We send them to war to protect our freedom, but sometimes these heroes fall through the cracks when they come home. Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can make it nearly impossible for these soldiers to rejoin civilian life, and some even wind up on the streets without a home. Leaving our war heroes without a roof over their heads is not the Georgia-way, and one of our local military vets is standing up and making sure everyone knows.

Jon Jackson, founder of STAG VETS, is using farming as a way to heal the mental injuries of our state’s homeless veterans. As a veteran himself, Jackson knows the difficulties of returning to civilian life after fighting on the battlefield, and so he started STAG VETS-which stands for Strength to Achieve Greatness-as a nonprofit organization that helps treat former soldiers suffering from TBIs and PTSD. He has a 20-acre farm set aside in Milledgeville where vets can help plant crops, raise farm animals, and learn culinary techniques as well as build greenhouses and chicken coops.

What Makes Farming A Good Way To Treat TBIs?

In 2010, a local army ranger-Kyle Comfort-was killed while on duty in Afghanistan, and STAG VETS named their Milledgeville farm in his honor. Now Comfort Farms is a safe haven for healing our country’s wounded heroes, and as the nonprofit searches for more farmland to expand their project, Jackson and crew can think of no better place for our veterans to get better. Jackson says that farming and agriculture provides a familiar environment that is similar to the military life, and having such a familiar and regimented place to recover in is important to a soldier’s recovery.

Could the STAG VETS methods help other TBI victims? Will this therapy continue to grow? Tell us what you think on our Facebook and Twitter.

Brought to you by the Georgia brain injury attorneys at The McArthur Law Firm, representing the victims of traumatic brain injury and other devastating personal injuries.