Disaster relief that can save veterans - Jake Wood - TEDxSanDiego

Team Rubicon is a relief organization that utilizes the practiced teamwork, skills and experiences of US veterans by deploying them into disaster stricken areas. But, as Jake Wood shares, a recent loss in the organization changed its focus toward giving struggling veterans a chance at continued purpose, community, and self-worth.

Two years ago, after having served four years

in the United States Marine Corps

and deployed both to Irak and Afghanistan,

I found myself in Port-au-Prince

leading a team of veterans and medical professionals

in some of the hardest hit areas of that city,

three days after the earthquake.

We were going to the places nobody else would go.

The places nobody else could go

and after three weeks, we realized something --

military veterans are very, very good at disaster response.

And coming home, my co-founder and I,

we looked at it, we said,

"There are two problems. The first problem is an Inadequate Disaster Response.

It's slow, it's antiquated. It's not using the best technology.

It's not using the best people."

The second problem that we became aware of

was a very inadequate veteran reintegration.

And this is the topic, that is a front page news right now.

Those veterans are coming home right now,

from Iraq and Afghanistan,

and they are struggling to reintegrate into civilian life.

We sat here and we looked into these two problems

and finally we came to a realization.

These aren't problems, these are actually solutions.

And what do I mean by that?

We can use disater response as an opportunity

for service for the veterans coming home.

Recent surveys show that 92 percent of veterans

want to continue the service when they take off the uniform.

And we can use veterans to improve disaster response.

Now, on the surface this makes a lot of sense,

our organisation Rubicon was born in 2010,

we responded to the tsunami in Chile,

the floods in Pakistan,

we sent training teams to the Thai - Burma border.

And we went to South Sudan,

shortly after the independence,

to train doctors and support surgical techniques.

But it was earlier this year, when one of our original members,

caused us to shift focus in the organisation.

This is Clay Hunt.

Clay was a Marine with me, we served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We served in the same sniper team in the Helmand Valley in 2008.

Clay was with us in Port-au-Prince,

he was also with us in Chile.

Earlier this year, in March, Clay took his own life.

This was a tragedy.

It rocked out the organisation, but it really forced us

to refocus what it is that we were doing.

You know, Clay didn't kill himself [because of] what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Clay killed himself bacasue of what he lost when he came home.

He lost purpose. He lost his community.

And perhaps, most tragically, he lost his self-worth.

So, as we evaluated and as the dust settled from this tragedy --

we realized that, of those two problems,

and the initial iteration of our organisation,

we were a disater response organisation that was using veteran's service.

We had a lot of success

and we really thought like we were changing

the disaster response paradigm.

But after Clay we shifted that focus

and suddenly, now moving forward, we see ourselves

as a veteran service organisation

that's using disaster response.

That might not seem like a major shift in focus for many people out here, in this audience,

but I'll tell you why it is.

Because we think that we can give that purpose,

that community and that self-worth back to the veteran.

And tornados in Tuscaloosa and Joplin and then later hurricane Irene,

gave us the opportunity to look at that.

Now, I want you to imagine for a second an 18-year-old boy

who graduates from highschool in Kansas City, Missouri.

He joins the army, the army gives him a rifle,

they send him to Iraq.

Everyday he leaves the wire with a mission.

That mission is to defend the freedom of the family that he left at home,

it's to keep the man around him alive,

it's to pacify the village that he works in.

And he's got a purpose. But he comes home to Kansas City, Missouri,

maybe he goes to college, maybe he's got a job,

but he doesn't have that same sense of purpose.

You give him a chainsaw and you send him to Joplin, Missouri, after a tornado,

he regains that.

Going back, that same 18 year old boy graduates from highschool in Kansas City, Missouri.

He joins the army, army gives him a rifle,

they send him to Iraq --

Everyday he looks in the same set of eyes around him,

he leaves the wire, he knows that those people have his back.

They've slept on the same sand, they've lived together,

they've eaten together, they've bled together.

He goes home to Kansas City, Missouri.

He gets out of military, takes his uniform off.

He doesn't have this community anymore.

But you drop 25 of those veterans in Joplin, Missouri,

they get that sense of community back.

Again, you have an 18 year old boy who graduates from highschool in Kansas City.

He joins the army, army gives him a rifle,

they send him to Iraq --

They pin a medal on his chest,

he goes home to a ticker tape parade --

He takes the uniform off, he is no longer sergeant Jones in his community,

he's now Dave from Kansas City.

He doesn't have that same self-worth.

But you send him to Joplin after a tornado

and somebody once again is walking up to him

and shaking his hand and thanking him, for his service.

Now, they have self-worth again --

So what? What's it mean?

I think it's very important.

Becasue right now, there's a void in leadership in this country.

And somebody needs to step up as we have corruption,

and scams on tops of industry and politics

and institutions of higher learning.

So, we need to step up and take that role of leadeship in this country,

and move this country forward,

in the direction that it's meant to move.

And this generation of veterans has the opportunity

to do that, if they are given the chance.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)