BELLINGHAM - After years of structure and shared purpose in the U.S. Army, veterans Mike Pereira and Kristopher Powell came home to Whatcom County, only to find themselves cut adrift.
"It was hard for me to transition back into a civilian lifestyle, where my days and my weeks weren't planned out for me," said Powell, a 27-year-old Everson resident who spent nearly five years in the service.
They would eventually pull their lives together after hard days and lonely nights, after mistakes and bad decisions. Now, they are part of a unified effort by local veterans groups working to give soldiers returning home an opportunity to volunteer and a chance to leave isolation for what they know - service to their community.
"It's to help integrate soldiers back into society. We're having trouble, but we still have warrior ethos," said Pereira, a Whatcom Community College student who started the veterans club there.
That ethos includes loyalty, duty, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage.
Serving their community was what they did in October, when they gathered to do landscaping work for an elderly woman. Among them was a veteran who hadn't left his apartment for some nine months.
"For the guys, it was an excuse to get up early, get outside and get their hands dirty," said Pereira, a 26-year-old Bellingham resident who spent six years in the military, including one in Afghanistan.
Giving was what they did Saturday, Feb. 21, when 10 of them spent four hours doing landscape work for two elderly men who were no longer able to keep their Bellingham lawn neat.
The idea is to involve soldiers in larger efforts, to provide structure, to let them once more feel like they're working side by side in a shared cause, to let veterans help veterans.
"We're giving back, and I think we're taking some of that for ourselves. Not in a selfish way," Powell said, "but it's giving us something, giving us a mission again."
Pereira hopes such efforts bring people together.
"We're trying to break down the barrier between soldiers and civilians. We're trying to tear down stereotypes between the two," he said.
Their help is needed.
"I appreciate their time and just how great they are. They really want to make a difference," said Aly Hoover, director of the Whatcom Volunteer Chore Program.
The veterans did their two community service projects for the Chore Program, which helps the elderly and the disabled stay in their homes by assisting with cleaning, yard work, minor repairs, errands and transportation.
Hoover said she especially appreciated their efforts because as veterans, they've already given so much of themselves.
"We're blessed to have them," she said.
Pereira knows how important it is for veterans to be engaged and to once again feel like they're part of something.
He struggled with such issues when he came home in 2007, after his military service and a year as a private contractor in Iraq.
"As combat veterans, we have left one battlefield for another," he said.
During his struggle to understand what was happening, Pereira said he cut himself off from other people who cared about him. He isolated himself into his living. He couldn't bear to sleep in his bed. A scene from a movie he saw in a theater trigged a panic attack.
"I walked out a different person," he recalled.
But with the help of the late Tim Nelson, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served three tours in Iraq, Pereira started to find his way again.
"He got me active. He got me engaged," Pereira said of Nelson, who had been president of the Bellingham chapter of Veterans of Modern Warfare.
Now, Pereira is trying to do the same for other veterans.
