About 6 months ago, I was watching Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel. I love his programs Bizarre Foods and Delicious Destinations. The show that day was about Andrew going around Georgia eating regional and local foods, I think, but I can’t recall the name of it. I was riveted to the TV, though, when Andrew visited a place in Milledgeville Georgia called Comfort Farms. I was fascinated by the idea of a working farm where veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), having trouble readjusting to civilian life, can heal.
I found a Facebook page for Comfort Farms, and my journey to understanding really began. I also found an awesome 5 minute video of Jon on YouTube.
As I slowly began to learn about Comfort Farms and to learn more about its founder, Jon Jackson, I thought about what I knew about the many veterans in my own family, particularly two of my uncles.
I grew up with four uncles. Three of the four were in World War II. One of them came back from the war and literally stayed drunk for months afterwards. He had been in the Pacific, in the jungle. Another of my uncles, whose job had involved pulling hurt or dead pilots out of airplanes, came back and was so “nervous” he had to drop out of college. There was no name back then for what they were suffering but it is clear to me, now, that they had PTSD. [Both my uncles went on to have successful lives and careers but neither one would talk much about what they’d experienced in the war.]
My brother, an Army major, was deployed to Iraq in 2008 and was there for a year. He had a desk job inside the Green Zone, but he nonetheless went through some awful experiences and he came home changed. We didn’t hear the whole story for months after he got back. One of his friends had been killed. There were rockets attacks many nights, and he found wounded soldiers and tended their wounds until the medics arrived. The first year back was really hard for him. He couldn't work. He didn’t visit us too often. He said much later that it took him a long time to feel normal again.
The simple truth is, war changes people.
Learning More
I wanted to help Comfort Farms in some way, so a few weeks ago I reached out to Jon Jackson, founder of Comfort Farms, and volunteered my services as a writer and marketer. His passion for what he does was evident from our first phone conversation.
Jon did 6 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army Ranger. When his service ended, his body was whole but adjusting to civilian life again was an ordeal. Instead of ending his life with a bullet or becoming homeless, Jon founded an organization called Stag Vets, to help himself and other vets. Through Comfort Farms, Jon found peace and healing in growing food on acreage just outside of Milledgeville, Georgia.
Jon: “I am not academically trained. I’m a vet that actually needs the services that I propose. If it already existed I wouldn’t have had to start Comfort Farms. I’ve given my time and energy to focus on doing something that’s going to have a big impact.”
Jon explains how hard it was to adjust to civilian life with his wife and 5 children. “It took about 2 years for me to become a ranger. On day one of leaving the military they say, you’re a civilian again – after you’ve built a warrior character to help you weather the most traumatic experiences on the planet. When you come back home to normal life you still have those same skills of being able to disassociate your feelings from what’s going on and that doesn’t necessarily work in the real world, especially with your family. You have a wife and kids that want to love on you, and you’ve just come from a place that doesn’t express love."
"So what the farm does and what I’m doing here is trying to build those feelings back again, and vets can later build bridges back into more substantive human relationships, like with friends, family, and loved ones.”
Jon is from New York. He didn’t become a soldier until after 911, when he was in his late 20’s. He was a pharmaceutical researcher before he was a soldier.
“I’ve created this so I can be present and have some sort of roadblock that will not allow me to wander and go and leave my own family. I’ve created this place because of a sense of duty and of taking care of my other veterans even though I have my own issues that I deal with on a daily basis. By creating a farm and putting love and hard work into it, it has kept me present with my family and I’ve been able to build a relationship with my family now in a way that would have not been possible over two years ago. If you ask my wife now if she would ever want me to stop this she would tell you absolutely hell no.”
The Mission
Comfort Farms’ started in 2016 and Jon hit the ground running. As he explains on the Stag Vets website, “Through a rapid deployment system, Comfort Farms provided crisis services for 20 veterans within the first 11-months of operations. As a Training Campus, Comfort Farms also educated and assisted well over 500* veterans within the first 9-months of operations.”
Jon knew the need was great because of his own experiences after leaving the military. “My wife didn’t know anything about the military, let alone being with a ranger, and she – the first day I kind of blew up, it scared the hell out of her. She grabbed everything she could and she was gone. I realized that that way was how I was able to survive in combat, and how I was able to make sure my guys were able to come home, but it saddened me. I know the monster lives inside of me, and I know that that’s something that the rest of the public isn’t used to seeing. They want us to be that way to win wars, but nobody wants to deal with that on a regular basis.”
Homelessness and substance abuse are huge issues for veterans.
