Serving in a combat zone in Iraq was an adrenaline rush that Jason Moon couldn’t duplicate when he came home to Wisconsin.
Not that he didn’t try.
Moon drank. He drove too fast. He walked through bad parts of Milwaukee alone.
Excitement wasn’t the only thing that eluded him. Moon suffered from severe insomnia and would go four or five days without sleep. He had a hard time connecting with friends. He couldn’t go into shopping malls because he always had to be able to see everyone, make sure he knew what they were doing.
He remembered the guy he was before he went to Iraq, the guy he figured he’d be “once I was done with the war stuff.”
And then it hit him. The guy he’d been before he’d seen death and destruction up close? He’d never be that guy again.
And, well, what was the point of going on as this new guy? The one who drank too much, was always on edge and had trouble keeping his temper under control?
Moon didn’t want to be a burden on his wife and son. He looked at all the pills doctors had prescribed him for insomnia and depression, and he thought, “Why don’t I just do everyone a favor?”
When Moon was given a mission in the military, whatever obstacles stood in his way, he didn’t stop until the mission was finished, he said.
One day in 2008, Moon swallowed a jarful of pills and washed it down with brandy. His mission was to die.
Jason Moon signed up for the Army National Guard when he was still in high school, just 17 years old. He wasn’t swept up in the patriotic fever that gripped the nation after 9/11; this was way back in 1993. He came from a military family. His grandfather stormed the beach at Normandy, and his dad was a veteran, too. Moon figured the Guard was a good way to serve his country, serve his community and get out of his small town of Eagle River.
Moon was honorably discharged in 2001. But later that year, the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., prompted him to re-enlist. He served two tours of duty in Iraq before being honorably discharged in 2004.
Moon was still in Iraq when he first began to feel like something was amiss. He doesn’t like to talk about the trauma he saw and experienced, but he said it’s hard to process your emotions when you’re in a combat zone.
“Something blew up, s— hit the fan, and you got back in your vehicle and went to work,” he said.
There was no time to talk about the way “things were starting to unravel” while he was in Iraq, he said. And when he got home, he was reluctant to share the way he was feeling. He was a combat veteran; he didn’t want to be seen as weak. He figured that whatever he was dealing with, he could push through it.
On the rare nights that Moon did sleep, he often woke up thinking he was still at war. “I’d have a feeling like I was missing something,” he said. He’d check all the doors and locks, and somehow he’d remember, “Oh man, you’re home.”
Moon was an accomplished musician. In college, he wrote dozens of songs. He frequently hosted open mic nights. He performed regularly.
But when he got back from Iraq, he had little passion for anything, including music.
“I felt absolutely no joy,” he said.
Moon figured the pills and the brandy would be a lethal combination. Instead, he said, he slept for two days. When he woke up, he didn’t really remember what had happened. Then he noticed his empty pill jar.
On Moon’s next trip to the VA, he was admitted as a suicidal patient. Seeing his family rally around him, seeing the son he’d almost left fatherless, Moon knew something had to give.
“It kind of got me out of that darkness,” he said.
He was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and decided to spend all of 2009 learning about the condition and what he could do to control it. He started recognizing “triggers” that took him back to Iraq and did his best to avoid them. That meant he stopped reading the newspaper and watching the news.
That year, a filmmaker who was making a documentary on PTSD interviewed Moon and asked if he would contribute a song to the movie. The experience reignited Moon’s love of music and gave rise to an album about his war experiences called “Trying to Find My Way Home.”
“How do they expect a man to do the things that I have, and come back and be the same. The things I’ve done that I regret, the things I’ve seen I won’t forget, for this life and so many more.`
Moon was surprised to receive an email soon after from a fellow veteran. He had been considering suicide until he listened to Moon’s music. He said it made him realize he wasn’t alone.
Then a mother reached out to him. Her son had heard Moon’s songs and broken down. He talked for the first time about his war experience and the effect it had on him.
After about the 10th email, Moon realized he had a chance to do something powerful with his music. It was a way to connect with other veterans who were feeling as isolated and desperate as he had been. It was a way to let them know there was help available, that suicide wasn’t the answer.
Moon started to reach out, looking for places that would host him for some music and some conversation. When he found people who were interested, it didn’t matter where they were.
“I just traveled to anywhere people would take me,” he said. “I’d travel out on half a tank of gas and get there on fumes.”
Earlier this year, Moon established a nonprofit called Warrior Songs, whose slogan is “Healing Vets Through Music.” But that’s only part of the equation; Moon also tries to help civilians understand how they can help people suffering from PSTD.
Don’t judge, he said. Don’t ask questions like “What was it like over there?” or “Did you kill anyone?”
Instead, listen. If you’re going to offer help, make sure you can follow through.
“If the phone rings and you can’t do it, it will probably be the last time the phone rings,” Moon said.
Moon spreads his message through 90-minute concerts. He has one scheduled at Christ Community Reformed Church in Clifton Park on Veterans Day, Sunday, Nov. 11, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. He encourages people to come out for a free show that’s educational as well as entertaining. He’s also tentatively scheduled to be at WAMC’s The Linda in Albany on Thursday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m., to perform after a screening of the documentary “On the Bridge.”
Four years removed from his suicide attempt, Moon still has his rough days. Sometimes a thought creeps into his mind: “You should just end it. Kill yourself.” He pushes it aside. He goes for a walk or tries to lose himself in a video game.
He knows he’ll never reclaim his innocence. But he’s found something else in his work: purpose.
For more information, visit www.warriorsongs.org.