depressed? Calm? That decided whether we hid, stayed silent, or tried to make ourselves disappear. If she asked you to do something, you did it—no questions. If you hesitated or got it wrong, you paid for it. And sometimes, you got it again just for good measure.

That was our normal.

When I visited friends’ houses, I saw the same thing. Friends from broken homes. Moms yelling, hitting. I started to believe this was just how it was in every house. That pain and fear were part of family life. And when my dad came home, if my mom felt like he needed to be angry, she’d twist the story so he’d punish us all over again. That went on until I was about thirteen or fourteen. That’s when I realized she couldn’t hit me anymore. But she found other ways to control me—withholding freedom, cutting off anything I enjoyed.

Looking back, I was in survival mode all the time. From as far back as I can remember.

Escaping Through College, Confronting Rage

All I wanted after high school was to get out of that house and that town. I got a basketball scholarship to a small college in Kansas. It was my ticket out.

About a month in, I started having intense pain in both knees. One day, I collapsed during practice and had to be carried out of the gym. The doctor ran a bunch of tests and came in with the news: "You have bone cancer."

I was 18. Alone. Four states from home. It scared the hell out of me. I called my parents, and they told me to come home so their doctors could take over. After more tests, we found out I didn’t have cancer. The diagnosis? Osgood-Schlatter disease. Not even close to bone cancer. Just a condition common in young athletes.

Back home, I reconnected with an old girlfriend and enrolled at Idaho State. And that’s when my anger really started showing itself. I’d had a temper since my early teens, but now it was explosive. The smallest things set me off. I’d break things, lash out, sometimes hit people. I blamed my mom. She had a vicious temper, and I figured I inherited it.

But during my time in the Save A Warrior (SAW) program, I came to understand the truth. That rage came from years of physical and emotional abuse. It also came from something I hadn’t realized yet before SAW: sexual abuse by family members and friends when I was younger. That kind of pain doesn’t just vanish. It festers until it breaks you.

Spiraling and the Consequences

We were only about a week or two into that relationship and one morning, on the way to class, we had a massive blow-up. That night, my roommate and I started drinking. Eventually, we ended up on my girlfriend’s dorm floor. I couldn’t stay away. I found her with a group of friends and asked to talk.

We went out to the lobby. My emotions got the better of me. I turned around and punched a plate glass window. It didn’t shatter. Instead, a huge shard drove straight through my forearm, severing everything—artery, tendons, muscle.

When I pulled my arm out, I heard blood hitting the floor before I even looked down. I thought I’d lost my hand. My roommate ran for help and, by pure luck, knocked on a nursing student’s door. She wrapped a towel around my arm and applied pressure. We were across the street from a hospital. I ended up in surgery for eight hours.

That incident should have been a wake-up call. But I still didn’t understand what was driving me.

Fighting to Feel Safe

After healing, I returned to school. A friend invited me to check out a martial arts class. I was 19. And from that first night, I was hooked.

Growing up, I was the small kid who got picked on. Bullied constantly. My mom’s reaction? "Quit being a p***y. Get out there and defend yourself." No comfort. No protection.

Martial arts became my armor. It was a way to make sure I was never anyone’s punching bag again. I trained obsessively. I got good. Too good. I started picking fights, proving something to myself.

Years later, after becoming a cop, I ran into old college friends who told me, "Holy s**t, you should still be in jail." They weren’t wrong. I had no emotional regulation. And I masked that with violence.

Finding Purpose in the Badge

Somewhere during college, I decided I didn’t want to be a psychiatrist like I originally planned. I wanted to be an FBI agent. My uncle was one. But a ride-along my senior year changed my course. It was a boring shift, but to me, it was electrifying.

After college, I went back to Twin Falls and tried to get on with the local PD. It was tough—hundreds of applicants for just a couple of spots. A friend suggested I enroll in a local law enforcement program to improve my chances. It worked. I got hired.

I went from surviving a violent home to surviving the violent world of policing. The culture was tough, macho. You didn’t talk about emotions. If you complained, you were told to shut up, get your s**t together, and move on.

And that’s exactly what I did. Over and over. I saw horrendous things. One call that stuck with me for years—one I didn’t even remember until a conversation brought it back—involved one of the worst roads in Twin Falls, there were constant accidents there. This particular night we get called to go help them, and they’re screaming on the air, “We need people out here now!”

