Traditional methods of therapy failed to heal all the wounds, physical and emotional, that veteran Jason Morgan endured during and after his years in the U.S. Air Force. Then, he found hope and a calmed mind.
Morgan is a military veteran and paraplegic who served as a U.S. Air Force staff sergeant between 1989-1999, with his service career ending abruptly after being injured during a counter-narcotics mission in South America. He went from leading special operations to becoming an amputee, coming to realize decades later that veterans like himself respond better to nontraditional therapeutic techniques.
He’s not alone. Military.com previously reported that 1-in-4 military veterans who start psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) quit before they ever finish treatment, with data shedding new light on long-ingrained issues stemming from suboptimal Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) care and the treatment mechanisms veterans not only respond to but take through their lives.
“Every time I hear something, like, ‘Just call the crisis hotline, the VA,’ it’s kind of a joke, to be honest with you,” Morgan told Military.com
Almost Left For Dead
In 1999, Morgan was serving within Air Force Special Ops and was a combat meteorologist whose job included weather forecasting and relaying any environmental concerns for intelligence-based purposes.
At that time while in South America, he was working for the Army's premier special operations aviation force known as the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, known more colloquially as the "Night Stalkers.”
He was deployed as part of a mission in Northern Ecuador with the 160th, called Operation Succumbus, aligned with U.S. regional counter-narcotics objectives during the late 1990s, focusing on disrupting trafficking networks, strengthening host-nation capabilities, and denying operational freedom to criminal and insurgent groups.
During an average day of training and executing missions, one of the team’s helicopters broke down. Morgan and his best friend at the time, an Army sergeant, provided security for their driver who was regular infantry and a translator.
“We got ambushed from behind,” Morgan said. “As I was hanging out of my vehicle, I was in the backseat trying to disable the vehicle behind me and the people in it. Our driver went off the side of a ledge and slipped down a mountainside.
“Basically, I was thrown from the vehicle and landed on a muddy ledge and that vehicle rolled over me and crushed my back and pushed me face down in the water.”
Morgan was essentially left for dead. That was, however, until an American missionary who saw skid marks at the scene accidentally walked directly on Morgan’s body that laid face-down in the muck. He was still conscious while immobile.
“It’s kind of weird because I don’t remember it; I have a lot of flashbacks and it’s like in first person,” he recalled. “I don’t know if they were real or not, but I do know I was conscious because I met the guy that saved me years later and he told me everything that happened.
“All I could think about was that they told us that if something happens, just do not get captured because…they will torture you and kill you. Even when I was in the hospital, I tried to escape.”
'One Injury After Another'
Even after being “in a pretty crazy state” of mind where he pulled his feeding tube, he never thought about death or his mortality.
About 48 hours after the life-changing ambush, Morgan was back in the United States but in a coma that lasted months. Meanwhile, he had a wife of roughly five years and three children ranging from ages 4 to 1.
Constant nerve pain debilitated his existence, leading to years’ worth of hospital visits—”one injury after another,” as he described. To make matters worse, his wife left him and their children.
“I had to not only find a way to take care of myself, but I had to take care of three young kids at the time,” Morgan said. “So, in a way, that was a blessing because that gave me a sense of purpose.
“My job was to take care of my kids because I think if I’d have left my family and [my ex-wife] wanted the boys…I’d have been in place by myself with no reason to get up in the morning. I don’t even want to think about it, it’s been a long recovery.
Those recovery efforts have not been aided by a VA system that Morgan acknowledges has improved but is “not where it needs to be.” Though he was provided access to a spinal cord clinic and received wheelchairs and other aid, depression consumed him and led to taking large amounts of pain medication.
Reality set in 3-4 years ago when Morgan’s father was dying from pancreatic cancer and Morgan would give him morphine treatments.
“I realized I was taking 13 times the amount [of medication] my dad was taking, and that really woke me up,” Morgan said.
He spent a year “scaling down” to a point where he is now down about 80% compared to where he was. The pain is so consistent he requires medicine to cope.
“A lot of that was a fog,” he said. “I was in a drug-induced state. When I felt good, I was very productive. When I felt bad, I wasn’t much help. They help me a lot with the physical injuries; they just didn't help me much with depression or mental injuries. I didn’t even get diagnosed with PTSD until probably 3-4 years ago.”
