đ„ The VA Basement That Changed My Life
How I Went from Envelope-Stuffing to a Website for Veterans
When I got out of the Palo Alto Day Hospital in 1991, I wasnât ready for the worldâand the world sure as hell wasnât ready for me. Iâd spent about a year going to therapy five days a week, trying to keep the ground from collapsing underneath me. It helped, donât get me wrong. But thereâs a long stretch between not being actively suicidal and actually living.
So I was placed in the VAâs Compensated Work Therapy Program.
Thatâs a fancy name for a not-so-fancy reality.
They put me in the basement with a stack of envelopes to stuff. I stayed because I needed money to eatâI got a nickel for each one. I stayed because I needed a purposeâand because, for the first time in a long time, no one expected me to be okay.
Let me tell you, nothing grounds you quite like folding paper for hours under fluorescent lights, trying not to think about how this became your life. I was an E-6. Iâd written award citations. Managed people. Won medals. And now?
I was making a nickel an envelope stuffing marketing material for a Silicon Valley information technology companyâone that I had no hope of ever working for.
But something happened down there.
The Quiet Basement Was a Kind of Healing
Nobody expected me to perform. I didnât have to smile. I didnât have to explain the scars behind my eyes. And the truth is, the routine started to help. I showed up. I stuffed. I breathed.
Eventually, they noticed I had computer skills. Basic stuff at firstâdata entry, filing, keeping spreadsheets clean. Then one day, someone asked if I could build a tracking system for inventory.
I said yes. Honestly, I wasnât sure I could. But the task lit up a part of me that had been dormant since the Navy. The problem-solving part. The âI can fix thisâ part. The mission-driven part.
That new inventory systemâalong with a few other process changes I madeâgot noticed. And not just by the VA.
It caught the attention of that same Silicon Valley tech company Iâd been stuffing envelopes for.
They arranged for me to start working part-time in their office during the week, serving as a direct liaison between their marketing department and the VA workshop. I didnât realize it at the time, but I was building a bridgeâbetween the world that had forgotten me and the one I thought Iâd lost.
After about a year, they offered me a full-time job as their Marketing Systems Analyst.
It was terrifying. And thrilling. And I said yes.
More money than I had ever made. A team that respected me. Work that I actually enjoyed. I felt like Iâd won the lottery.
This was 1994, maybe â95âand thatâs when I was introduced to the web.
It wasnât long before I started teaching myself HTML. I was fascinated. The web felt like possibility.
And somewhere in that spark, the old mission came roaring back.
A Website for VeteransâBecause the System Wasnât Enough
One day in 1993, after a long day of waiting on VA appointments in the heat, the last thing I had to do was pick up my meds. I turned in the slip and waitedâ45 minutes later, they closed. No meds for me.
I went home to my tiny studio apartment, vibrating with rage. I stood there, fists clenched, and yelled up at the sky:
âYou will rue the day you fucked with me, VA.â
From that day forward, I started gathering everything I could about VA claims. Regulations, case law, paperwork samplesâanything. I didnât know exactly how Iâd share it yet. I just knew I would. Because the next veteran shouldnât have to go through what I did.
So in my spare time, I started building something.
It began with a handful of pages: basic claim info, a few links, some step-by-step guides I wrote myself. I called it HadIt.comâas in, âIâve had itââbecause I really had. Had it with the runaround. Had it with the silence. Had it with watching other veterans fall through the cracks just like I had.
I didnât have a grand plan. No team. No funding. Just a missionâand enough web skills to keep tinkering.
By early 1996, the site was live, and in 1997 it was registered as HadIt.com.
That Basement Was the Bridge
We donât talk enough about the in-between places. The basements. The not-quite-broken but not-yet-whole seasons of life where youâre just surviving.
But that basement gave me back something I didnât know Iâd lost: agency.
It didnât cure me. It didnât erase the trauma. But it gave me a path. And sometimes, thatâs everything.
Because of that basement, I built a tracking system. That system led to a job. That job introduced me to the web. And the web gave me the tools to build HadIt.comâa place thatâs helped thousands of veterans over the years.
Not bad for a nickel an envelope.
đ Before you go:
Have you had a âVA basementâ moment? A time when life forced you to slow downâand change direction?
Share it in the comments, or send me a note. I read every one.