So when we get there, we’re told we’re responsible for picking up pieces of bodies scattered across a field. We were literally matching limbs to torsos. By the time you’re done, you’ve got blood all over you, all over your pants, boots, whatever. 

Then we washed off, changed our uniforms, and went back on patrol. No talking. No decompression. Just push through.

I did move on from that and into other stuff without really giving it too much notice or thought. I mean, clearly, it's not true. It was stuff in there, right? But consciously not thinking about it. 

Through the years, the stress just stacked up. Call after call, tragedy after tragedy—there’s only so much a person can take before it starts to eat away at them. But I didn’t notice. Or maybe I did, and I just pushed it away like I was trained to do. So then there’s the last part of my career, there was a lot of stress and dealing with hearing about all this kind of stuff still, dealing with a loose cannon chief, and just a lot of abuse from that guy. Nothing physical, but very demeaning stuff. 

Retirement Isn’t Always Rest

So I leave, and retire early - and go home, and don’t work for about four months. Then I got a job at Boise State, working full time. It wasn’t the same kind of pressure, but it also didn’t fill the void. I lasted a little over a year before scaling back to part-time work with the prosecutor’s office. That gave me more time with family, but it also gave me more time with myself.

What I didn’t realize was that I had emotionally checked out. I'm not talking really to anybody. I'm not really present. And I had done that more than once, I know, in my career, and in my life. According to my wife, I was just going through the motions. I wasn’t really there. Conversations felt like arguments, and arguments always ended in blowups. 

Things Get Worse

I got some news about my marriage that knocked the wind out of me. We tried to talk, work through it. But later that week we took a trip to Twin Falls to help her mom with a yard sale. We figured we would spend time together and tried to reconnect, but I couldn’t stop spiraling. I’d lose my temper during what should’ve been simple conversations. We went for coffee and to the gym one morning and I knew I was being impossible. I could hear the way I sounded. I could see the look on her face. But I couldn’t stop. before I become an absolute embarrassment to me and her, and public setting, we have to leave.

So, we're not really getting anywhere. In the meantime, we're talking to other people, trying to figure it out. So, another catalyst pops up and I kind of get p****d and I lose it. I went outside to clear my head. I started pacing by the horses at her mom’s ranch. I was talking to myself like a madman, trying to make sense of the chaos in my head. I didn’t know it, but my behavior had triggered her mom—herself a survivor of abuse—and she called the police.

Next thing I know, I’m standing in the dark with flashlights and guns pointed at me. Officers I used to work with, no less. The embarrassment was overwhelming. So, these guys are out there trying to get me under control or whatever. So, I'm fine at that point. I mean, I don't want to go to jail. I'm not looking for trouble. Comes down to that her and her mom will feel safest if I go stay the night in a hotel room, and she would get in touch with me the next day.

I left and stayed at a hotel that night. But I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. For the next few days, I spiraled even further. So, four days go by and I ask her to come get me. There's no answer, she sends me to voicemail. So, now I'm getting p****d again. They’re going back and forth on what they want to do and finally I'm like, give me the car. I'll drive back to Boise. And, you know, she can get it another way back because she's going to stay with my mom anyway as well. So, she agrees to bring me the car and I head towards home.

The breaking point

We have a series of texts back and forth. And she keeps changing her mind. She will say she's going to do something, and then she says something else. And in my mind, I'm like, here you go lying again. So, that's all I can think of is now, is “I'm the victim of all this.” Right? I finally just sent a text that says, “Thanks for lying to me again. It's going to be the last time. Goodbye.” and immediately shut off my phone. I’m done talking and just want to be left alone.

So I get home, go into the bedroom - there's no one there and it’s quiet. I’m exhausted because I still haven’t been sleeping and so I put some noise canceling headphones, turn on music, and just fall asleep. When I wake up in a few hours my phone has been blowing up and my wife is like “Where the hell are you? The cops are looking for you.”

I’m like “Why are the cops looking for me?” and I realize that when I said goodbye to her, she thought I was going to kill myself and what it really meant to me at the time was I’m done talking to anybody. But she’s got everyone out looking for me, and most of these guys know who I am or they probably heard my name at some point, right?

And so, I'm just freaking out about what this looks like and what it's going to be like. And it's really upsetting. And I get ahold of my friend who was over at the house an hour before banging on the doors, trying to find out if I was there and okay. He comes over and sits with me. 

