Poe In Action Inc

Greetings from Robert Donofrio, MN, MSc.
– Founder and Member of the Board of Directors of POE in Action, Inc. (A not for profit initiative)

In 2001, an 18 year old from the heartland of our country, after hearing about the attacks of 9/11 volunteered to join the United States Marines. His girlfriend said she’d wait for him, his family said they were proud of him and his country said they needed him.
Mike Sherman wore his uniform with pride and over a ten year span served 4 tours in the Middle East. He did what was told of him. He fought hard and long. While on leave from Iraq he went home and married his childhood sweetheart. He was in Afghanistan when his son was born.
Ten years later in 2011, Elliott, his combat brother and an Army "wounded warrior" whom I mentor, suggested Mike talk to me after having met him at drug rehab in Twelve Oaks in Navarre. Elliott told Mike that he too had seen the horrors of war. He too had tried to numb up his feelings to what he had experienced and he too had considered suicide. I went to the halfway house Mike was living in at that time to meet him. Mike told me about his drinking and how his wife had taken their child and left him. She told him that he wasn’t the boy she fell in love with anymore and he wasn’t the man she married. He told me about the horrors of what he experienced in war and how he tried to "numb up” and "dumb up” his feelings with alcohol. He talked about the problems he created with his drinking and how the Marines tried to help him by sending him to an Alcohol Treatment Program. He said his continued drinking and subsequent inappropriate behaviors resulted in his being booted out of the Marines; the only way of life he knew and loved.
"I’m a trained killer” Mike told me, "and there isn’t any need for my type in civilian life. I don’t know how to do anything else and I don’t want to do anything else.”
I told Mike about resources and things available to him, but he said he wanted nothing to do with any of it. He wanted to be a Marine and he wanted to have his wife and son back. Mike said he was told that neither of those things would ever happen. Mike rejected my offers to talk and try to help. He requested that I stop trying to meet and talk to him. The last time I saw him was when he told me to leave him alone as he turned and walked back into the House of Many Nations off of Blue Angel Boulevard. I sent numerous messages to him. Later he sent word for me to stop calling him. Mike said I was a nuisance.
On October 3rd, 2011, at age 28, Mike Sherman committed suicide and became a statistic. He joined over 6,000 other service men and women who choose to die each year rather than live with what they experienced in America’s wars. More who have worn the American uniform in this past decade have died of suicide than those who have died on the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His friends and family miss him. I now have another scar in my heart. And Mike becomes another undiagnosed PTSD veteran who has died because we failed to understand and address his issues.
Elliott continues to work with me and others on the POE in Action team; he doesn’t mention Mike in our conversations. Elliott with his missing leg now runs in marathons and the streets of Pensacola. He runs as if trying to flee the memories that are etched into his soul: the sounds and smells of violence. Elliott is trying to be part of the solution. He is reaching out every way he knows. He participates in events to raise awareness for Veteran’s Suicide Prevention and other issues. Elliott snaps on his running prosthesis and runs every day to bring awareness to this growing problem and to raise resources for veterans in need.
"PEACE ON EARTH and …” (P O E)
POE in Action was formed in 2004 by a group of University Professors who wanted to go beyond the boundaries of their campus and assist those who never had the chance to expand their cognitive horizons and were trapped in a life of poverty, misfortune and suffering. The organization was based on the tenants of the statement made by Gandhi, a remarkable man who’s simple nonviolent code inspired millions of people to improve their lot in life by expanding upon their individual spiritual foundations of helping themselves by helping others; thereby taking personal responsibility for the "creation of good.”
POE in Action -- MISSION STATEMENT
POE in Action, Inc. is a not for profit 501-C-3 initiative made up of individuals who believe in civility, compassion, tolerance, mutual respect for human dignity and providing a service to our fellow human beings. We come from all walks of life and we believe in assisting others to learn to help themselves and regain their life and dignity by becoming free from poverty, misfortune and suffering. Our members collaborate with and establish community partners in our goal to provide educational, behavioral, mental health, physical health, and social services for a wide range of those less fortunate individuals within our community.
The GANDHI BRIGADES – A POE in Action Initiative
All recipients of services from POE in Action are required to become volunteers within the organization as part of their responsibility to "pay it forward” for the services they receive from the organization. The training and life experiences recipients receive from our support groups, classes and activities provide excellent credentials to help others. The act of helping others to help oneself is at the very core of the concepts within the POE in Action philosophy. We strive to "do good, so we can do well and then be able to continue to do good for ourselves and others.” We provide nothing to others for free. Doing so would lower the self-esteem of those who receive our assistance. Requiring recipients to go forward and help others as payment for services received fosters self-esteem and a greater vision of how we are all connected. We adhere to the definition of success as "not how high one has climbed up on the ladder of success but how many others we have helped up the ladder behind us.”
Volunteers within the POE in Action organization are referred to as the "GANDHI BRIGADES.” Different brigades focus their efforts on specific targets of change. A brigade targeting poverty will seek solutions to poverty by offering vocational counseling and training. Developing entrepreneur-ship of creating businesses when there are no jobs available is an example resolving the threat of poverty. We have brigades targeting various issues rampant in our community; such as veteran’s issues, homelessness, unemployment, intimidation, ignorance, and the wide arena of abuse; be it substance or emotion or physical. Our goal is always to empower others to learn to help themselves.
We invite you to learn more about us and our work. We have numerous projects and partnerships that have include rescuing abandoned horses and using their habilitation as a means for those with PTSD and others with disabilities to connect on an emotional level with other creatures who have experienced pain. Numerous college students have participated in our projects for their clinical education such as the "Home for the Holidays” project where working with other groups, homeless veterans and others are placed in a motel for a month while they participate in training and classes that are aimed to break the cycle of helplessness or mentoring with the Vet Court or the Wounded American Veterans Events with AHERO or providing individual services to suffering individuals within the homeless or "Recovery Community.” POE in Action volunteers and staff provide Employee Assistance services, Mental Health Counseling, PTSD Support Services and a wide variety of other individual and group services.
"... we need to be the change we want to see happen...” Gandhi
For more information contact us at poeinactioninc@gmail.com or POB 10012 Pensacola, FL 32524.