For wounded heroes, Vail Veterans Program helps reveal purpose-driven living
Veterans Path to Success helps vets dive deeper into their emotional, mental and spiritual well-being
Zachariah Collett has seen the peaks and valleys of Vail. He’s also seen the peaks and valleys of life.
Collett enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2002 and was deployed to Kuwait in April 2003. He spent 13 months in Mosul, Iraq where he was hit by multiple improvised explosive devices throughout the year. Collett deployed back to Iraq in 2005 for 12 more months in Baghdad, Iraq where he encountered additional IED attacks.
“Over my 28 months in combat, I’d been exposed to more IEDs than I could count. I had a brain injury and obviously post-traumatic stress. I’ve since had seven back surgeries and my spine fused in multiple locations. And I’d gone through addiction to medication and addiction to alcohol and I’ve overcome those,” said Collett, a staff sergeant with a rank of E-6. “I went through a divorce due to my terrible state of existence and had suicide attempts. You name it, the universe threw it all at me, to make me wake up, to realize that this was not the life I was supposed to be leading … And now I’m grateful for it all.”
Collett, who has gone on to earn his bachelor’s degree in Psychology and is now in graduate school and spends time with his wife and four children knows about the ups and downs of life.
“Life is still waiting for you when you get back off the mountain. Because on the other side of a mountain is another mountain, right?” Collett said. “And ultimately, as you climb the peak of one mountain, you’re going to look off the peak and say, ‘Oh no, now I’ve got to go back down into the darkness of the valley. It’s life. It’s inevitable.”
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The Vail Veterans Program asked Collett to be a part of the Veterans Path to Success this fall. Collett is a Vail Veterans Program alumni and has participated in some of the recreational programs before and is an ambassador of the nonprofit that was started in Vail 20 years ago by Cheryl Jensen.
Redefining vets’ life missions
A meeting between Jensen and Dr. Jim Loehr prompted the creation and work of Veterans Path to Success.
Loehr, and author and performance psychologist, is known for his work on self and purpose. Together he and Jensen knew what he was doing could provide emotional, spiritual, mental physical growth and healing for our nation’s heroes through its content depth and intensity. The program’s intent provides meaningful personal results. It is a personal journey for the veterans to discover how to be the best version of themselves and redefine their life’s mission.
The program’s two facilitators were certified instructors from Johnson & Johnson’s Human Performance Institute. Collett completed training which allowed him to help facilitate this week’s program and provide a bridge between the program’s facilitators and the veterans since his story has a common thread that resonated with the vets.
“I think I was able to put a lot of hearts and minds at ease because nobody really had an understanding of what they were coming here for,” Collett said. “They knew the Veterans Path to Success was some sort of work, some kind of mental work. But they didn’t know what they were getting into.”
Collett admits that he really didn’t know what he was getting into, either.
“I didn’t really have a great feel for how it was going to flow and how I was really going to play a part in this,” Collett said. “It never really came to fruition until the moment arrived and it provided opportunities for vulnerability, honesty and truth.”
“It’s really hard for me not to get choked up about it because the men and women that came here on Monday did not leave the same today,” Collett said. “They didn’t really know what they were going to do here. Yet they said yes. They knew they needed something.”
Building blocks
Collett mentioned how so many veterans are seeking resources externally, looking elsewhere to find the answers.
“When all of those resources fail to create change, there’s only one place to look, and that’s within yourself,” Collett said. “I would venture to say that there were a couple of souls here that had found rock bottom. And the bravery that they displayed, the courage they displayed to know that they needed something else. But the reality was that they have everything that they need within themselves.”
The Veterans Path to Success program teaches by using a pyramid model, where the bottom level of the pyramid is the physical realm and finding a way to get back into some sort of physical condition that will support the body. Nutrition is a big part of the base of the pyramid as well.
“If we don’t maintain the body with resistance training, cardio, all those things, the system is not going to support the other pieces of the pyramid, which are mental energy, spiritual energy and emotional energy,” Collett said.
“That’s what we’re trying to teach these men and women is how to recognize each one of these pieces and the energy required to be who you ultimately are supposed to be. And the big goal of this program is to help them discover their purpose,” Collett said.
This week, 20 vets attended the three-day program at the Lodge at Vail in Vail Village.
“I think they’re really challenged by this kind of work because they are the most selfless humans God has ever put on this earth,” Collett said. “Service to others is something every one of them resonates with and oftentimes when you’re injured and you can no longer serve others, then the identity crisis happens.”
Collett compared the mindset change to the demolition of a building.
“A lot of these men and women put up big, giant walls and these big, huge concrete barriers that they have had for decades,” he said. “They let it go in a space which we created that was absolutely conducive to safety, camaraderie, love, compassion and empathy. What we’re doing here is unlike anything else, especially anything else that we’ve done as a program.”
The Vail Veterans Program provides military injured and their families free, world-class therapeutic programs that may bring them to the slopes or the golf course, a biking trail or horse ranch. Those recreational programs do build confidence and build community but the Veterans Path to Success is more purpose-driven.
“What we do in our other programs is absolutely beautiful, but this is allowing them to come here, create change, go back into the community and live out their purpose,” Collett said.
Collett felt the change, too, and found his purpose this week in Vail. He reflected on all the people alongside him throughout the years, giving him tough love, forcing him to look inside of himself for the answers which finally brought him to a place where he said he feels he can be a lighthouse for others.
“I think that’s all I ever wanted to be is a lighthouse because these veterans, these incredible humans are in a storm on a daily basis,” Collett said. “And if I can just be a little bit of light for them, so they know that it’s possible to make it back and correct the course. That’s what my purpose on this earth is. I didn’t think I had any more tears to cry. It’s been extremely heavy this week but I’m so grateful to finally be able to walk in my purpose.”