While we’re sitting there my wife calls and says I’m not coming up now, I think you need to go to this counseling session by yourself. So I immediately get upset and I’m like here we go again with the lying. So I’m already spinning out and refuse to go to the appointment - all the while she’s trying to convince me and telling me how badly she wants me to go. All I care about is putting my foot down. Then I get a text from the counselor - he already knows it’s just going to be us two and so at that point I’m definitely not going.

A Decision Was Made

From the time that I hung up from my wife, the time that I had that last text conversation with the counselor, by the time I walked back to the couch to where my friend was, I had decided to kill myself.

I decided to. That's it. I'm done. There's no reason to keep doing this anymore. And so, I sit there for the next three hours and lie to my best friend, essentially, that I'm doing great. And the whole time, in the back of my head I’m working through all the details.

Side note, everybody knows me as a Longhorn fan and Texas was playing Georgia - and they were losing. So, that's why I always say, that's what tipped me over the edge. It was Texas was doing it. 

My buddy goes to leave at 9.30, says, as long as you're okay, I'm going to go back to bed. I said, I'm great. And I go back, and I lay down, and I stare at the ceiling, and I start thinking, “Okay, tomorrow - I can do this, this, this, and this, and I'm going to set it up this way.” And so, I start thinking about it, and I get that little pit in my stomach. Like, everybody knows that when you were younger, you know you're about to get in major trouble, you see your mom or whatever, you get that pit in your stomach. That's the feeling I had the whole time, and I'm thinking to myself, God, maybe I shouldn't be thinking like this. Maybe this is not, you know, the thing to do. Maybe I should reach out to someone. Oh, no, let's not do that.

I end up falling asleep for just a little bit and wake up in the morning, and I start thinking about it again. Only now the pits gone, and I’m like “Okay, today’s the day. It’s time.” and I think that the pit being gone is a sign it’s right.

So, I go into the kitchen, and I spend the next five hours writing two letters. One to my wife, and one to my mom, dad, and my sister. Essentially laying out everything from A to Z, pretty much. They were between 5-8 pages each. Now I start thinking back to my C&T days, and I know what these guys are going to do when they’re trying to find me and I’m going to f**k with them.

Throwing Them Off Course

So, I go, and I leave my house, and I drive 10 miles west, and I turn my phone off. Then I drive 20 miles back in the same direction, I turn it back on. And I drive 10 miles south, and I turn it off. And I come back home, and I turn it back on. 

So, now I know if I'm going to keep my cell phone, it's going to bounce to all these places, and they're going to be like, “God damn it”, you know. It's going to take a while to find me, because I didn't want to get interrupted. I thought, at the very least, I want to be able to see them coming so that I can get this over with. Because the last thing I want to do is not have this happen right, and deal with the embarrassment of afterwards, of a failed attempt of some sort.

Next I decide I'm going to need some whiskey to take with me, and, oh s**t,

there's some pills in the cabinet. So I got some pills from an old surgery about four or five years ago, I'll bring those with me. And the idea was not to do it by that method, but to numb myself, because I really didn't think I could do it. So, I wanted to be able to just numb myself to the point where I would have no problems doing it. And then, I get like a 15-year-old bottle of scotch, and I'm like, well, take a nap, okay? 

So, I'm going, and god damn it, I'm going to taste this stuff, all right? So, I take that with me, and I go find my place, I set up, and I’m good to go. I ate at 7.30, the sun's going to set. By 8 o'clock, it's going to be pretty decently dark. By 8.30, it's going to be really dark. That's when I can start going.

Aside from this, I pull up there, put it in park, shut the truck off, and I'm thinking, “Oh

s**t, I can't be in the driver's seat, with the keys in the ignition if I’m drinking? I'll get a DUI.” Right? And these are things that are going through my mind. And also going through my mind is, I don't want to do it in the truck, the truck's paid off, I don't want to ruin it, because maybe she can take it to sell it and get money for it, right? Just these are the things I'm thinking about. It's just all over the place.

I get over onto the passenger side, and it's time to start doing this thing. So, I pop a couple pills. I take the first big swig of the scotch, and it absolutely tastes like dog s**t. So, I corked it, threw it in the back seat, opened the other one up, and downed some of that. And so, I thought, I'm going to call my wife. I'm going to give her one last, you know, chance for us to talk this out. 

