Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Welcome Home is a Willing Warriors and the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run project. The program highlights activities at the Warrior Retreat and issues impacting all Veterans. For questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@willingwarriors.org.
Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
The Healing Canvas: Zach Herrick on Harnessing Art Therapy for Veteran Recovery
Could art be the key to healing wounds? Join us as we sit down with Zach Herrick, a combat veteran whose story of resilience is both harrowing and inspiring. Inspired by his father's footsteps, Zach joined the Army at 20, seeking a higher purpose. During a deployment to Afghanistan, he endured a life-changing ambush that tested his grit and determination. Through his recounting of that fateful day, we honor the heroism of his fallen lieutenant, Dimitri Del Castillo, and explore the unbreakable bonds forged in the crucible of combat. He takes us through his medivac and five years of treatment at Walter Reed. But Zach's journey doesn't stop there; it transforms as he discovers the healing power of art therapy, using explosive techniques to navigate the complexities of PTSD and TBI.
In a heartfelt conversation with Zach, we explore how creative expression has become a lifeline for him and how he's channeling this passion into helping other veterans. Learn about his exciting plans to establish the Warrior Art Brigade, a nonprofit in Texas aimed at introducing fellow veterans to the cathartic process of explosive art. We also highlight the instrumental role of community support—particularly the profound impact of the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run—in fortifying Zach's personal life and marriage. Don't miss this opportunity to connect with a story of valor and recovery and find out how you can support these transformative initiatives. For more information, you can email Zach at Warriorartbridgade@gmail.com.
Good morning. I'm Larry Zilak, director In today's episode, we have a very special guest, Zach Herrick. of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run. He is a combat veteran. Army was injured in Afghanistan and has actually been a guest here at the Warrior Retreat a number of years ago. But he was back in town to attend our gala and he is an artist and he makes amazing paintings and we actually auctioned one off. It was very successful, and so I wanted to take this opportunity to just sit him down and talk a little bit about his career and coming into the Army, his injury, his recovery and his art therapy, because it's really something and I think a lot of veterans could probably benefit from it. So, zach, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. So let's start with how old are you when you enlist? I?
Zach Herrick:was 20 years old, I believe, when I enlisted in the Army. And why my big why for enlisting was I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. I know you hear that quite a bit, but after graduating high school and developing a few skills working skills I wanted to get a stepping stone into something that was much bigger than myself and had a bigger cost than what I could do on my own. And so why the Army? Well, my dad was Army.
Larry Zilliox:Okay.
Zach Herrick:He was in Dong Vietnam. He was stationed in Germany and I think that kind of pushed me to join the Army in that sense, and it was something that I felt a calling to was not only just joining the Army but joining the military as a whole.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, and so how long are you in before you're deployed?
Zach Herrick:So I joined 2010, and I deployed in 2011, and a total was about nine months in scoped barracks where I was stationed In Hawaii.
Larry Zilliox:In Hawaii.
Zach Herrick:Oh, that's a nice assignment, oh yeah, wow, woke up walking out of getting a tan assignment.
Larry Zilliox:Oh yeah, wow, walking out of getting a tan. Well, wow, what a shock too to be in Hawaii and all of a sudden you're dropped in the middle of the desert.
Zach Herrick:I'll tell you what it's a culture shock. And so my unit, 25th ID, we deployed in 2011 to Afghanistan and that's when we deployed in 2011 to Afghanistan and that's when you know you're not from Kansas anymore. So that was a huge, huge adjustment and that was a pretty rough deployment Right right Now. Were you married at the time? No, I met my wife after the injury.
Larry Zilliox:Okay, all right. So you're deployed and there comes a time when you suffer an injury that brings you back to Walter Reed, correct? So tell us a little bit about that day, that situation.
Zach Herrick:So that was June 25, 2011, when my platoon and I were ambushed. It was a close ambush. I lost my LT, my squad leader got shot as well, above the neck, and I got shot in the face, and that was a time in my life where I thought I was going to die on the mountain Right. But through all that chaos, there were some very beautiful moments, and I know that sounds morbid to say, but having a group of guys who you train with for nine months go over there and go through hell with you and then watching them come together and developing this type of beyond brotherhood that you forged during combat, combat and defile, and watching your brothers get injured, get killed, and watching me get injured and come out of the fight I felt at peace at that moment as well. So it was really um. So the rescue in itself was a hard deal. After they got me on the helicopter, took my vitals, did what they had to do stop bleeding, keep you breathing, kind of stuff and woke up in Germany.
Larry Zilliox:Do you remember the helicopter run?
