LOCKHART, Texas (KXAN) - As the sun begins to set in Lockhart, at least once a month you can hear the faint sound of music in the downtown historic district, just off the main square.
It’s coming from the back patio of Load Off Fanny’s. Every month, you’ll find a group of veterans who are part of Soldier Songs & Voices, playing their guitars and sharing original music.
The nonprofit organization provides songwriting lessons and free instruments to veterans as a form of post-conflict care. Through music education small groups of veterans around the country are getting the tools they need to turn their stories into songs.
Veterans, like retired Army Major Deb Wesloh, has been involved with Soldier Songs & Voices for the last five and a half years. She said the experience has been life-changing for her. She created a song called, “You Can Go”, chronicling the darkest moments of her journey as a three-time cancer survivor.
“It was life changing, here I am thinking I'm healthy and all of a sudden bam, one cancer, bam, another cancer. It had a detrimental impact on my life, so when this organization came along it opened up my world,” Wesloh recalled.
She said the organization has helped her navigate her new normal and create special bonds with other veterans.
“They are like my best friends. We were strangers when we first met but now we share so much of our lives with these other veterans,” Wesloh explained.
Through Soldier Songs & Voices, she writes songs, performs at different venues and even put out an album -- things she said she never thought she would do.
“It is very therapeutic, the thought of putting your thoughts down on paper and putting it into a song, it's a therapeutic experience,” Wesloh said.
Musician Dustin Welch started the nonprofit in 2011. He remembers during his own musical performances, veterans would tell him how they wanted to learn how to play the guitar or write songs. As a result, he started small casual workshops that grew into 17 chapters across the country. Over the last several years, they've partnered with nationally acclaimed musicians to give veterans a rich, comprehensive musical and healing experience.
“People with speech aphasia, neurological problems and people with chronic issues started getting off their medications. People said, ‘I don't know what you are up to’ and at that point, I realized we were on to something,” Welch said.
During one point of our interview with the group, Welch briefly stepped away to get a guitar for a veteran to use during the workshop. Small gestures like that along with his patience and respect have created a transformative path hundreds of veterans.
"I was going to commit suicide in 2007, I took the gun out of my mouth the day Dustin Welch saved my life,” said Buddy Lee, veteran and songwriter with Soldier Songs & Voices. “...trying to teach me how to get those emotions on paper, I'm a product of the effort they pour into us veterans out here.”
Dr. Blake Harris, is a licensed clinical forensic psychologist and the Director of the Veterans Mental Health Department (VMHD) for the Texas Veterans Commission. He said shared safe spaces like this help build confidence and organize feelings from the past and present.
“Being able to put yourself out there, being able to trust that you can open up and show yourself to other people...that is a huge protective factor that reduces the risk for suicide, depression, anxiety, and isolation,” Harris said. “It helps us access our memories, gives us context to them and helps us identify how we are feeling. When you are activating all parts of your brain it helps energize us.”
The type of energy that's palpable among Wesloh and the group of veterans with Soldier Songs & Voies.
“It has been my therapy for years, and I've seen so many others with PTSD and other challenges [that veterans face] and how it changed their lives, just like it changed mine,” Wesloh said.
To learn how to donate, get involved in Soldier Songs & Voices or start your own chapter, visit the nonprofit's website here.