So, I call and she sends me to voicemail. And now I'm p****d again. Like, goddamnit, who are you sending me a voicemail? And so, I leave this long trailing voicemail where it actually cuts me off. I'm like, what's up with this? Like dial it back up, you know, and get sent the voicemail again.

Later, I go through my call logs, and I thought I called her like three or four times - but holy crap, it was a lot. It was probably 15 times or something like that. In between these calls, I pop some more of these pills to mess with me. And I'm just sitting there, and so I'm leaving these voicemails. And I knew after the first one, she's gonna call the cops, because I told her exactly what I was gonna do. I knew the minute I did that, I have maybe an hour tops before I'm found. 

So, I said, you know, I can do this for a little bit longer, and then that's it, I gotta get out, I gotta get ready to do my thing. So, I sit down, and I write out a script for 911, because I know I'm gonna be messed up, and I'm not gonna be able to talk with all the stuff that I'm taking and drinking. So, I write out a script of exactly where I am, what my vehicle looks like, where I'm sitting. Because the last thing I wanted to do was have somebody else find me. Some poor person the next day, whatever, come upon that. I didn't want that. So, I have this script right now. Next thing I know, the phone rings. 

Hello? I gave the info to him and he’s responding with something like, “We're going to be out here with you soon.” The last thing I remember was about 8:15 when I was making those calls. 

All of a sudden it’s now 12:30 in the morning and I passed out. Clearly I underestimated the power of expired drugs with whiskey. They still work pretty well. It knocked my ass right out. And I'm glad, thank God, right? Otherwise, I don't know if I'd be here right now. But, so, they talk to me. It's about 12:30 in the morning, and for whatever reason, I don't get out of the truck till close to 5 in the morning.

Waking Up

the next thing I know, I wake up in a behavioral health facility, looking around and going, what the f**k did I do to myself, what in the hell is going on? I'm in some foreign place that I didn't expect to be in. I thought that the worst this is going to get carried out the way it should, and that I wouldn't be here. So, now I'm freaking out a little bit like, oh crap, you know, what do I do now? So, I sit with it for a while, and I realize, at that point, I'm not suicidal, and have not had any of those thoughts since that morning when I woke up.

It's a 72-hour hold and at the end of the 72 hours, they do an exam and the doctor makes a decision whether to extend you or let you go. And so, at the end of that 72 hours, I go to meet the doctor and he says, “I'm not going to bullshit you, because I know what you did for a living,” and he goes, “I'm extending you for two more days.” 

Well, first thought was mother - I want out of here, right? But I'm like, I can't piss this guy off, or I'll never get out of here. He goes, “Okay, you're doing fine, but let me tell you something. Because I've been doing this for 25 years -  I've never seen anyone go through the hoops you went through and not get caught”

I guess some point in talking to me the first time, I'd spit it all out. This is what I did. This is how I did it. He's like, “You went through a lot of work to not get stopped, to not get caught, and that scares me.”  I said, “Okay, I get it.”

It might be the embarrassment of all this. I gotta go face my parents. I gotta face my wife over this. I gotta face colleagues. And the rumors are gonna fly, you know. And so, I just wanted to bury my head in the sand for the longest time. But things get better.

The In-Between

As soon as my hold was extended, I called my buddy that I had his number memorized and I said, “You gotta fucking get ahold of Jarad Webb.” and he gives me the number and I’m frantically dialing right away. Thank God he answers right away.

I’m telling him everything that’s happened and I said, “Man, I screwed up. I need help.” And he didn’t hesitate. I knew a little bit about his foundation, but I knew of what he does - but I said, I’m gonna be a mess, I don’t know what to do.”

So he says, “Kelly and I are gonna get that for you. You know, just hang in there. We gotta make some calls. Gotta do some things.” You know, in my mind, you're like, oh, good. The day I get out, they're gonna help. Right? Well, nothing works that fast.

While waiting for a spot to open up, I remember spending a lot of time with Jared and Jessica and talking to Kelly on the phone a lot, and just trying to figure out - what do I do now? I feel like I'm broken, like I'm embarrassed. I don't know what the hell to do with myself. I'm not working. I had way too much time on my hands and that was a problem for me because I always said, “If I'm bored, I'm dangerous.” So that was not good for me.

Jared went out of his way to keep me busy. Either reaching out and just saying “Hey, what are you doing right now? I'm roasting some coffee beans and you can talk to me while I'm doing it.” Or Kelly would call me and go, what do you need?