Zach Herrick:I do. I do remember getting off the LZ and actually picking myself up under my own towel and walking to the helicopter. The platoon sergeant was there and we just pretty much ran to it, pushed me on and away, we went under fire and it was off and on. There were some quiet moments of contact and there was a lot of hit and miss. Noise, Right, right.
Larry Zilliox:And was it a dust off? Was it medevac? Was it PJs that came in and got you? It was a dust off crew.
Zach Herrick:That got us. God bless them. Yeah, eric Savison and his crew came on down and it was hot. They couldn't really land because of the firefight that was continuing going on, sure. And they took one more pass and the commander said, hey, we got to pull out. And he's like hey, if we don't get this guy, he's a goner. And they took one more pass and landed real quick. And this is under fire too, yeah, and got me on board.
Larry Zilliox:Right, so tell us about your lieutenant and his name. I want everybody to know Dimitri Del.
Zach Herrick:Castillo, right, he was 23 when he was killed. He's from Florida, he got shot in the neck and he was still radio on the radio, right, even though he got a severe injury and, uh, he's one of the good ones, yeah, yeah.
Larry Zilliox:So as typical. So our listeners who aren't veterans of Iraq, afghanistan understand that typically a wounded soldier who's in combat in the field is medevaced out. By however means they can go, and they'll go to a field hospital there nearby. You have that golden hour, which is what the dust-off crews are really all about and why so many lives are saved. You're stabilized there and then you're going to get on an Air Force Medevac flight that goes to Germany.
Zach Herrick:Yes, Do you remember any of that? I don't, you know. I remember the uh getting on the dust off and flying from one location and dropping off my squad leader, who was also shot in the face, and then he said uh, he said keep moving, keep moving forward, yeah, and uh, that was kind of the last thing. I kind of. I kind of blacked out after that, Right, and then I woke up. I kind of blacked out after that right, and then I woke up.
Larry Zilliox:So now you wake up, you're in an Air Force hospital in Germany, correct? What are you thinking? What's going on?
Zach Herrick:I'm thinking thank God for one. But I also was confused because I could hear a lot of noise. I looked at my toes, made sure everything can move. The lady a phenomenal nurse took out the trach and made sure I can breathe through the trach and I was thinking you know, the fight's just begun.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, yeah. How long were you in Germany?
Zach Herrick:I believe it was maybe 18 hours. Oh, yes, it was maybe 18 hours. Okay, it was a real turnaround. Yeah, I was there. I remember some high-ranking officers came to my little room that I was in laying in and they presented me the Purple Horn. Right, yeah, were they Army? Yes, they were Army, they nice? Yeah, didn't want to get it from navy, but I'm teasing. No, uh, that's one of those uh medals you, you really don't want, you really don't want, but you owned it. Yeah, in a way, yeah and uh. So they came in, presented me that and they left and, man, all I can think was I'm exhausted, spiritually exhausted. Part of me wanted to be back in the fight. I know I couldn't return, obviously, sure, but it was one of those times where I just needed to feel like I was useful. I just needed to feel like I was useful and laying in that bed for however many hours in pain, swollen.
Larry Zilliox:Did you have a sense of the extent of your injury at that point?
Zach Herrick:You know, I didn't realize how bad it was because when initially we got in contact and I got shot, I knew I was shot. It felt like a firecracker going off in your mouth and I got shot. I knew I was shot. It felt like a firecracker going off in your mouth and initially I walked in where I ran and into the little mud hut. We took over and I put my hand over my mouth and I said, hey, I've been shot. And a couple of my guys were like, hey, we know, we know, it's one of those injuries that you see. And when I was in the hospital in Germany, I didn't quite know how bad the situation was until we flew to Walter Reed Right, I got my folks there, right, okay.
Larry Zilliox:And your folks came from.
Zach Herrick:They were actually in Hawaii. Oh, they were on a vacation when they got the phone call.
Zach Herrick:Oh wow, my sister got the phone call from the military correspondence Julie and my sister, julie, called my folks and said, hey, we don't know the situation, but Zach has been shot above the neck and when you kind of hear that the game's over pretty much. Yeah. So they packed everything up and they were trying to get their passports to go to Germany. But it was such a fast turnaround they said you know what, let's wait off until he gets in DC. Yeah, so that's where they met me.
Larry Zilliox:And that was a very quick turnaround too, yeah.
Zach Herrick:I believe it was less than a day. I know it was less than a day, yeah.
Larry Zilliox:They. I know it was less than a day. Yeah, they didn't wait too long. Wow. And how was your flight from Germany to Walter Reed?
