People don't tell you about your four years behind all these other people and these other people don't have any life experience when it comes to the life experience that you have. For me, when I came home, I was like, Okay, I guarded the president United States. And then I went off to war, and I was injured. And so when I started going to college, and people warned about certain things, and there's just, there's a lot of stuff that I was, I was like, you guys don't even know what the real worlds like. And so there's this little bit of like, you don't feel as connected to the people which that that's where it starts. My communication with everyone was well, but like, inside, I'm still feeling a little detached. I'm feeling like I'm alone. And when you're alone with your thoughts for that long, what happens is you actually start thinking more about your experiences. But the problem is, when you think about more of your experiences, you start going downhill because all sudden, you're like, Oh, I almost died, or I saw someone die, right? I was blown up and you kind of get in this realm of now I'm alone.
Traumatic brain injuries and post traumatic stress have plagued a number of veterans who returned from war zones. Although progress has been made in how we treat the effects for more, many vets find it hard to identify these lingering injuries, and aren't always sure of how to seek treatment. This was the case for Richard Casper, when he finished his service in Iraq, and began to restart his civilian life by going to college. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we're going to discuss Richard caspers journey from the Marine Corps to an art class where he made a discovery that would change his life, and eventually the lives of many other veterans.
My name is Richard Casper, and I'm the Executive Director and co founder of a nonprofit called create events. But I also have a startup that I co founded called, we should write some time, and it's in the tech music space.
Tell me a little bit about how you got started at Heartland. So originally,
I'm from Washburn, Illinois, that's where I grew up. So it's not too far from Heartland. So I went off into the Marine Corps in 2003. And I was injured in Iraq later, towards the end of my career where I ended up with a brain injury and PTSD and a lot of issues. But when I came home, I knew I wanted to go to college. And my first plan was, Okay, I'll go to Heartland Community College because they have great reviews and up to two years there, and then I'll get a business degree or something like that, and then go back into the field of like FBI, CIA, that kind of stuff. Because while I was in the Marine Corps, there was this timeframe where I guarded the president, United States at Camp David for 14 months. So I had a, I had a really high clearance, I had all this experience. So all I needed was a degree. That was kind of my trajectory. But that's not what happened. I mean, I ended up going to Heartland Community College, but that ended up actually changing the course of my life, which was awesome.
You talked about your career starting out as being a Marine Corps guard at Camp David, and then going on to be in combat in Iraq, and those experiences that's so different from the regular civilian world when you come. So starting as a student, your experience is probably very different from a lot of people, I think it'd be kind of hard to go from that experience, even after it's been a few months or a little while, and just sit in a class and try to learn business stuff
is super hard. And that's one of the biggest issues that we face with veterans today is on paper, it looks fine. You know, I'm gonna go the Marine Corps, serve four years, go to war, come back, go to college be successful. But what people don't tell you about what you don't know until you start the process is that you're four years behind all these other people and these other people don't have any life experience when it comes to the life experience that you have. So you automatically have a little bit of resentment in your heart. And you're just for me, when I came home, I was like, Okay, I go to the president United States, and then I went off to war and I was injured. So when I started going to college, and people whined about certain things, and there's just there's a lot of stuff that I was, I was like, you guys don't even know what the real worlds like. And so there's this little bit of like, you don't feel as connected to the people which that that's where it starts, because a lot of people at Heartland didn't know, I felt that way. My communication with everyone was well, but it wasn't like inside, I'm still feeling a little detached. I'm feeling like I'm alone. And when you're alone with your thoughts for that long, what happens is you actually start thinking about more about your experiences. But the problem is when you think about more of your experiences, you start going downhill because all sudden you're like, Oh, I almost died or I saw someone die, right? I was blown up and you kind of get in this realm of now I'm alone. So when you're in the military, you're by people who've done this. They're strong. So subconsciously, you're starting to be like, oh, I need to be strong, they're strong. And so in the college realm, I actually went went downhill real fast. It was within probably first two months at Heartland, that I started feeling super bad anxieties and depression and even sort of like physically thrown up before class. And I got to this point to where in my speech teacher, she could see me now I had to do one on one speeches with my speech teacher at Heartland Community College because my anxieties got so bad that I couldn't get up in front of class and for these 1819 year old kids and tell a story that I have some about something I written, it was crazy.