During this time Jarad's walking through the process of what SAW was going to be like, without telling me what it was going to be like. Because, you know, it’s like Vegas. What happens at SAW, stays at SAW. But he also made sure to tell me that before it’s going to get better, it’s going to get a lot worse. And that scared the s**t out of me, because to be honest - it was already bad. It already felt like the end.

I’m also going through counseling too, trying to get myself stabilized so I can actually do SAW and get something productive out of it. Because I surely wasn’t stabilized when I came out of the hospital. Before I knew it, it was February and my spot had opened up.

My Time at SAW

From the minute I walked through the door, they didn’t mess around. We dove straight into childhood trauma. Into the stuff you never think you’ll talk about, let alone in front of a group of 17 strangers.

The one moment that sticks cleary in my mind was one of the first days sitting there, they had this huge window that you sit there and can look out over this beautiful lake and there’s bald eagles flying around. I’m totally captivated by them, and also listening to the speaker and really resonating with what he’s saying, and all of a sudden I’m flooded with memories starting to coming back of what happened to me as a kid. Stuff that I had apparently pushed down, but it’s still going to effect me.

I’m just sitting there staring at the floor at one point and the speaker stops and gets right in front of me, and goes, “Are you okay?” and all I could do was just look at him, and he asks “Something happened, didnt it?” Immediately I agreed and he said “Gentlemen, this is what happens when we start talking about this s**t. THings are going to come up.” 

Next he asked the group to raise their hands if they’ve experienced something like this and every single person raised their hand. Every single man in that room had lived their own version of my story. Different details. Same pain. And for the first time in my life, I felt safe. Really safe. So safe in fact that on the last day, one of the guys there said “We’re going to kick you back out in the real world soon.” and I just replied with “The f**k you are.” 

Continuing the Work

SAW didn’t magically fix me. It gave me the tools—but I had to use them. One of the biggest tools was language. Being able to name what happened to me, and what I was carrying, was a huge shift. I wasn’t just angry or damaged. I was hurt. I was traumatized. And once I could say that out loud, the shame started to lose its grip.

They encouraged us to keep working after the program. One of the most helpful resources was something I had never heard of, ACA: Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. That group became my lifeline. I showed up every week and just... listened. Other people’s stories mirrored my own. The language was different, but the wounds were the same. It’s looking for those similarities in people’s stories - not the differences.

Reach Out For Help

I think the final thing I would say is I know all us first responders, military people, etc - we’re not good at reaching out and asking for help, but we need to work on getting better about that. We’re so wrapped up in the world of saying “I’m fine”, “I’ve got this” - but it happens so fast. 

My take on it, and something Jarad always says to me, “If you’re having a bad day, pick up the damn phone and call me.” So I’ll be having a bad day, just pacing around my house and it always goes back to, “I gotta call Jarad”. There’s even times he’ll respond with a “Can I call you back in five minutes?” and sometimes my response is a strong “No buddy, I need to talk now.” 

The thing that they talked a lot about at SAW that really stuck with me was, “Trauma needs a witness.” You can’t just hang onto that, right? You need to tell somebody, you can’t reason that stuff out.

In the end, it doesn’t even have to be a program like SAW. If you have a good resource system, good friends, family - and taking advantage of counseling. I’m 56 right now and I went most of my life thinking I was fine and could make it through these issues, but there was nothing further from the truth. Now I’m here on the other side though to tell you it’s worth it and that can change.

And that’s what happened.

Q&A with Tom Fleming

Q: Do you remember what it was like being on the other end of the 911 call and talking to the dispatcher?

A: I was in my truck talking to him, and I remember a couple of things. It’s funny—I remember them trying to use the hooks, and I thought, “Not working on me, guys.” I was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll let you,” or whatever, and I’d fight him on it. Then I thought real fast, “Okay, he’s done this before.” I think one of the officers even said, “Do you guys know who you’re dealing with?” They knew I’d done C&T. I knew what they were going to ask. It wasn’t a threat—it just meant they were going to have to work harder.

I didn’t realize I suck on phones. It looked like I hung up two or three times—maybe I got agitated or passed out again. I don’t remember much of the conversation, but I do remember him using a couple of things that made me laugh—little hooks about my dog and other things, which he clearly got from my wife.

When I got out of the truck, I thought I was going to fall down. I was holding onto it because I was so messed up. At the back of the truck, they told me to get on the ground. I said, “Okay, you fuckers—don’t dogpile me, my shoulders are shot, use two pairs of cuffs.” And they were great. They took care of me.

