When Willow Vest of Gainesville left the Army, fellow veterans gave her a piece of advice for readjusting to the civilian world.
"The biggest thing was to not stop working out," said Vest, 22, who grew up on a ranch in Montana. "If you stop working out, you stop getting out of your house, and you stay in your little hermit crab area – you're going to keep going down."
A new local organization, Camaraderie Through Fitness, aims to make that advice more accessible – and enjoyable – for people like Vest. The group, founded in January, is hosting monthly group exercise classes for military veterans at Gainesville Health & Fitness.
Vest said she joined the Army after losing her soccer scholarship at Oregon State University due to an injury. After serving for five years, she moved to Gainesville, intending to apply for admission to the University of Florida to study veterinary medicine, she said.
When Vest joined the fitness center, she met Donte Jones, another Army veteran and founder of Camaraderie Through Fitness. Also a membership adviser at the fitness center, he invited her to work out with the group.
Jones, 31, served as an infantryman in the 3rd Ranger Battalion after following his military father around the country throughout his childhood. He said he decided to start the group after a lot of heartbreak following his own post-deployment adjustment.
"You feel like you're being cast to the side, like you're a used toy," he said. "That transition of 'military completely' to just being thrown into the wilderness of civilians."
Almost nine years after his own discharge, Jones had an "a ha moment" for creating Camaraderie Through Fitness while driving home from a veteran appreciation luncheon in November.
The group intends to offer veterans free gym memberships on an application basis through donations from the public. Jones said he hopes to launch the process in October pending more fundraising, awareness and approval for nonprofit status.
Not wanting the organization to be just a "sales model," however, Jones also asked the fitness center to hold a veterans-only monthly workout, followed by a social coffee hour. The group has hosted four workouts and will increase to two monthly sessions starting in June. Dutch Bros Coffee, a national café chain that opened its first Gainesville location in March, has partnered with Camaraderie Through Fitness to provide refreshments.
Steve Perrault, a new personal trainer at the center and a master fitness trainer while himself serving in the Army, leads the workouts. Camaraderie Through Fitness sessions have a little overlap with the classes Perrault, 26, taught while enlisted. But they're much less hard-hitting, making accommodations for people who may have old injuries, he said.
The group's first session saw two attendees in January, and by the next month, the number grew to 10. Perrault said he hopes for weekly sessions should the demand increase.
"Getting out of the military was a culture shock … it goes from, 'You're needed every second of every day' to 'you're needed never,'" he said. "Getting that community, getting that person that you like to work out with as part of a camaraderie event, is my number one end goal for this."
Social groups for veterans can play an important role in self-care post discharge, said Theresa Mago, a licensed mental health counselor who has worked with veterans and their families since 2014. She spent several years in Gainesville before expanding her practice virtually statewide.
With no military bases in north central Florida, groups like Camaraderie Through Fitness can help local veterans find people who share their experiences, Mago said.
Veterans often have flashbacks, urges or other "big feelings" they're not accustomed to after becoming used to a regimented life, the counselor said. These stressors can carry devastating effects, with veteran suicide rates consistently outpacing those of the general population nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
Exercise releases stress, sweating out toxins and creating a place to set those pent-up emotions aside, she said.
"Our bodies hold the trauma," Mago said. "To find ways to release it, through exercise, through venting to another friend, or a counselor, or a comrade at the local community gym that you can talk to about something – I think that's very important for healing."
Joe Stull, 41, also a local Army veteran, said he initially made bad choices to deal with the "ugly place" he found himself post discharge. He said he's learned, however, the only thing that really helps is talking to mentors or former comrades.
The emergency veterinary technician joined Gainesville Health & Fitness as a member last year. There, he instantly clicked with Jones after realizing they served in sister battalions.
Stull was one of the two people to join Jones at the first Camaraderie Through Fitness class in January. He said he aims to keep doing so for the foreseeable future.
"I plan on doing everything I can to help Donte, and help myself and others," he said. "To guide the way for them to know – if I was able to get through it and fight through it, then they can."
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