It would have thrived in the COVID-19 version of the speech class. That's everybody's doing a one on one with these Skype calls. So amazing to me that that would give you that kind of anxiety having been in a couple of positions of extreme pressure and anxiety. One of the things you mentioned coming back after, for instance, being blown up. I think we kind of have to start there. Probably not your favorite thing to talk about. But you did get a traumatic brain injury. Because vehicle you were in, like so many injuries that happened in Iraq, an IED explosion. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened and what the injury was from that immediately. And then in the long term?
Yeah, so it was actually four separate times my Humvee was blown up. And so I was considered unfit for duty after the fourth one, because my brain was too injured. So there's a few different times like in November 2006, was the first time my Humvee got hit, and I ended up tearing cartilage in my chest, like inside. So the overpressure from the bomb going off, it went into the Humvee. And I guess my mouth was open. So the air went down my lungs, opened up my lungs enough to like tear cartilage. So that was my first experience. So I had horrible chest aches, and I didn't really know what was going on. But there if that wasn't a real injury, they just, I just went to the next day, like I just had chest pains, they looked at me, they said, Hey, I just tore cartilage, you know, go out there the next day, and I just kept going. And then in January, early January, I think it was the second or third of 2007, my home was blown up again. And that was from my direct side. And that's when I had I had a month straight of just migraines and headaches. But again, that was my first concussion. So I was only supposed to get 24 hours off of work. So I pretty much because it was like 18 hours for us was to go on patrol again, they just had me go on anyways, so I didn't really miss a day. And then like January 17, or 18th, I can't really remember I was blown up one more time or again. And that time because I was my second concussion, they gave me two weeks off, which was nice little two week vacation. But I came right back on and it only took a few days, February 13 or 14th. It was it was Valentine's Day 2007. I was hit for my fourth and final time. And I was considered unfit for duty. So because 2006 John seven, the military wasn't really focused on TBI as an injury. And so they kept telling me that they'll send me to blog to get a head scan and all that fun stuff. And they never did. And so for about four months, I stayed in Fallujah. And I just didn't go do my job anymore. My job was infantry, I went out in patrol every single day. Now I just had to sit back at base and kind of control, like be almost like a security guard on the base. And so I didn't have to use my brain. So I didn't know how severe the issue was. And since the military never sent me to get a CAT scan or anything I did again, they didn't know. So when I touched down May of 2007 I think it was I was checking out the Marine Corps generic, do you need to see medical and I was like, I don't think so You guys never sent me to see medical. So I just signed up for the Marine Corps and left like without knowing all my issues. So took about six months off. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna start college. And so I applied for Hartley community college, I was gonna get a business degree associate's in business. And I started going to classes and here's where the, the reason I was getting anxieties, which I didn't know at the time, all these issues were building up and I didn't know they existed. And they were all happening in my subconscious. So like the forefront of my brain saying, Hey, you're just going to school. But my subconscious in my body is telling me there's bombs all over it like there's trash, there's trash, that could be bomb that could be bomb. So I was getting anxieties impression without knowing why. And then I kept getting more anxiety because I wasn't sure why I was getting that anxiety. And that's what kind of caused that downhill spiral to me. How can we do the one on one pieces of my speech teacher,
so many people don't know how to process these things. So you got two things going on. You've got this traumatic brain injury. And then you've got PTSD because of those situations, the four explosions, the anxiety, and then one of your buddies got killed right beside you, that affects anybody. All those things are going on. And maybe we know a lot more about it now. But even 10 years ago, it didn't seem like there was a whole lot of, well, this is how you deal with that issue. Because people see you and they just think maybe you're irritable or you're angry or you're not engaged in the situation? Did you get much guidance at all? When those things were starting to bubble up?
