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Leslie Mayne couldn’t have been more proud when her son Kyle joined the Army after 9/11. But after surviving multiple deployments to Iraq, he returned stateside a broken warrior. Post-traumatic stress disorder — PTSD — and traumatic brain injury had both taken their toll.

And while the VA provided some services, it ultimately kicked him to the curb to fend for himself and cope with PTSD.

“I tried to move heaven and earth to get the help that he needed,” Leslie said. “But he was discharged. He was told he was just taking up a bed and he could self-medicate.”

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He even asked if she thought he would be OK.

“I didn’t have an answer for him,” she said.

The answer was “no.” Kyle was found dead soon after in a Baltimore motel room.

“We believe that it was a reckless over-medication. We just all wish that we could have been a part of that decision making or at least been there when they discharged him. I think he had $90 in his pocket,” she said.

Needless to say, Kyle’s death was devastating.

“You’ve just been pushed off a cliff that you will never return from,” Leslie said. “To say that it was devastating or excruciatingly painful is an understatement.”

For the next year, Leslie struggled to hang on. Life suddenly had no meaning. She sold or gave away everything and wandered the country, relying on the generosity of family and friends.

From PTSD to PTSD

She eventually returned home to Gig Harbor, getting a job busing tables at a local diner. She admits it’s all she could do.

“I have a church family that refused to let me drown. They reminded that this was an opportunity, that God doesn’t waste a tragedy. And it was up to me to figure out what that was going to look like,” she said.

Call it divine intervention or serendipity, but Leslie was tasked with putting on a luncheon for dozens of local soldiers heading to Afghanistan. It was an overwhelming success.

“That’s when it was born in me, and I saw the compassionate allies in (Gig Harbor.) It was planted in my heart that if we could do that in two or three weeks, what could we do if given a year to prepare and what would that look like, and how could we raise awareness and money for alternative therapies for soldiers that struggle,” she said.

And from that sprouted the , or PTSD.

Leslie and her family and friends put on a wildly successful benefit run for soldiers, raising thousands of dollars to help her vet and provide access to programs for soldiers affected by PTSD and traumatic brain injury and their families.

“We started to recognize that we have a very serious problem with too many of our warriors. We just haven’t wrapped our arms around this issue seriously enough. And that’s what the foundation is trying to do,” she said.

In the years since she’s learned far too many others have suffered in silence like her. Now, she’s there for them.

“I have soldiers call me, I have mothers call me on a regular basis ‘my son is in crisis, I’m in trouble, I don’t know where else to go,'” Leslie said.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m my own 1-800 help line, and I am not equipped for that,” she said. “But what I am equipped for now is to find those programs for them.”