Initially, I tried to use their training against them to delay things. I felt guilty doing it, because these were my brothers. But all I could think about was wanting out. Then I realized—I can’t do it in the truck. I don’t want to ruin it for her; maybe she could sell it. Just weird stuff going through my head.

Before I got too high or drunk, I remember planning: “When they call, I’ll already be outside.” I picked a spot that was tactically advantageous—low tree hangings, good visibility. I even heard a drone nearby. I did everything I could to make it hard to find me.

So to those in C&T: if you’re dealing with a vet or former cop, they might know exactly what you’re doing. Be ready to operate outside the box. I may have hung up because I knew what they were going to ask. I’d love to talk with that dispatcher someday to hear what I actually said, because I was pretty messed up.

Q: Comment from audience member: I remember that night and listening to the radio traffic. We were all praying you’d make the right choice. I just want to say how glad I am that you’re here and that you had the courage to work through all of it. Thank you.

A: I’m glad I underestimated the power of those narcotics. Really—I am.

I want to thank Jared, his wife Jessica, Kelly, and all of you here for supporting me, listening to my story, and showing up to hear other people’s stories. That matters. We need to get to a place where this is talked about just as openly as anything else. In law enforcement, it’s hard for active officers to speak up. There’s fear—of being pulled off duty, of losing your job, of being labeled unfit. We need a better way to handle that.

Q: Knowing now what you know about yourself, what would you go back and do differently?

A: I think it would’ve had to have been after I got into law enforcement. Before that, I was just the way I was—raised the way I was. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. But once I got into law enforcement, I started seeing things. You’d think I’d recognize them, but I kept pushing it all away.

Like a lot of guys, I got addicted to the chaos. The worse the call, the more I wanted it. But law enforcement needs to do a better job preparing people to leave the job. There should be some kind of mandatory counseling before retirement.

I was one of those guys who said, “I don’t need anything—I’m fine.” But no, I wasn’t. Sitting around was the worst thing for me. I wish someone had helped me recognize that earlier. Even while you’re still on the job, there should be regular check-ins with someone who really understands trauma—someone who can call you out.

If I had this knowledge back then, I would’ve gotten help right after that first bad call. My first suicide call was the worst one I ever saw. And then came the next, and the next... You don’t realize how much that builds up. You think you’re fine, but you’re not. And you can't just keep stuffing it down. Trauma needs a witness. I’d have found someone to talk to much sooner.

Q: The statistics are alarming around military and law enforcement members who’ve experienced childhood trauma. Many seek chaos as a way to suppress those memories.

A: Absolutely. During SAW, our instructor asked how many had childhood trauma. Every single person raised their hand. That says something. I’m not saying if you have childhood trauma you’ll end up like I did. But if you do have it, maybe it’s time to deal with it. Find someone you trust. Go to counseling. Start working through it. You’ll be amazed what you can work through once you start.

It’s not overnight—it’s a journey. But it’s better than pretending you’re fine until you explode. That’s what I did. I’m lucky worse things didn’t happen. But I couldn’t control my emotions. And like my counselor told me, it wasn’t the situation that caused everything—it was just the catalyst. This was going to happen eventually, whether it was over this or a road rage incident. It was only a matter of time. That’s why it’s so important to deal with this stuff before it boils over.

Q: With Save A Warrior, people often say, 'Well, I’m not suicidal.' But SAW isn’t just for suicidal people, right?

A: Correct. SAW is labeled as a complex PTSD and suicide prevention program, but you don’t have to be suicidal to benefit. Out of the 17 guys in my group, when they asked how many had thought about suicide, all of us raised our hands. And when they asked how many had tried to carry it out, everyone but two raised their hands. That tells you something. It’s not just about suicide. It’s about healing deep, complex wounds—and everyone there had those.

Q: You retired, took time off, then went back to work in security. That doesn't really help with getting out of the old mindset, does it?

A: Exactly. I heard those same words from my counselor. I basically jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Working at the prosecutor’s office kept me immersed in dark content—especially child crimes. I couldn’t disconnect from it. I was reading those files and thinking, “We need to find this guy,” and my adrenaline would spike again. My heart would race. I was right back in it. So yeah, I didn’t do myself any favors. I was still living in the chaos I claimed I wanted to escape.