Not really, I went to the VA hospital. And that's when I got diagnosed after I started failing. So I failed my very first business class at Heartland. And I knew I wasn't that dumb. And that's why I went to the VA hospital. And I started saying, hey, there's an issue, I'm getting sick, I have migraines, still all this stuff. And that's when they finally diagnosed me with the traumatic brain injury left, left, right brain injury and PTs and all these other problems. And so then I come back, and I still continue to school. And I'm sitting here thinking like, Well, what do I do now? And I saw therapist one time at the VA. And I was hoping that he was going to give me an out saying, like, Hey, have you tried breathing? Have you tried this? Have you tried this, but all they want to do is prescribe me pills. And so I was just like, Okay, I'm not going to do this. And I looked back and I said, Well, if I can't do business, because my my brain injury, they said I had a problem with learning new technical skills. And I had a short term memory problem. And an example of that was actually at Heartland Community College because it was so far away from when I graduated high school, I had to start with like the basic math class, the one that's not even accredited, and then move up. And so it was a quick class that was like, addition, subtraction, and just goes all the way up into algebra, and is like one semester. And so we went to the percentages, they taught me again, how to do percentages, I got 100% on the test. But then two weeks later, when it came on the midterm, I forgot the equations. And that's when I started really figuring out I had an issue. And so I looked back, and I said, How am I still going to be successful? If I can't do what I thought I did. And I have a whole new operating system. Now, you know, I was pretty good at drawing in high school. What if I just study art as an easy degree, just get an easy art degree and just get out and then try to use my experience in the military and at Camp David, to get that job that I wanted. And that's what led me into the arts and creative writing at Heartland.
And so there you are, you're taking art classes. And there's pretty interesting path that you took from there. Was there any particular class or any particular instructor that led you too want to become somebody that eventually becomes your an artist now in a couple different ways?
Yeah, it's kind of like that whole path is just like everything lined up the way it was supposed to line up. And so there's an instructor and a Mac, McElroy, and I just call Mac, I hardly ever use his last name, everybody calls. And so I had him as an instructor, and I was doing basic drawing and drawing one drawing too. I had some creative writing classes. And I wish I could remember that creative writing classes name because he loved me because I had hardly at the time, I'm six foot five combat marine with tattoos and I had a Harley and wore cowboy boots and cut off shirts. And he was just like, I love you. You're just like your your big, masculine Marine. But now you're writing about your feelings. He was awesome. But Mac was the one that really taught me how to turn my situation around. So I was doing this piece, I was doing the basic drawing like you're supposed to do. But there's this urgent side of me that after my buddy was shot and killed, I was still visit his grave every single year in Houston around the time he died. And I had this photo that was taken of me at his grave by my uncle, that I just inside of me wanted to put onto paper. And so I decided to start drawing that as just a piece for me. And so I was getting to the point and it was a chalk pastel. And I was coloring everything the way it's supposed to color it in like my skin tones, my shirt color, the headstone the roses, and the only thing that was left was grass. And so obviously, in my head, I'm like, This is gonna be green. And Matt comes around, and he just says, Hey, Richard, I know and he already knows a little bit my issue because I was a part of like, I had to share with the teachers, my disabilities, I was signed up for disabilities, because I needed them to know why I was anxious. So they're the only ones that kind of knew my story, definitely didn't want the students to know. And he said, Hey, I know, there's a lot in here, but how about instead of doing the grass green, like you're gonna do, you should do it a color that doesn't really make sense the way that grass would be. But it evokes an emotion out of us so that when you put this up, the people viewing it can know that you as the artists were a part of this piece, and they kind of feel the way you feel. I thought it was dumb at the time, because I had no idea what conceptual art was, or symbolism or anything like that. But I just did everything read. And I put it up during critiques, which I also didn't really know happened and art was critiques. And so when I put it up there and he asked me if I wanted to talk about my piece, I said no. And then he asked the students that they want to talk about peace. I still remember some of the students being like, Hey, I think you put red in there because because you're mad that he died. I think you put red in there because you saw him die. You saw his blood. I think you put red there because you loved him. All these things that like made sense of the way I feel and I didn't say a word. And so for a little bit of time, I felt connected these 18 natural kids I never thought I feel connected with and so from that moment on, I decided to just dive into this idea of telling my story without telling my story because it felt so good in the moment that I knew it might end up saving my life down the road.
That's kind of a common situation when people go through war through any kind of traumatic situation that they're processing it, and it probably helps to talk about it. But that's not your instinct, you don't want to talk about at least not directly.
Oh, yeah. And you don't want to talk about it with civilians. And what are allowed me to do is empower myself to tell the story. And what conceptual art did was it allowed me to hide things in my art. So if you came up to me, and I described my piece, I can tell you what I want to tell you, I hold all the keys. And then if you come up, now, your comment that I can tell you the deep dark meaning behind it, and I'm going to feel connected with you. The cool part is that over time, as I tell more veterans and more veterans, the next civilian that comes up, actually tell them the full story. So I kind of get used to this, this mode of like, this is what my story is about. And that's ultimately when the healing starts is when you feel comfortable enough to talk to siblings about it.
