The Heroes Journey

The Heroes Journey helps veterans and military family members find their voice and tell their story to gain an edge as they transition home from service. The goal of The Heroes Journey is to provide resources that help keep transitioning veterans and their families healthy so they, in turn, can serve and sustain their fellow warriors who are suffering and in need. That is our motivation, our passion and our duty.

Symptoms of PTS(D) as listed by the VA include experiencing flashbacks of the original trauma, avoiding any situation that reminds the sufferer of the trauma, having a heightened sense of danger, and constantly feeling on alert. Scientists believe this is a problem in the brain’s relay system. In other words, the trauma gets stuck in the part of the brain that believes the trauma is still happening.

At The Heroes Journey, we believe that one avenue to unclogging this bottleneck is the simple act of telling one’s story. According to mental health practitioners, when an individual with Post Traumatic Stress tells his or her story the brain begins to make new connections to that memory. They are not only attaching words to their experience, but they are attaching the feelings and sensory impressions that were felt at the time. And in doing so, the stuck part of the brain can finally stand down. It will realize that the danger is not happening. It can stop firing as if there’s an immediate danger.

The Heroes Journey helps military veterans and their family members find their voice and tell their story in their transition from military to civilian life. Our services include therapeutic storytelling workshops, online learning courses, and books on the transition from military to civilian life for veterans, first responders, and their spouses and children. The most notable project The Heroes Journey took on the past year was producing a full length film about the cost of the 20-year war in Afghanistan called Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret.

The Heroes Journey helps Warriors find their voice and tell their story in their transition, giving them essential skills for reconnecting with their new lives and purpose beyond the military.

As long as war, crisis, or trauma have existed, people have lived with the full brunt of the effects of experiencing horrific events. While many therapies, techniques, and tools are beneficial and necessary, they are designed only to treat, manage, or eliminate the symptoms. No techniques claim to bring total healing or complete restoration. For the PTS sufferer, storytelling does more than treat, manage, or eliminate the symptoms. Storytelling can literally rewire the sufferer’s brain. However, in order for people to tell their stories, they must be in a place of acceptance and moving forward despite the trauma that lies in the past and perhaps still surrounds them.

Heroes Journey Storytelling Workshops are two- or three-day submersion programs that help participants cultivate their greatest assets as a warrior; their VOICE and their STORY. Workshops offer a safe community that allows the use of the vehicle of storytelling to help sufferers experience deeper healing. We use a focused 3-step approach in our workshops. Armed with the tools learned in a Heroes Journey Storytelling Workshop, veterans will be leading with their story in job interviews and business meetings, leading at their jobs and in their communities. More importantly, they will be healing the wounds of war, and free themselves to connect more deeply with loved ones. The ability to tell their story helps warriors start bridging their connection gaps. Workshops bring together warriors who share a common bond. They all proudly served their country during a time of war and are dealing with Post Traumatic Stress. During a workshop, the warriors participate in exercises to help them uncover their stories and recognize stressful situations. A mental health professional is part of the program staff and is there to discuss issues participants may be facing in recovery from PTS. Warriors quickly discover they are not alone, and there are other warriors with similar struggles.

The film Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret tells the story of our warriors and their families. The family is central in this narrative and is not a consolation prize for making it home. Veterans, the children of veterans, and their grandchildren are all seeing themselves in this story. Last Out is the story of those who have deployed so many times they’ve lost track of which side of the ocean they’re on and whose lives have become a blur. Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret will begin steaming on digital platforms in May 22.

The Heroes Journey offers three written resources, Mission America, Mommy Keeps Us Free, and Daddy Keeps Us Free, that are offered to servicemen and women, veterans, and their families to ease stress in their transition.

Many veterans say that transition to civilian life is the biggest obstacle they’ve ever faced, with emotional, relational, and financial challenges they could never have imagined. The Heroes Journey written materials, workshops, and the Last Out productions are no B.S. looks at the realities of military transition and an eye-opening perspective to help soldiers transition to civilian life with success and honor, in a manner befitting their sacrifice and service.

Behind dynamic and capable leadership, The Heroes Journey holds programs that strive to meet the needs of every program participant individually.

Scott Mann, Co-founder of The Heroes Journey
Together with his wife, Scott founded The Heroes Journey, to help veterans tell their stories in transition. Mann spent 23 years in the United States Army, 18 of those as a Green Beret, where he specialized in unconventional, high-impact missions all over the world. As a Green Beret, he forged bonds and solved problems using values and leadership skills that moved people around the world to stand up for themselves and was able to restore trust and create human connections in places where that didn’t seem possible. In the same way, he empowered local tribes in Iraq and Afghanistan to make transformative decisions, using very few resources, Scott now teaches the relationship-building techniques that drove so many of his successful combat operations. Scott has written all THJ materials as well as the play Last Out—Elegy of a Green Beret. Last Out tells the story of Army Green Beret Danny Patton’s battles that range from tribal Afghanistan to his own living room. Last Out is based on true stories of modern war. With a cast made up entirely of veterans and their family members, Last Out is a theatrical experience intended to help civilians better understand the cost of combat to our veterans and their families, and to help warriors utilize the power of story to let go of their pain, healing the wounds of war.

Zeke Vanderpool
TRAUMATIC STRESS INTERVENTIONIST, RTM COUNSELOR
Zeke Vanderpool has dedicated his life to serving and protecting others. After serving 23 years with Army Special Forces, Zeke went on to work as a deputy sheriff, a federal police officer, a federal agent, a federal intelligence operations specialist, and a law enforcement liaison officer.
As a co-founder of the non-profit organization, Operation Angel Wing, and a member of the Transition Support Team for The Heroes Journey, Zeke continues to serve our nation’s warriors by providing Question/Persuade/Refer (QPR) training for suicide prevention, Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM) protocol, and PTS intervention services. He is a talented singer, songwriter, and guitarist, and he uses music as a vehicle for story to bridge the gap for transitioning veterans and first responders.
As a public speaker, warrior storyteller, and coach with Rooftop Leadership, Zeke shares his scars and lessons learne

2021
Through a constant stream of media that included short stories and videos, direct-to-camera hits, television, podcast, and radio interviews, content on our social media platforms reached almost 4 million people, including 248,000 as we approached the 20-year anniversary of 9-11.

21,000 people viewed our videos as, in the weeks following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, our Heroes Journey warrior storytellers created content to inform civilians on the cost of war and to honor and validate the service of the 800,000 veterans of the Afghan War and their Afghan allies, as well as those from all other conflicts.

We used, and will continue to use, Last Out as a strategic communication tool to help heal veterans who have been traumatized by the withdrawal from Afghanistan and to inform civilians on what “Honor the Promise” really means.

In 2021, Last Out has been viewed by over 60,000 people.

With the chaos of the August 2021 withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, we diverted our resources to fundraising for other nonprofits that were helping evacuate our Afghan partners and U.S citizens trapped in Afghanistan, as well as responding to our veterans who were experiencing immense trauma during this event and feeling like their service was meaningless. Several Heroes Journey staff were involved in the safe passage and resettlement of our Afghan allies.
 
As we move into 2022, The Heroes Journey will open the Better Ground Veterans Performing Arts Center to help warriors each find their voice and tell their own story as they transition from military mission and become more relevant and relatable at work and in their communities and home.

We have leased space in Stage Works, a local theatre, and have held four storytelling workshops in Q1 of 2022.