Warriors of Camp Southern Ground
CHRIS MURPHY
Chris is a Warrior Week and Warrior PATHH and veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. This is his story.
I was medically retired from the U.S. Marine Corps after 17 years. Not really what I was looking for and it kind of sent me into a tailspin.
My kids attended summer camp at Camp Southern Ground and that’s how I learned about Camp Southern Ground’s Warrior Programs. I came to the very first, the pilot Warrior Week and learned a lot about myself, who I am, why I am the way I am. Warrior Week is a career development program for transitioning veterans and, while it was amazing to learn and understand my strengths, at that point in my life, I didn’t necessarily need a job, I needed a purpose in life. That is the big thing I was missing.
About a year or so on down the road, someone who was with me at Warrior Week said, “Hey, there’s a new program I think you should try. I just went to the first one, and it’s called Warrior PATHH.” Wouldn’t tell me anything about it. We still don’t tell anybody about it, and that’s on purpose. So, I signed up.
We lived in Tennessee at the time. I went to the airport, and as I sat there waiting for my flight, I chickened out. I called my wife, and I said, “I don’t know, come get me.” She said, “If you want to walk from Nashville to Clarksville, go ahead, but I am not coming to get you.” So, I got on the plane, and I came down to Warrior PATHH. I think really the, the biggest thing I can say, at that point, is that the last time I tried to take my own life was the day before I got on that plane.
From the guides to food to the support staff, I cannot say enough about this amazing program. Upon arrival at Camp Southern Ground, there is a feeling of genuine peace and security. I like to tell people that the land and the people on it set it apart from any other place I’ve ever been. My 2020 was not like the 2020 everyone hears on the news. I made drastic changes in my life, all of which were spurred on by what I learned in just five days (PATHH continues well after you leave Camp Southern Ground). I became more aware of what I can do instead of, or in the face of, what I once thought I couldn’t do. I began to keep a regular schedule. I began to add exercise to my daily schedule. I took time to write what was on my mind via journaling. I began to eat healthier. I set goals and achieved them repeatedly! I still stay in touch with my PATHH cohort brothers.
As the wife of a retired and fully disabled Marine, I have run the gamut of medications, therapies, and programs. I have run the roller coasters of excitement over a new option, only to be repeatedly let down that seemingly nothing would bring my husband back from the war that raged within him. I have held him while he sobbed and I have sat helplessly while he raged, him always being convinced that he was too damaged to be any good to myself, the kids, or the world at large after injury. Suicidal ideations and attempts became a very real part of our life from 2014 and continued through the beginning of 2020. As I put him on a plane to Atlanta on March 1, 2020, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and sigh deeply; I had learned to give up on any miraculous changes in this “new normal” we’ve lived.
The morning after Chris returned, his alarm woke me up; I, an early riser for all of my life, was shocked to hear an alarm. He disappeared for some time, and later shared with me that he had been meditating, journaling, and exercising. The changes on that very first day of his homecoming were already staggering, but I expected them to be short-lived.
We are years into his journey with PATHH and every day I see him waking up on a schedule, working out (he has lost over 100 pounds), sharing life with Warriors around him and in his cohort, taking moments to encourage our children, and actively living a joy-filled life. There have been no suicidal ideations, no moments of rage, and no tearful nights. The man I married, whom I had lost to a war he could not leave in his mind, has returned to us. Warrior PATHH did not just change our lives; it saved them.
WILL YOU HELP US MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
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