That piece that you're talking about your painting of visiting your buddy's grave and painting the background red, that you created that in Max art class, but it's had a life. You've used it since then, and travel,
it's travel a little bit, I still remember, I had that photo, that piece. And it's still so funny. I ever since I had it, I just put it in this old cardboard box with blue tape. And I just like have it slid into the folder like made my own folder for it. And I knew it was at my home in Washington where my mom was. And in 2017, around the summer time, I had Time Magazine reached out to me about doing a documentary on my life and the craziness of me going to war then going into from Heartland Community College, I ended up going to the best art school in the country, the school there into Chicago. So the whole story behind it all. And I told them about being at Camp David, and then moving on to do this art piece. And then they told me they're like, by the way, did you know George W. Bush has been painting veterans? And I was like, Oh, I've heard of that. Yeah. Like, well, what we'd love to do is have because you served at Camp David under George W. Bush, then you went to war, and you were injured. And now you came home and you started using art to heal. We want to see if George Bush would work with you since he's now painting veterans who are injured and we just feel like it'd be a perfect kind of synergy. And they reached out to his office and he accepted. And so I got to take that piece that I made at Heartland college to Dallas, and I had about a 20 minute meeting with the President. And we talked about my art it shows and what's really funny. And I look back at this now and I'm like, Oh man, I'm so dumb. I didn't even get a new case where I brought it in with the cardboard. Like, if you watched the documentary, you'll see me walk in, and you'll see cardboard, a little blue tape on it. And I just like pull it out, put it down. And we talked about art. And what was awesome was he understood it ever since he started doing art. He was doing symbolism he was doing he was he has he always has that funny little laugh and when he described stuff, but he was like, Richard, you know, why use big strokes. He's like, it's because I'm confident. And so he would, he was talking about the symbolism behind his own pieces, which made me know that he understands that this is a kind of a therapeutic method, probably for him to release some stuff. And so we had a really good conversation.
You know, pretty good George W. Bush to I got thank you I'm practicing. So it's not just visual art that you progress to how long have you been playing music and writing music.
So that actually that started at Heartland to through that creative writing class. When I started writing stories, I used to write more essay, prose kind of stuff. And then when I took that creative writing class, I started doing poetry and different kinds of styles of poetry and just free flow writing. And I started because of smaller stories. I started really focused in on Luke as well, my gunner who was shot and killed. And I started writing stories about him. And I was like, Well, I can't read these ones to class. But what if, what if I could turn this into a song so that I could just give to people when they come ask me about Luke's life, I could just give him a song and walk away. So I don't feel like I'm feeling this burden of telling his story. And I won't cry and feel depressed and they just know about him. And so there's a local band that was up and coming in Bloomington called brush fire. And I ended up bouncing at a bar six strings. It was the only job I can get because my anxieties were so bad. I couldn't do interviews, any interview I went I tried to do an interview at Delta, I tried to interview a few places that I've physically throw up and not be able to make it. But one day when I was listening to music, the bouncer there was like, Hey, you're you're pretty big Do do you look for a job? And I was like, Yes, I'll take it because it didn't have an interview process. It was just spontaneous. And so right when I started there, brushfires started was the house band. And I met Brett Gillan, who now is my program director, which is crazy, but back then he was a musician traveling to Nashville writing songs. And so now they're just taking his creative writing class at Heartland when I met him, I was like, You know what, I want to learn more about the song anything and he let me use uh, well, he asked his roommate if I could use the old guitar that they had. And so Brett taught me my first three chords on a guitar. And then I started asking him questions about songwriting. And he was filling me in and for about a year, I started just trying to write a song about Luke's life. And so yeah, that actually started in Bloomington, and because of Heartland as well.
So now, tell me a little bit about how you use songwriting to help guys kind of get through that same barrier, the same way that the painting did for you the same way that working on learning how to write songs did for you, you work with others, the same Yeah.