Service Dog and Being 'Invisible'
Morgan’s attempts to better himself mentally through therapy came with subpar results.
The veteran, who possesses a self-described “strong drive” to succeed and previously participated on paralympic teams, felt like his recurring therapy sessions were not individually tailored and did little to change his broader life outlook.
One thing that changed his life was a service dog, of which he’s currently on his third canine. But dealing with his injuries, seen and unseen, prior to having a service dog was “a 180-degree difference,” he said.
“I’d go into the store and people would just ignore me,” Morgan said. “They didn't know why I was in a chair, they didn’t know I was military. Not that they were being mean, I think they just didn’t know how to react.
“I felt like I was invisible, and that was really tough to deal with. I felt like I almost died for my country and yet now I feel like an invisible man.”
'One-Stop Shop For Wellness'
Besides the service dog, Morgan found another salvation: F1RST.
Described as a comprehensive wellness program, the organization possesses a multidisciplinary team composed of psychologists, mental health providers, physical and manual therapists, human performance and cognitive specialists, an exercise physiologist, a research team, and a registered dietician.
F1RST started in 2020 started with just one therapist. Now, roughly 45 different health clinicians treat veterans across Oklahoma and Texas, with efforts to expand throughout the U.S. It is primarily based out of Frisco, in Northern Texas.
“Many of our first responders are active military as well as military veterans,” Dena McPherson, director of business development at F1RST, told Military.com. “Our programming, because it focuses on high-stress, high-performance professions, is totally applicable and customizable for veterans and their family members.
“Out of demand and the positive and incredible impact that we’ve had with the first responder community, we have started working with nonprofits and of course veterans within the first responder population to be able to serve their families and to serve them with the programs that we have. We are basically a one-stop shop for wellness.”
McPherson described all the inner workings as a “vessel” where emotional, physical and psychological traumas directly impact one another. The experts treat not just veterans but their families, offering numerous methods of care in one facility.
That is what separates F1RST from traditional wellness programs, McPherson said.
“There’s very few, if any at all, programs offering that fully comprehensive approach and bringing a culturally competent team with all of those experts in one place,” she said. “We like to focus on building a lifelong relationship with the veteran and the family members just because to be that trusted resource for them… is so important.”
She estimates that between 12,000-15,000 first responders, from the military to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to the FBI, have been served by F1RST.
A New Venture for Veterans
Morgan has also used his own life experience to impact others.
He and former U.S. Army combat photojournalist David Thompson co-founded Veterans Outpost, a 48-acre ranch in Greenville, Texas, committed to improving the physical, emotional, spiritual and economic well-being of U.S. military veterans and their family members.
Morgan said he and Thompson have been building a team that has the excellence of F1RST. That has included offering veterans and families different coping mechanisms, be it riding horses or four-wheelers or fishing in a pond on the property.
It was inspired by people like McPherson, who he said gave him a list of things to accomplish to push him in the right direction.
“I think a traditional counseling environment can be OK for some people, but through Veterans Outpost and F1RST’s approach, having a variety of different settings, different modalities to pull from to meet the individual where they’re at is so important…to be able to quickly identify what is impacting that specific veteran’s life right away,” McPherson said.
Where does the focus need to be?
It’s not about her as a clinician, she added, or anyone else expect swiftly providing the best channels for veterans to find help and utilize it. Their sacrifices to the nation should not be forgotten.
“One of the hardest things that I have heard is the lack of cultural competence of what these guys have been exposed to, the understanding of the high-stress environments, how it’s not only impacting them but their relationships,” she said.
“If we can take that and create an understanding and quickly establish rapport through cultural competence, I think that’s a key thing.”
Morgan said that veterans like himself already find it difficult to ask for help. Giving treatment methods “the college try” only has so much impact until the messages fall on deaf ears.
Getting affiliated with Veterans Outpost and F1RST was “a happy accident.” Taking those tools and adapting them is a lesson other struggling veterans can follow.
“There is a way out and you can get better,” he said. “There is hope. I’ve been many years without hope and it’s in a really bad place to be. But if you want to get better, you got to work at it.”
