We know the look in a veteran's eyes when the bottom falls out, because we have worn it. Tip of the Spear was built by combat veterans who have walked through PTSD, addiction, and moral injury. We provide affordable transitional housing, peer support, and trauma-informed care so no veteran has to fight alone. Every bed, every conversation, every night of safety aims toward one goal: restoring dignity and hope.

Most of us arrived at rock bottom the same way, one bad night at a time. Our process starts with a simple call, then a calm intake that listens more than it talks. Veterans move into stable housing, meet peers who speak their language, and connect with counseling, life skills, and suicide prevention support. Step by step, we trade chaos for structure, isolation for community, and survival for a future that feels worth living.

The founder of Tip of the Spear is a 77-year-old still kicking Marine, former deep sea diver, former smuggler, real estate developer, and charitable tax planner.

If there wasn’t risk involved, he wasn’t interested.

He was asked the question, “why are you doing this” when quizzed about his motive for starting up the Tip of the Spear. His answer came back: he has one more rodeo left in him and, having lived a life of adventure and risk, it’s time to give back to what has been given him.

The adventure began when he and his buddy Terry enlisted in the Marine Corps in August 1967. Terry was a good old Cajun dairy farmer.

Neither of them had any idea the kind of shit was about to go down. Boot Camp and AIT were completed shortly before Christmas, after which our founder was shipped to Quantico and Terry went straight to Nam. By the end of January 68, Terry found himself deep in mud and bullets at Khe Sanh while the founder was deep in spit and polish.

That didn’t last very long. By mid February he put in for a transfer to OCS. (Over Choppy Seas)! And caught the tail end of the Tet Offensive. Meanwhile, Terry battled VC in hand to hand combat.

They both survived their tour of duty while one of them returned to become a successful insurance salesman with no signs of combat fatigue, as the other kept asking “What Now?”

Like most returning soldiers and Marines, very little was said about the terror and misery they faced on a daily basis for the entire 13 months of deployment.

In fact, our founder stayed silent for 40 years before the snakes living in his head started to show up as post traumatic stress and moral injury.

Thus began his journey inside the treatment afforded by the veterans administration. Over the past 15 years the VA has always had his back. Alexandria, Biloxi, Little Rock, White City, Honolulu, Fayetteville, gave it their best shot, but the overwhelming thoughts of guilt and shame prevailed and so the revolving door swung open for a relapse.

And so the motto, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”.