23rd Veteran

Mission
Provide happier, healthier lives for veterans living with Trauma.


Objectives:

- 23V Recon: Recondition our veterans to live happy, successful lives through our exclusive 14-week program.

- Combat Stress Seminars: Provide education on why our brains are supposed to change in combat, why we bring that home with us, and what the community can do to create a friendlier environment for our veterans.

- Bladesmithing - an art therapy program that motivates veterans to get out of their homes and build relationships in the community while creating a sharp piece of art


Overview
23rd Veteran's 23V Recon program is a groundbreaking transition program for veterans leaving the military and those who were never properly transitioned. Depression is common among our returning veterans with over 130,000 veteran suicides since 9/11. In 2012 it was estimated that 22 veterans a day are committing suicide. 23rd Veteran was created with that shocking statistic in mind.

A nonprofit organization headquartered in Minnesota, 23rd Veteran has developed a program to retrain our veterans' brains to live happier, healthier, and more successfully in the civilian world. Utilizing brain science, evolutional theory, positive trigger re-association, and positive psychology, we help veterans transition to live more successful in the civilian world by providing an innovative reconditioning program. U.S. Congressman Rick Nolan has labeled this innovative treatment "Positive Reconditioning" in efforts to gain support through U.S. Legislation.

23V Recon (Reconditioning Program)
23V Recon is our primary objective. It's our "brain reconditioning" program providing a profound impact for
veterans and civilians. We utilize brain science, combined with camaraderie and positive psychology to retrain
our negative triggers from combat stress to relate to new positive events, establishing a mindset that is far
more successful in the civilian world. This is a groundbreaking approach to serving veterans with traumatic
experiences and early results have shown it to be extremely successful. The program has been piloted in
Duluth, MN, experienced multiple improvements and is now launching in Minneapolis in 2018 and Southern California in 2019.


Community Engagement
23rd Veteran provides engagement seminars on combat stress. We teach why our brains are supposed to
change during traumatic situations, why we carry that with us, and what the community can do to create a
friendlier environment for veterans. This education is provided to corporations, universities, community
groups, U.S. Congress, and government organizations. We also specialize in providing this very useful and destigmatizing education to military units before they deploy.

These speaking engagements are mutually beneficial for the participants, 23rd Veteran, and veterans. The
outcomes are the following:

 The participants better understand combat stress and how to better serve veterans
 People that experience PTSD make leaps in progressing away from severe symptoms of the disorder.
 Veterans become motivated to join our reconditioning program
 Donors understand the epidemic and are excited to help
 After educating U.S. Congress, they are looking to make changes with the Department of Defense
and the Veterans Administration in both their education programs and their transition programs.

Reconditioning Capabilities:
We've published the "23V Recon Playbook", which acts as a manual for coaches and veterans in the program. The book allows for easy expansion and execution of the program by laying out the foundation for:
- The rules
- The workouts
- The positive psychology sessions
- The memory retraining portions of the program

The "Playbook" has been used and refined through 28 weeks of execution. The 3rd Version of the playbook has been used in expansion to 3 cities in 2018


Combat Stress Seminar Capabilities
Our Executive Director has been speaking around the country for military units, corporations, community clubs, mental health conferences, universities, and U.S. Congress for the past 3 years. The Seminars are continuing to be improved and refined for Education, Entertainment, and Significance. The feedback received is amazingly positive and used to improve future seminars.

Accomplished:
Successfully graduated 36 participants of the Reconditioning Program
- 100% report living happier with a higher quality of life

Performed 306 Combat Stress Seminars
- Educating 18,597 audience members
- Provided pre-deployment training to 1,113 military members
- Provided seminar to members of Congress in Washington D.C.

Received National Awards
- 2nd place in Veteran Business Growth Challenge with 102 competitors nation-wide
- Named the nation's "Best Venture Impacting Veterans"s in the same national challenge

Happening Next:
Reconditioning program for veterans in:
- Duluth, MN
- St. Cloud, MN
- Minneapolis, MN
- Los Angela, CA
- Philidelphia

Continue educating our community, leaders, and military on why we're supposed to get PTSD, and how to train that back out of the brain.