“My brother (in law) was SGT Zachary J Wyman. He proudly served in the 101st Airborne and deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. Growing up he was my best friend and we immediately bonded. There may have been no blood between us but we discussed many times how it didn’t matter and we never really saw each other as in laws. He lost his mother when he was young and lost his sister too. He didn’t have much of a family, but we always had each other. He was married and had 4 beautiful children, 3 girls and 1 boy. Our dream was always for me to enlist with him and after we both got out we were going to join the police academy together. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always go as planned. I had just graduated from college and was in training to be a correctional officer the night my world was turned upside down. As soon as I heard he was gone I immediately knew he had taken his life. We had talked many times about his demons but he mostly tried to hide them. I witnessed his flashback once and it was so hard watching someone I loved so much go through it. Many years before he had told me it was only a matter of time before he lost that battle. He didn’t really feel that people appreciated all he did: two combat tours and he came home and felt like he was forgotten. I know many of our vets do. Nothing against our currently deployed vets of course, but I want to focus on those who went over and are now home. So many think they’re safe but they don’t realize that many can’t shake their demons inside. I just want to be that light that shows them we haven’t forgotten, that we still care.
What I’m hoping for is for 22 volunteers to write a simple letter of appreciation. Whether it’s a few sentences or a page long letter, anything is appreciated. I want this to be a monthly thing, and hopefully it can grow and spread and we can impact some lives. Even if we just give one veteran that boost they need to push on a little bit more, it’s not in vain.
Anyone wishing to volunteer can either write a letter and send it to me