When I founded TRR in 2004 as an online resource for NYC’s first responders I could not have imagined that we would be where we are today.
TRR is a leader in re-defining Military Moral Injury as distinct from PTSD and highlighting that MMI is not a disorder that requires treatment, but rather a very human response to having violated a core value or moral code. We seek to avoid pathologizing having a conscience.
Our approach is innovative and unique. Military personnel train, live and go to war as a group, not as individuals. TRR has learned that effective and lasting repair of MMI must be done in a group context while simultaneously working with the individual in one-on-one therapy. We have conducted suicide prevention programs for combat veterans for 11 years through our Warrior Camp® program – with a 99.4% survival rate. Our program works.
TRR’s work is nowhere near done. Everyday we lose veterans and active-duty military members to suicide. Even more of our nation’s warfighters have died by suicide than were killed in combat operations in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. TRR knows how to change this and we need continued financial support to accomplish our mission of ending veteran suicide.
Every program produces “Oh, wow” moments that are hard to describe, profoundly impactful, and also deeply meaningful to me personally. As the proud daughter of a WWII veteran of the 3104 Signal Service Battalion, I remember the day my father said, shortly before his death at age 90, “I never really told you what happened to me over there.” It has been my dedication to our nations’ veterans that no others reach the end of their lives holding too closely to that which needs to be said, and acknowledged – ‘the things they carry.’
It has been an absolute honor to be able to serve those who so valiantly serve us.
