NASHVILLE (AP) — Richard Casper shakes his head as he touches one of the boarded-up windows in the once-abandoned church he plans to transform into a new 24-hour arts center for veterans.
The U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient said he was an arm’s length away from military officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, at Marine Barracks Washington when he learned the former church his nonprofit CreatiVets just purchased had been vandalized.
The physical damage to the building and its stained glass windows saddened Casper. But what worried him more was that the church had remained empty since 2017 without damage. That vandalism came just weeks after CreatiVets bought it, suggesting that maybe he and the veterans in his program were not welcome.
“I almost just left,” Casper said. “It put me in a weird headspace.”
However, Casper, 40, a CNN Heroes winner and Elevate Prize Foundation winner, needed more support for the center — “a place to go when the PTSD hits.” Like so many veterans, he said his PTSD, caused by seeing a close friend die on patrol in Iraq, would generally come in the middle of the night, when the only places open are bars and other spaces that can be ”destructive.”
He figured a 24-hour center where veterans could engage in music, painting, sculpture, theater and other arts could help. It could “turn all that pain into something beautiful.” The artistic element factored in when Casper, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq, returned home and found it hard to be in public — unless he was listening to live music.
So he completed his mission that night in Washington, introducing new people to CreatiVets’ work. Then, Casper returned to Nashville to practice what he has preached to hundreds of veterans since his nonprofit opened in 2013. He asked for help.
And help came.
Within weeks, CreatiVets’ Art Director Tim Brown was teaching a roomful of volunteers how to create stained glass pieces to replace those that were vandalized. Brown said the volunteers wanted to give back to the organization, “but also because of the impact that these activities have had on them.”
Gary Sinise believes in art’s impact
Gary Sinise values that impact. The actor, musician and philanthropist had already signed on to donate $1 million through his foundation to help CreatiVets purchase the building. Sinise’s involvement encouraged two other donors to help finalize the purchase.
The “CSI: NY” star said he believed in CreatiVets’ work and had already seen a similar program in his hometown of Chicago help veterans process their wartime experiences.
“In the military, you’re trained to do serious work to protect our country, right?” Sinise said. “If you’re in the infantry, you’re being trained to kill. You’re being trained to contain any emotion and be strong.”
Those skills are important when fighting the enemy, but they also take a toll, especially when veterans aren’t taught how to discuss their feelings once the war is over.
“Quite often, our veterans don’t want any help,” Sinise said. “But through art – and with theater as well – acting out what they are going through can be very, very beneficial.”
David Booth says he is living proof of how CreatiVets can help. And the retired master sergeant, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army as a medic and a counterintelligence agent, wishes he participated in the program sooner.
“For me, this was more important than the last year and a half of counseling that I’ve gone through,” said Booth. “It has been so therapeutic.”
After years of being asked, Booth, 53, finally joined CreatiVets’ songwriting program in September. He traveled from his home in The Villages, Florida, to the historic Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to meet with two successful songwriters – Brian White, who co-wrote Jason Aldean’s “Blame It on You,” and Craig Campbell, of “Outskirts of Heaven” fame – to help him write a song about his life.
Booth told them about his service, including his injury in Iraq in 2006 when the vehicle he was in struck an improvised explosive device and detonated it.
He suffered a traumatic brain injury in the explosion, and it took months of rehab before he could walk again. His entire cervical spine is fused. He still gets epidurals to relieve the nerve pain. And he still suffers from nightmares and PTSD.
In Iraq, Booth’s unit was once surrounded by kids because American soldiers used to give them Jolly Rancher candies. Snipers shot the children in hopes the soldiers would become easier targets when they tried to help.
“Things like that stick in my head,” Booth said. “How do you get them out?”
He also told them about his desire for a positive message and Combat Veterans to Careers, the veteran support nonprofit he founded. Those experiences became the song “What’s Next.”
Booth hopes “What’s Next” becomes available on music streaming services so others can hear his story. CreatiVets has released compilations of its veterans’ songs since 2020 in cooperation with Big Machine Label Group, Taylor Swift’s first record label. This year’s collection was released Friday.
“It’s almost like they could feel what I was feeling and put it into the lyrics,” said Booth, after hearing the finished version. “It was pretty surreal and pretty awesome.”
Why Lt. Dan from ‘Forrest Gump’ launched a nonprofit
Sinise has seen the unexpected impact of art throughout his career. His Oscar-nominated role as wounded Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan Taylor in “Forrest Gump” in 1994 deepened his connection to veterans. His music with the Lt. Dan Band expanded it. In 2011, he launched the Gary Sinise Foundation to broadly serve veterans, first responders and their families.
“I think citizens have a responsibility to take care of their defenders,” he said. “There are opportunities out there for all of us to do that and one of the ways to do it is through multiple nonprofits that are out there.”
Sinise immediately connected with CreatiVets’ mission. When the idea came to dedicate the performance space at the new center to his late son Mac, who died last year after a long battle with cancer, Sinise saw it as “a perfect synergy.”
“Mac was a great artist,” he said. “And he was a humble, kind of quiet, creative force… If Mac would have survived and not gone through what he went through, he’d be one of our young leaders here at the foundation. He would be composing music and he’d be helping veterans.”
Mac Sinise is still helping veterans, as proceeds of his album “Resurrection & Revival” and its sequel completed after his death, are going to the Gary Sinise Foundation. And Gary Sinise said he discovered more compositions from his son that he plans to record later this year for a third album.
After the new center was vandalized, Casper said he was heartbroken, but also inspired knowing part of the center was destined to become the Mac Sinise Auditorium. He decided to take pieces of the broken stained glass windows and transform them into new artwork inspired by Mac Sinise’s music.
“I told you we’re going to go above and beyond to make sure everyone knows Mac lived,” Casper told Sinise as he handed him stained glass panes inspired by Mac Sinise’s songs “Arctic Circles” and “Penguin Dance,” “not that he died, but that he lived.”
Sinise fought back tears as he said, “My gosh, that’s beautiful.”
As he examined the pieces more closely, Sinise added, “I’m honored that we’re going to have this place over there and that Mac is going to be supporting Richard and helping veterans.”
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