Finding some peace after war

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From left: Veterans Heath Lanctot, Jeremy Tierney and John French near Berthoud Pass in Colorado during their 3100-mile hike of the Continental Divide Trail, July 8, 2017. Many veterans turn to trekking in hopes of finding serenity in a life upended by combat. “For the first time in years, it allowed me to not be so angry,” French said. (Max Whittaker/The New York Times)

FLORA PEAK, Colo. — Here at 13,000 feet, where storms sweep the ridges clear of trees and the quiet seems to stretch as far as the views, a group of combat veterans pressed on wordlessly on a blustery July morning, searching for something each had struggled to find since coming home from war: peace.

The group was almost halfway through a 3,100 mile hike along the Continental Divide from Mexico to Canada. With steady 20-mile days and a little luck, they would reach the finish before the predictable September snows of Montana. They hoped to also come away with a little perspective.

At the front was Master Sgt. Jeremy Tierney, an elite Army Ranger and Special Operations soldier. Since 2001, he had deployed 13 times.

"You get to see the worst of humanity. After all that I was pretty angry, pretty pessimistic," he said as his blue eyes searched the ridge for a trail. A black bracelet clutched his wrist, etched with the name of a friend killed in 2002.

"This walk is for recentering," he said. "I view it as my last deployment. I'm walking my way home."

All over the country, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are on similar quests. By foot, boat, bicycle, even wheelchair, they are crisscrossing the land this summer, trying to cobble serenity from lives upended by combat.

[Scuba, parrots, yoga: Veterans embrace alternative therapies for PTSD]

Often mainstream remedies have already come up short. Many first tried therapy from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but gave up after encountering what they saw as poor results and too many bottles of pills.

The numbers of veterans embarking on cross-country treks have grown in recent years, said Sean Gobin, a three-tour Marine veteran who, after hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2012, started a nonprofit called Warrior Expeditions to spread what he felt was a life-changing experience to other veterans. There are now several other organizations that try to get veterans outdoors.

"Before modern times, armies would march home and they would get to decompress with their comrades. When I got out, I got a 20-minute PowerPoint," Gobin said. "We've lost that cathartic experience. We no longer have the time and space to process what we've gone through."

His organization provides planning, gear and a little food money for veterans — including the group hiking the Continental Divide. Veterans then find their own way. Gobin said he now had nine applications for every spot.

Of course, going to the woods to live deliberately is hardly a new American pursuit, or one unique to combat circles, but it seems to have special resonance for veterans. The first person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail was a World War II veteran, Earl Shaffer, who decided to, as he later explained, "walk the Army out of my system, both mentally and physically."

Research has uncovered clear benefits to these types of expeditions. In many cases, veterans who set out with PTSD come home with so few symptoms that they no longer qualify for the diagnosis, said Shauna Joye, a professor of psychology at Georgia Southern University who, with her research partner Zachary Dietrich, has surveyed a number of veterans on Warrior Expedition hikes.

On the Continental Divide, Heath Lanctot, a former reconnaissance Marine who served two tours in Iraq, pointed to where the trail plunged 2,000 feet into a valley and climbed the shoulder of another mountain. Somewhere out there, they would find a camp for the night.

"This is a life reset for me," he said. "I had put off thinking about a lot of my past for years."

One day during his second deployment in 2005, a member of his team was shot down in an ambush and Lanctot ran through enemy fire to carry the mortally wounded man to safety. He then chased down the attackers, killing four, according to the citation for a Bronze Star, including one who was dispatched in a reedy canal with a knife to the neck.

He is now a corporate project manager.

On the trail, he left much about that day unsaid, offering only: "I lost a guy there. You know, you go through some stuff."

When a divorce recently forced Lanctot, 37, to confront his past, he went to a veterans hospital for help. "The first thing I said is that I didn't want any pills, I just needed to talk to someone," he recalled telling doctors. "They still offered me eight different drugs."

A better option, he decided, would be the daily ordeals of traversing the Divide: drinking from cattle tanks in the desert of New Mexico, kicking steps along the snowbound slopes of the San Juan Mountains in Colorado, setting aside everything but a 40-pound pack and the promise of what is ahead.

The group trudged down a slope spotted with snowfields and arrived at a roiling brook where they slid off their packs. Dark streaks on the shoulders of their shirts showed where weight and miles had worn the fabric thin. Lanctot washed his face in the icy snowmelt, then filled his water bottle and drank deep.

"I like to get up in the morning and just head out by myself," he said. "It gives me time to think about my past actions, clear things up."

Paddling for months

GREENVILLE, Miss. — Logan Hastings and his father Jeff dragged their kayaks onto a sandbar as long and broad as a battleship and looked out at the Mississippi River.

In the rippling heat, hundreds of terns swept up on white wings, drifting over a barge chugging against the muddy current.

"Beautiful, isn't it? We see so much wildlife living out here," said Logan, 31, whose blond beard had become so sun-bleached that it looked white.

The father and son had paddled for three months and 1,750 miles from the first trickle of the river in Minnesota. Both are veterans of Iraq. Logan did a tour in Afghanistan, too, where he hit a roadside bomb. And neither had quite put it aside. So they decided to paddle the whole river to raise awareness of PTSD.

"I've lost more friends here than I ever lost overseas," Logan said. "It takes a long time to get over everything that's happened." As a reminder that the effects of his deployment will be with him forever, tattooed on his right forearm are the words, "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

His father, Jeff, 54, was an Army Reserve chaplain in Iraq, and ministered to soldiers on long convoys along highways salted with roadside bombs.

"What did I see?" Jeff said about his deployment. "Blood and guts and guys not wanting to get back in the vehicle. And it was my job to tell them it would be OK."

Back home, he wondered how many of them really were. So many still seemed to be struggling. So when his son mentioned paddling the Mississippi, he volunteered to go along and help raise money for families of soldiers who died by suicide.

"At my age, this journey has been very difficult," Jeff said. "But if we can make a difference in one person's life, it will be worth it."

Finding a purpose

OZORA, Mo. — Coming down a rise in the rolling farmland here, Sara Lee put on the brakes of her bicycle and stooped to pick up a box turtle slowly tottering across the asphalt.

"That's the first one I've seen alive," she said. She smiled and gently tossed the turtle into the tall grass on the roadside. "Good thing I was here."

After deploying to Iraq in 2003, the hardest thing for the 34-year-old former National Guard sergeant to find was purpose. She missed the intensity of war, and the fierce friendships it forged. Back home, everything seemed gray and pointless.

"I felt like I've already lived an entire lifetime and there is nothing left to do," she said.

Worse, she felt guilty because some friends lost their lives in Iraq, and she now felt as if she was wasting hers.

So in May she and her riding partner, a former Marine named John Steele, set out to ride 4,200 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific, cranking over mountain passes and coasting along quiet river roads.

Often the pair try lay out their simple camp in people's yards or behind churches, but almost as often, locals invite them to stay inside.

"It reminds me what I'm capable of," she said. "And I'm trying to honor the friends I lost by living a full life."