Recently I spent some time in Vetville.

It’s a real place and not a real place at the same time, as you’ll see if you keep reading. Right now, it’s sort of a walking around daydream. From the look of things, it’s getting more solid every day.

Maybe you can help. I think they’ve stumbled upon something very important in the unspoiled hills of north central Tennessee, the home of the original Overmountain men, the first wave of storied Tennessee Volunteers.

Vetville is the unofficial name for a farm is owned by a man named Alan Beaty. His great-great-great-great grandfather walked hundreds of miles to North Carolina in 1780 to lend his long rifle to the Battle of Kings Mountain, a pivotal victory in the Revolutionary War.

Through successive generations, the Beatys have continued to serve. Alan’s father, Keith, was a Marine; he endured some of the thickest fighting in Vietnam. Alan himself did three different stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, one as a Marine, two as a U.S. government-employed mercenary.

And like their ancestor—bitten by a rattlesnake during the final assault on British loyalists at Kings Mountain—neither of the Beatys returned home from their service unscathed. Keith Beaty has a purple heart, a shrapnel wound, and fibrosarcoma from exposure to agent orange. For most of the last forty years, he also suffered from debilitating Post Traumatic Shock Disorder (PTSD), though he never sought treatment until about a year ago. Like many of his generation, and countless generations past, he sucked it up, endured the night terrors, carried on the best he could. It felt unmanly to complain.

Alan Beaty’s wife is gone. He has no hearing in one ear. He is rated 100 percent disabled due to PTSD. He doesn’t sleep. The ghosts of his past are constantly aswirl. They come to him in fitful, prescription drug-induced dreams. They come to him awake. His platoon leader, Goodwin, shot in the face and killed instantly. His best bro, Ivy, who succeeded Goodwin. Between missions, they would hang in Beaty’s can at Al Asad air base, doing a few convivial shots of contraband whisky—regular shipments from Beaty’s dad came masquerading as Listerine mouthwash. Then one day Ivy caught a small piece of shrapnel. It entered just below his ass cheek and nicked an artery, causing him to bleed out. The men in Ivy’s AAV—a large armored troop carrier with tank like tracks—didn’t go so gently. They burned to a crisp. Their bodies had to be peeled from the wreckage.

One day about a year and a half ago, Beaty couldn’t take it any longer. He saddled his favorite horse and rode off into the woods with a .40 caliber pistol hanging from the pommel horn of his saddle.

***

According to a recent federal appeals court ruling that took the Veterans Administration to task for failing to adequately care for vets suffering from PTSD, an average of eighteen vets (from all eras) commit suicide EVERY DAY.

Of 1.6 million Iraq/Afghan war vets, according to a 2008 Rand Corporation study cited by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, 300,000 suffer from PTSD or major depression. As of 2011, the number of vets from those wars has surpassed two million. The official line: twenty percent of vets have PTSD.

While I was at Vetville, we were visited by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Maxwell, (USMC, ret.) Forty six years old, he’s one of the highest ranking Marines to be seriously wounded in Iraq. He was on his sixth overseas tour, Oct, 2004. While in the hospital recovering from traumatic brain and other injuries, he began ministering to wounded Devil Dogs, going from bed to bed in his bathrobe, a bandage covering the place where the doctors had removed part of his skull. Eventually, Maxwell’s work led to the formation of a Wounded Warriors

Regiment—a series of barracks and facilities and social services where the wounded can recover with the help and embrace of their fellow Marines. The first such barracks, at camp Lejeune in North Carolina, was named in his honor.

Maxwell says the twenty percent figure is hooey.

“I think everybody who goes though combat has PTSD,” he says.

“When you go through treatment, they ask the wrong questions. The first thing they should ask is: ‘Did you experience combat? Did you have to return fire?’ Then they should ask: ‘Did you ever lose a friend?’ ‘Cause when you see a dude get whacked, a friend of yours, a stranger, it don’t matter—it always fucks you up.

“You spend the rest of your life lying awake at night thinking: ‘If I didn’t do such and such, then Tommy Smith wouldn’t be dead.’ There’s no way around it.”

****

Alan Beaty got to the top of the mountain on his horse. He considered killing himself.

But then he thought about his dad and his kids. And he got an idea.

Maybe I could use my farm to help other Marines.

“They make you into a Marine, but nobody ever helps turn you back into a civilian. Even prisoners get halfway houses. Druggies get sober living. Maybe that’s what Marines need. You leave the battlefield and come home to… driving the carpool? You’re trained to react and kill. Standing in line at Wall Mart can be a nightmare. ”

Within six months, the first Marine arrived at Beaty’s farm. A corporal from his platoon in worse shape than he. In time, other Marines came. They slept on bunk beds or on the floor, stayed for varying lengths of time. He put them to work clearing fields and erecting fence posts, tending horses, hard, sweaty, honest work. At night they sat around drinking moonshine and telling stories. Money has always been tight, but they’re Marines, after all, they don’t really care what they eat. Pimento spread sandwiches on Wonder bread is a staple. The important thing was this: Guys left Vetville and went back to the world. And once they got there, they were able to function a little better than before. It help too that Beaty always drags them into the VA for an evaluation. Most of them are too proud to complain.

It’s been a couple of years now. Helping others has helped Beaty. He’s ready to take the next steps to make Vetville a reality. There are plans for a rec/mess hall, individual cabins to be built my the Marines themselves, occupational therapy, horseback trails, the works. There’s even a log home builder who is talking about donating the supplies.

Read my story about Beaty and Vetville in the August issue of Esquire, just out to subscribers, and already on sale at select newsstands around the country. Or check www.esquire.com by mid week. And if you feel moved, maybe you could write Beaty and his Devil Dogs a letter of support at PO Box 4402, Oneida TN, 37841. If a check or money order finds its way into the envelope, I don’t think it would hurt. Man cannot live by pimento spread and moonshine alone…. though I admit to partaking in both when I was doing my time out there with the nicest bunch of people you’d ever want to know.

Or maybe you want to do something more personal. It’s hay season right now. Hot and humid as hell. Beaty could find you some work, I’m sure. Two seasons ago, he had this legless dude driving the hay wagon— duck taped some broomsticks to his stumps so he could work the pedals.