“That’s one of the reasons why a lot of guys withdraw from society, and when we start looking at homelessness, everyone gets this thing wrong. They say hey man, this guy needs a job, or he needs a home, or a car. It’s the material things that a lot of these vets don’t actually want or care about. What they want is a better quality of life, and to be in an environment where they can express themselves without being judged. When they don’t get that, they internalize it and they slink outside of society, and they’d much rather be alone. A lot of veterans who are homeless are there by choice” Jon explains.
Food offers healing.
Jon: “We’re losing the battle with older farmers not being replaced by a younger generation. They’re losing land. There are a lot of things going on, and when we start talking about food security, food security IS American security. I’m combining this food mission with my mission to help veterans because vets need a new service, something to fight for again. Why not fight for your communities?”
Fighting and Dying
When I think of farms and farming I picture something bucolic, peaceful, laid-back. It’s not, actually.
Jon explains. “We know vets feel great farming but there’s a reason why. There’s a reason why vets are navigating toward putting their hands in the dirt. A lot of vets come back from war and the number one reason we get depressed is because we feel like we’ve lost our edge. Our edge is the ability to stay sharp and make split-second, critical decisions on the fly, to really manage stress. For a lot of veterans, coming back to a desk job is not challenging enough, nor does it feel like you’re contributing to anything.”
Farming is actually fighting.
“When you’re farming, you’re dealing with Mother Nature. She’s coming in with frost and she’s going to kill all your plants. At the end of the day, you’re always going to lose to Mother Nature but it’s the small victories that give us hope for the future,” Jon points out.
“The suicide rate among veterans is high, as the Veterans Administration reported just last fall: “After adjusting for differences in age and sex, risk for suicide was 22 percent higher among Veterans when compared to U.S. non-Veteran adults.”
In 2016 a study was released showing 20 veterans a day commit suicide, according to Military Times.
We talked yesterday, and Jon had just heard about the suicide of another Army Ranger, a very sad reminder of the importance of a Comfort Farms. “I lost another ranger brother last week to suicide. We’re losing so many of our guys.”
At one point Jon was suicidal, as he explained in the Tedx talk at Emory in April 2017.
In addition to hearing about suicides, Jon notes, “I also hear “Hey man, I saw your Ted-X talk and you don’t know me but for the past two weeks I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to kill myself and you’ve given me hope.”
Growing Hope and Awareness
Comfort Farms mission is multi-faceted. It’s about helping vets, but also about growing food responsibly and educating the public about high-quality organic produce and heritage meats.
Comfort Farms sells produce and meats to local restaurants and restaurants as far away [2 hours] as Atlanta.
Jon is actively seeking more such partnerships. His produce is organically grown, and his animals are raised humanely and with great care. Forward-thinking restaurateurs realize they are getting incredible quality when they partner with Comfort Farms.
In his military career, Jon saw firsthand how food can build bridges. “Food brings people together. If I can enjoy your food and your music, I can respect you as a person even if we don’t agree,” he says.
Community Mission
“We want to help small farmers become more prosperous and to give our communities access to local, sustainable, and organic foods,” Jon says. “The only way we’re going to get it is if we have more local, organic, sustainable farmers.”
The future of Comfort Farms is bright. Even though it’s a non-profit, Comfort Farms is also a business.
They host farmers markets.
Comfort Farms also sells heritage meats to the public.
They host community days where folks come in and help, as in the recent day building raised beds. You can follow what they do most easily by checking out and following their Facebook page.
Hosting special events is also part of the Comfort Farms mission.
Coming up the weekend of April 14th or 15th is a Boucherie – a unique event at the farm, involving Chefs, Farmers, and Butchers.
The community can buy tickets to the event. Saturday will be educational, with discussion of the rabbits and goats and other animals raised on the farm, and in the evening a lowcountry boil. On Sunday a hog will be slaughtered, with meat given to Chef-led teams for cooking. There will also be tastings and a variety of wines offered. [More details will be posted on the Facebook page and elsewhere in the coming weeks.]
Looking Ahead
The most urgent need, currently, is to buy the land the farm uses, and to [hopefully soon] build housing for the vets and other buildings. Jon hopes to raise close to a million dollars to make those dreams a reality.
Jon has gotten some grant money and is applying for more grants, but donations are always welcome. You can donate by going to this page on the Stag Vets website.
He hopes to soon launch a national line of sausages made from pigs he raises. “We’re building our story through our products. When those products hit the shelves they tell a meaningful story and give people a conscious decision to purchase.”
Although selling to the public, selling to restaurants, and hosting community groups are all part of his mission at Comfort Farms, Jon never loses sight of the reason for it all: the veterans. As he explains, “We’re about to turn Comfort Farms into a vocational school for healing and training that going to really focus on the veteran as a whole person, building them up from the inside and being able to give them skills to be utilized for our communities.”
Good luck and God Bless you Jon, and thank you for your service.
If you want to donate to help them expand please look here.