Zach Herrick:You know it's crazy Getting shot at being shot, almost getting IED during deployment and flying from Germany to DC was probably worse than deployment, I have to say, because every time they strap you in and you can't breathe hardly you're running through a trach that you're not your body's kind of like. What's going on with this new breathing apparatus I have? Yeah, and it's getting filled up with blood and you're choking and you can't breathe and you'll feel like you're getting waterboarded by your own fluids. Yeah, we had a great staff, we had great, great people on board and in fact this is something I can say that the young lady that helped me clear my trach.
Zach Herrick:I met her years ago in college. I was going to college Awful, watch her eat, wow. And I didn't recognize her, but she kept looking at me. I was going to college off Walter Reed, wow. And I didn't recognize her. But she kept looking at me and I'm like, okay, it's one of those people. And she's like, hey, were you deployed this time? Did you go this area? And she's like I helped you do that. However long it was getting from Germany to DC, right, and I was the one clearing the trach and she started crying to that. However long it was getting from Germany to DC right, and I was the one clearing the trach and she started crying and I just gave her a huge hug and I said you're part of that, you've shaped my life.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah Well, the aeromedical people in the Air Force are phenomenal. They really are. And so now you get to Walter Reed and you're going to settle in. You're in the hospital first. How long are you actually in the hospital before you move into the SRU?
Zach Herrick:It's kind of a blow those couple months. You know it was figuring out after the 13-hour surgery do I have bone? Do I have stable enough muscle in my mouth? It was a long ordeal and what I'm so blessed about is that I had one of the only maxillofacial surgeons that was best on the eastern hemisphere at the time he was the top and he's like oh, I'm going to work on this guy.
Larry Zilliox:Mm-hmm.
Zach Herrick:He was the best globally and he was there walking on me. I mean, that's a connection right there, right.
Larry Zilliox:So do you know, was he military? Because through doing episodes I learned that the Red Cross puts a lot of volunteer surgeons into military hospitals.
Zach Herrick:Yeah, so he was military. His name escapes me, but he was military. Wow, yeah, that's great.
Larry Zilliox:That's funny. Yeah, wow. So you're at Walter Reed, and how do you hear about the Warrior Retreat?
Zach Herrick:At Walter Reed actually. So I was at Walter Reed, I was doing a few um things there, I had a few appointments and you guys actually had a booth set up and I was like, oh, what's that? And, um, I believe it was Janet. Does that sound familiar? Could be, yeah, could be. Um, she introduced me to building Warrior Retreat and I was like, okay, sounds interesting.
Zach Herrick:And so I met my wife in 2016 and we just had a baby and I was like I don't know if I can get out in public really and really push a lot of things. And she's like, well, let's try the retreat. We go to the retreat, we go to the retreat and everything's perfect. And I know you hear that quite a bit, but everything was phenomenal. It was gold standard of recovery and it's not even in the sense of you have to do anything. You come home, yeah, you come home. You come to the Willing War retreat and it's phenomenal. You find a peace, you have a safe place to just breathe and I've never been to a facility anything like Willing War Retreat. It's something special, it's something special.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, well, it's special for us that we're able to have you today. Thank you, and you know I remember your dinner. You actually ran in at the gala. You ran into Chef Cameron, yeah, and so your chef. We have the Visiting Chef Program and your chef was Navy Chief Cameron Tiramasi, who at the time was the team lead for all the chefs at Presidential Food Service at the White House, and he was thrilled to see you again last night, by the way. He just couldn't stop talking about it. But you know I do remember your dinner. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun.
Zach Herrick:It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun, a lot of fun. It was great. Good food, good food, yeah.
Larry Zilliox:Fantastic, yeah. So how long were you at Walter Reed?
Zach Herrick:So injury from 2011 to 2016. I retired in 2016. Right Medically retired.
Larry Zilliox:Medically retired yeah, 100% disability.
Zach Herrick:So that was a fight after I got out, but, yes, I am now. Yeah, good, yes, so about five, five and a half years at Walter Reed, wow, wow, that's a long time. That's a long time. And you know, unfortunately, you know, walter Reed's fantastic. They weren't um known for plastic surgery and, and so I actually had to go to Johns Hopkins to finish up my surgeries. Okay, and what took so long was the bone graft. Every six months you have to wait till the bone heals to put more bone in the jaw, and the plastic surgery took a while, right and um are you done with the?
Zach Herrick:operations took a while, Right, and um, are you done with the operations? I am, you are, I am, I'm, I'm done. Um, they said continue. But uh, at this point in my life, if, uh, if you know, people can't understand what I'm saying, then I can tell them a little story on why. But, um, I think I, I think I'm done with that.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, that's good. That's good. So tell us about how you got involved in explosive art and what it is.
