Stories of War: A story of survival

Surviving war is a challenging task, but surviving the memories of war can be just as difficult.

” I am who I am today because of everything I went through, those that are lost, those that are still here, those that I lost connections with, the foreign countries I’ve visited. I had it so hard to look back and say I want to change this and I want to change that, I think in our lifetime we take the good and the bad, I wouldn’t change anything, ” said Dominic Lopez, Navy veteran.

Dominic Lopez is a Navy construction battalion or ” Sea Bee ” veteran.

Lopez began his career as a third-generation Navy Sea Bee, admitting he had big boots to fill.

” I grew up a Navy brat I bounced around place to place whenever my dad deployed. I learned to love it and I really enjoyed and loved seeing what my dad did. I would always love to come home and see my dad in his uniform. I figured that my dad was a good person and it wasn’t until I found out that he wasn’t just a good person, he was a good leader, ” said Lopez.

He said he misses his combat family the most.

” Somebody told me, ‘You don’t have a lot of friends because I never see you hanging out with people’ and I told him, ‘No, I have a lot of friends. They are just scattered throughout the U.S., and I know that if I call on them, they would either take a greyhound bus or train, a plane to come here to Yuma just to be here with me and make sure I’m ok, and I would do the same for them, ” said Lopez.

When the defense budget hit, Lopez thought he would make it out with his job intact.

But, his hopes came crashing down when he was chosen at random to be cut from the Navy.

” I had a good record. I wasn’t even worried about it. I realized I’m picked and what I come to find out is that they pick people at random so when they told me I was heartbroken I cried right there. I kind of gave the example that this is a bad marriage, I gave you all my time with my family, you took me away from my family, I always choose you first. I always went down range for you. When you wanted me to go to Iraq, I went to Iraq and this is how you repay me, ” said Lopez.

After his time serving on his last mission with the Navy, Lopez struggled to find work.

Soon after, he was forced to live in his car.

” I thought I was going to get a job just like nothing because I’m a combat skills trainer. I was put in for Sailor of the Year twice and Sailor of the Quarter and I thought I had a good resume. On my off-time, I would volunteer and help my dad find these homeless veterans get them housed. While that guy for the first night of his life is sleeping on a bed, I would go home at night and sleep in my car on the streets, ” said Lopez.

His only moments of happiness came from helping veterans like him.

“The only thing that made me happy was helping veterans and even with myself, I got to a point where I was so depressed that I wasn’t in a leadership role,” said Lopez.

Still struggling to find work, Lopez said his depression continued and soon, he didn’t feel worthy of remaining on this earth.

“I got to a point where I was really depressed and I also had a plan of action in my life to just end my life and kill myself,” said Lopez.

Lopez’ decision to commit suicide is something he said no one could have detected, not even his mother.

” There’s absolutely no way anybody could’ve seen that I was going to do that, and I had that in a letter I said don’t feel bad because I guarantee you nobody knew I was going to do this. I remember my mom saying that what she loved about me, is that I never let anything let me down. I always pushed forward and kept fighting. ”

He said the person who saved his life was his son.

” It was something my son said to me that that stopped me. We were watching TV and the trailer for ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ came on. We’re watching it, and in the scene, the father dies in the movie and my son said, ‘That was sad’ and I said, ‘What was sad?’ ‘Well when Hiccup’s dad died’ he said. ‘That was sad’ so I thought about it, and I had my arm around him and I’m like, I don’t want to make my son sad, I don’t want to hurt my son. I don’t want to have him carry this burden that his dad is gone. I don’t want him to look back and question and wonder, ‘Why is my dad gone?’ I don’t want his last memory of me being him telling me that I was going to be sad because of a cartoon and now I’m sad because of exactly of what happened in the cartoon, ” said Lopez.

Now, he works with veterans like him while honoring his son.

” So I got more involved in helping veterans because I realized that’s what made me happy. I saw it as a mission to go out and get my brothers and sisters. One of the sayings I had with my nonprofit was that, ‘I went on dangerous patrols with my brothers and sisters in dangerous areas, now I do dangerous patrols in dangerous areas to look for my brothers and sisters.’ That’s when I decided to start my own nonprofit, the Kekoa Veteran Foundation. My son is half-Hawaiian so Kekoa is ‘The warrior,’ so his Hawaiian name is the warrior and I named it after him. He has no clue but I tell him, you’re my hero, he’s my warrior. It’s an aspect that we’re all still warriors, and we are all still family, and we all need each other, and we are that warrior, ” said Lopez.

He hopes that his nonprofit will inspire others to become educated about mental health within the military.

Lopez says his nonprofit is now a program under the Student Soldiers Justice Memorial Foundation, and no longer a nonprofit, but a veterans program under the SSJM Foundation which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

” My dad once told me that PTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. In the end, it’s education we need to educate. We need to get these veterans that are by themselves amongst other veterans and get that unity and family once again that they are looking for, ” Lopez added.

For those struggling like Lopez once did, he encourages you to be thankful for those struggles, and keep fighting.

” If I knew then what I know now I would not change anything. Embrace every scar, embrace every person I met, I embrace every experience I had, I embrace my PTSD, I embrace what I can’t control, I embrace things that I can control and I wouldn’t change anything at all. There’s not one thing I would change when I’m on my death bed and my whole life flashes before my eyes I’m going to have something good to look at, ” said Lopez.

Just like Dominic, there are many veterans who may want to speak out about their story of survival.

For more on how you can help educate veterans on depression and suicide, you can watch Dominic’s videos on his YouTube channel or contact the veteran’s administration.