And so after all, that after I went to the school down to Chicago, and kept on a dive into this idea of conceptual art, when I graduated there, I was back to almost 100%. Me. So when I first walked through the doors at Heartland, I was probably at zero was killed myself and hundreds was me before where I was at nine. And so by the time I was studying art for the four years, and I was graduated from the school there in Chicago, I was at a phi, which means I was pretty, I could do normal things, I could speak in front of people, again, not not very good. But I could still go out and meet people and hang out and do the things that I can typically do. And I look back at my life, and I thought, well, now I can get that job. But the FBI or CIA or something, be an agent field agent. Then I said, well as any other combat that, like me going to discover art music, the way I did, I was like, probably not is a crazy way I discovered it. I don't think anybody else is and I started researching. If there was nonprofits that did what I just did, and there was nothing. And so I looked back and I said, okay, it took me about four years to fully get rid of all my anxiety and depression and start being successful. And I had this song that I wrote that I just I love, but it didn't put on the pedestal like what I want it to be about Luke's life. And I had the opportunity to go to Nashville, right with a number one songwriter, and it changed my life. So I said, You know what, I'm gonna see if I could bring a friend to Nashville who's been injured in war, and just see if he'll be willing to write a song about stuff he can't talk about with me in the room, just to see if this is going to work. And so I reached out to my buddy, Jesse from Metamora, who was a part of Charlie Company in Peoria when they got hit. And I asked him if he'd want to come to Nashville with me and right with the number one songwriter and his eyes lit up, and it hit me. I was like, Oh, this is weird. We're gonna go talk about deep stuff. But he's excited because we're going to Nashville, and I'm one songwriter. And so we told his story, and that changed his life. So awesome. I was in Chicago, with a lady named Linda tarson, who is the co founder of creative arts. And she's a philanthropist. And we met in a crazy way. And it just everything aligned perfectly. And we're just having a follow up lunch. And I told her about my experience with Jesse and how it changed his life and how I just really wanted to turn this into a nonprofit to save veterans lives through our music. And she said, Okay, I've experienced let's do this. She's been on boards, and she's a philanthropist. She knew how to start nonprofits. And so she was the other half that I was kind of missing. Because I was I didn't have competence of running, you know, nonprofit by myself. I had all the programs down and what was going to help the veterans and she had that knowledge. So we put a board together. And we just went and so now, that was we incorporated July of 2013. And so now fast forward, so many things have changed. I mean, that first year, it was just taking veterans to Nashville, like I would get a hotel room. I mean, the veteran would stay in the hotel room together. And we just tell stories, because it was all about having a battle buddy to go through the process with you. And then I have a friend, tell a friend about it another combat veteran, and then they would fly out and then I'd get two hotel rooms. So we're separated because I didn't know the person. But what we'd be doing is we'd be taking them introducing them to number one songwriters and pro songwriters. And we'd let them just pour out their heart and soul about what they're going through what they can't talk about. And we turn it into a song, and then give it back to him so he could share it with his friends and family. And that's where we saw the biggest impact was now his friends and family understood him he was excited to talk about his experience because it was a song he wrote Nashville. So for that first year, it was just songwriting. We only helped about nine veterans. And then we were able to expand to the art program because art was really saved my life. And so we partnered with the school that are in us to Chicago to enroll veterans, so we enroll combat veterans into the best art schools in the country will pay for their flights, their food, their tuition, they can be from anywhere in the country and will fly them to us to do these programs. And they get to do a three week fully accredited art course at the school. They're in Chicago. But the songwriting thing has been our main attraction because so many people just obviously come to Nashville to write with Hit Songwriters. But from that start the first two years is very, like barely scraping by. And then as I moved to Nashville to really like hunker down on the songwriting portion. Now we have partnerships with the grand old Opry with the Country Music Hall of Fame with Zac Brown's camp southern ground with Vanderbilt, and we offer songwriting programs and all those places but the coolest part is when veterans come to Nashville now, we get to right backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, with number one songwriters and artists. So last session that we just had, early March before everything got shut down was Charlie Worsham was one of our writers. And then Eric from love and theft was one of the writers. And we had a ton of other number one writers who were a part of that. We had five veterans come tell their story for the first time. And then we recorded all their music. It's just an amazing experience that they get to go through. But it's crazy how it started with this one idea and how I brought one veteran I knew to Nashville, we stayed at this crappy hotel, and we wrote it a Writers House. And now we're writing backstage at the grand old Opry where nobody else gets access to with these huge artists and writers.