Zach Herrick:Yeah. So I walked to Reed, I tried art for a little bit and it was good, but it wasn't. You know, really I'm really lucky. You know, larry, I'm really lucky, I'm really blessed, because I knew early on that the tools I used as a warrior, as a soldier, didn't really translate very well. I had saccharic recovering. You know, couldn't do clear buildings with that. I can't, you know, shoot 300 meters. I can't do certain things that as a warrior, as a soldier, you do. But it didn't really help my healing process and I recognize that.
Zach Herrick:And so when I ventured into the art realm, I enjoyed it and through another organization I met Martin Noll, who's the Danish soldier who, another soldier, taught him this. And he came to me and said you know, zach, I would really like to teach you something that's probably going to help your trauma and your PTSD and your TBI a little and get you out off the X, because I was kind of stuck and didn't know how to maneuver. So he showed me the explosive that you explode paint on a canvas and it gets a lot of frustration, gets a lot of things out, a lot of demons on the canvas. So it's not manifesting inside of you. I just ran with that and I was like, if this works for me, I think I can help other guys and gals out there who are suffering from trauma, and that's what we've been doing for us since 2016.
Zach Herrick:Since I got out is, my wife and I have been running up the East Coast with my truck and blowing paint on a canvas. So they everybody had a hoot of it. They enjoyed it, and I want veterans to know that and the people whoever suffering from trauma don't put yourself in a box. Expand that and see what works for you.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah.
Zach Herrick:And maybe you can turn around and help others.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah. So for our listeners, let me describe this process here. It's not like a big cannon from an 1812 warship. It's a small little series of tubes that you wire up to explode and have paint, and it projects the paint onto the canvas in a sort of Jackson Pollock kind of way. It's just, it's crazy how it comes out. I mean, I'd look at it and I go, well, that's really something.
Larry Zilliox:And we auctioned off one of these last night and I think it went for $1,900. It was really really great. I just think it's just wonderful therapy and it's just an example of if you look around, you can find something that helps you heal. It's not the same for everybody, and what I don't want veterans to do is think, oh well, I could explosive art that will help me heal. And if it doesn't, don't give up. You need to find something else. Whether it's being out in the wilderness, whether it's river rafting, fishing, you know. Whatever it is, keep looking for it. Someday you will find it. I guarantee you'll find it and it will bring you peace. And I just love the idea of you helping other veterans with this and saying this worked for me, may work for you, but in the end you get to blow up stuff and paint goes flying everywhere.
Zach Herrick:I mean that's fun any way you look at it, you're right and at the end of the day, you know I can't promise healing, but I can promise you walk out with a cool piece of art and you know the premise of it all is with the abstract art is each painting is done just as similar, as each veteran has a personalized story of why they joined, when, how they became a veteran and if they're permanently disabled or not.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, Now you're moving to Texas, I am and starting a nonprofit, correct, okay. So hopefully you'll get that up running soon and we will push that out on our social media. I guarantee that I will have contact information for Zach in the show notes, yeah, so if anybody just wants to reach out and say how do I do this, you know, are you going to be in my neighborhood soon? Just, really just if you're, if you're curious about this or you think it might help, you definitely reach out to Zach about that. We can maybe help some veterans with this. And certainly, once the nonprofit's up and running, we'll look at maybe doing another. And certainly, once the nonprofit's up and running, we'll look at maybe doing another episode.
Larry Zilliox:Talk about the nonprofit and get some donations, because all of this costs money. I know from experience here at the warrior retreat you know everything costs money. Um, you know we have three. When you have three houses, you have three big maintenance problems. So I'm well aware of that and we'll definitely do another episode about the nonprofit and how it benefits everybody. And well, listen, zach, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with us.
Zach Herrick:Oh, thank you so much. It's a real honor to be able to talk with you, larry, and just describe my feeling about winning Royals and how they helped me, and a lot of times I feel that they helped put a function and a uh uh pulled the foundation of my own marriage. Literally just pour it down so we can establish a book hold on many ways and uh, that's on you guys.
Larry Zilliox:You did that and I do appreciate that well, we're very fortunate we're able to do it as a gift from the community and that's not lost on us. And we are are just blessed with the ability to try and help as many um active duty wounded warriors as possible. And we are so lucky that you are part of our family and we appreciate you making the trip out here for the gala and to sit down with me. So thanks so much. And for our listeners, we will have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you'd like to get up early and listen to podcasts, if you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriorsorg. Until then, thanks for listening.
