MARBLEHEAD — Emotions were raw as Congressman Seth Moulton brought his Veterans Town Hall back to where it all began Saturday at Abbot Hall.
“Of course we are here to honor veterans and to thank them for their incredible service to this country, but it’s also a message to non-veterans out there that veterans appreciate what you do in our communities,” said Moulton. “If you have an opportunity to serve a veteran, stand up and do it. If you have an opportunity to come and meet a veteran and understand what he or she went through, do that because it will bring the country together in an incredibly divisive time.”
The event is a way to provide a safe platform for veterans to share their stories. Moulton first brought it to Marblehead’s Abbot Hall in 2015, after the idea was conceived by author Sebastian Junger, according to Moulton’s website.
As a Marine combat veteran himself, Moulton said it’s powerful to hear the stories of fellow veterans because it brings home the experience that he, and so many others, share.
There were nine scheduled veteran speakers personally invited by Moulton and his team. Before opening the floor to the other vets, Moulton told his own tragic war story. He shared the story of finding Marine Lance Corporal Larry L. Wells.
“Lance Corporal Wells died alone and knowing that I was taking a break when that happened has left me with a tremendous sense of guilt,” he said.
The diverse group of veterans shared their stories and explained the importance of veteran, and community, support during the transition back from deployment.
“When I came back I was broken,” said Colonel Andrea Gayle-Bennett, former Army surgeon for the MA Army National Guard and first African-American woman to be promoted to colonel. “I didn’t have physical wounds but I had wounds of war. Being around other veterans propelled me to do more and that was my way of healing.
When Mark Silvestri came back to the states in 2012, doctors put him on opioids for all the pain he had from his wounds, which later turned into an addiction. The U.S. Army veteran, Purple Heart and Army Bronze Star of Valor recipient said he has spent the last five years working on his sobriety and supporting fellow veterans as a veterans officer.
“People, it’s time to crush the stigma,” said Silvestri, who works at the veterans services offices in Revere. “Mental health and addiction are not the devil. We were there for you, going to fight for you in other countries, now we need you to be there for us. These people, they’re heroes and they’re suffering.”
Toward the end of the event, the floor opened up to any local veterans sitting in the audience who wished to share their stories. Among those volunteer speakers was Elvis Matos, a Salem native and current Lynn resident, who returned from duty in Iraq two months ago. He touched upon the current state of the U.S. government and the racial divide he came back to.
“I came back to another war,” said Matos. “We sacrificed our lives over there to come back to something we were fighting so hard in other countries to stop.”