That's pretty incredible. And so what else do you have in store for creative arts? Do you want to see an expand anymore? Are you about as busy as you could possibly be? I mean, we still have people serving in Afghanistan. So I think there's probably a lot of veterans that are still coming back and have some of the same issues.
Yeah, we're expanding pretty rapidly still. And I've always wanted to have creative bits as a part of the military one point where veterans can learn how to use the arts and songwriting and Creative Writing to overcome some of the issues before they even happen. So it kind of empowered them to have the tools. So if something happens, they can treat it themselves rather than trying to go seek help, or it just levels them off. So they can seek help without going through that first tragic moment of contemplating suicide. We are actually may 1, we're opening up our first creative that's Art Center here in Nashville, and we'll be able to host arts and music programs year round. And those community based programs are geared more for all veterans, so any veteran who wants to come through our doors to learn it, that's we're going to be teaching them. We started doing some online stuff where the first nonprofit to partner with the Country Music Hall of Fame's online education platform. And so we offer free songwriting to veterans anywhere in the country to Skype into the Country Music Hall of Fame. And now we're streaming because of COVID, we turn to streaming and since March 22, I think we've had over 30,000 minutes watched of our streams of art and music in here coming up, we're going to do like a 24 hour streaming session. And we're using Grammy Award winning songwriters, guitarists and artists like famous artists who, who just stream what they're doing to help veterans not feels isolated. And then the big push now is we're actually going to release all of our music on Spotify and Amazon and everything. And so hopefully, in the next few months, you'll start seeing creative bits, playlists pop up and songs on the radio, as we partner we haven't released yet, but we're partnering with a label in town to be able to do that. So still some super exciting things coming up.
Sounds like there's a lot of momentum to and to get all that shared online right now is making the best of that situation.
Yeah, it's so important right now, because isolation is one of the biggest factors of veteran suicide. And just watching a YouTube video doesn't cut it, because there's no interaction, when you have a question. You can't say, Hey, can you show me that G chord again, but when you're streaming, and you could type that in and the person engages with you says, oh, yeah, I can go back to that all sudden, now you're having a conversation, you don't feel as isolated and lonely.
That's pretty great. Finding the kinds of programs like yours can be transformative in helping people with issues like TBI and pts. But taking that first step is probably the hardest. What would you say to people who are facing some of the struggles that you did when coming back to civilian life?
I mean, I think the biggest tool that anyone could have is optimism. And always knowing that you can do something outside of what you thought you can do, and to redirect too many people. Like friends of mine, they get a brain injury, they just say, Oh, this is this is the new me, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna live where they told me to, they said I can't learn new skills. I'm not gonna learn new skills. They told me I can't do this. I'm not gonna do that. But I've always been every every stage of my life. I've been like, why can't I get there? So with Iraq, when I went there, I was like, why can't I be the person who catches Saddam, and that's why I joined Marine Corps. I went infantry in 2003, right over there. When I decided to like why can I be an FBI or CIA, I just need to get a degree. That's what I've mapped it out. I'll go to Heartland then a state college and I have my degree. Now I can go there. When I found about a brain injury. I didn't give up on school or business. I just said, Okay, business is not my thing, which ended up being my thing. But at the time, I was like, Okay, this isn't my thing. What can I do? Well, you know, what, if I just lean on my previous art skills, I'll just get a degree in art and then reset, and then maybe I can still get in the FBI, CIA. And then again, when I graduated SAIC, and I said, you know, what? Why can't I start a nonprofit to help veterans and it just, it keeps going to the point to where now? I mean, I spoke at the forum on leadership. April of last year with Bill Melinda Gates, the CEO of Uber, the CEO of Boeing, President Bush, Dr. Henry Kissinger. The lineup was absolutely insane. And here I am speaking and singing a song to 365 people at the Bush Institute. And when I was at Heartland I had to do one on one speeches and my speech teacher said, Don't tell me you can't get to that next level.
Well Richard, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Congratulations on becoming a distinguished alum.
Well, thank you so much. I'm honored.
Richard Gasper is the co founder and executive director of creative vets, a nonprofit that provides art, music and writing programs for combat veterans with Post Traumatic Stress and Traumatic brain injuries. He is the recipient of the Heartland Community College 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award. If you're interested in interviews with other notable people like Richard, or discussions about art, history, or personal development, subscribe to this podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, audio boom, or wherever you found this episode. Thanks for listening
