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Boots On The Farm

Jul 6, 2023

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Trigger warning: This story includes mentions of suicidal ideation, PTSD and combat violence.

“Literally, I had to walk to the shower. I had all my clothes on, and I just stepped in the shower and just cried.”

Jon Jackson had a hard time adjusting to life back at home after doing six tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seemingly harmless things, like the flash of a camera, triggered a response in him that he couldn’t control. One day, he overheard his son bragging to his friends about killing a frog. Hearing his son talk about taking a life in such a nonchalant way set him off.

“I was screaming at him,” Jon says in the episode. “I mean, he was so scared, my wife was scared. They saw a side of me that should have only been reserved for the enemies of our country.”

Over the 10 years that he served as an Army Ranger, Jon hit over 20 improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Over time, he found that he had to dissociate to be able to keep going. He learned not to hold onto friendships with the guys he was serving with, because you never knew when you’d lose them.

“When you move that fast, you move outside of what it feels like to be human, because we’re all machines at that point, right?” Jon says.

But Jon held on to one friendship: Kyle Comfort. Kyle was Jon’s biggest supporter, and they did everything together. But in 2010, Kyle was killed by an IED. Jon was the one to pull his body off the helicopter.

But Jon remained numb. Two years after Kyle’s death, Jon was given a medical discharge and went home to face a whole new battle.

“I don’t call it PTSD. It’s just survival, right? But after war, when things start settling down and the dark clouds start catching up to you, then that’s when things become a problem,” Jon says.

The dark clouds were finally catching up; he felt like a danger to his family and struggled with thoughts of suicide. He knew he had to do something.

So he bought a farm.

Photo of a man leaning against a wooden structure holding a bin of crops.
Jon Jackson on Comfort Farms - Image by Matt Odom

Jon didn’t know anything about farming. But he was willing to learn. He started raising pigs and taught himself about sustainable farming. He supplied farm-to-table restaurants with his meat and produce. He had turkeys, chickens, ducks, rabbits, fish. He grew organic tomatoes and cucumbers and cultivated heirloom seeds. In the busyness of farm life, Jon finally had found peace.

“So my theory is that the farm taps into the same problem-solving, being hypervigilant, sensory overload. That kind of chaos is where we tend to thrive the best, we think clearly,” Jon says of why he thinks farming helped his PTSD.

Jon wanted to help other vets find the same peace. So he started inviting veterans to come stay on the farm and spend time working in the fields or the barns. And he gave the farm a name: Comfort Farms, after his friend Kyle Comfort.

“We realized on Comfort Farms, you only grow in your discomfort, and so we run towards the things that are making us uncomfortable, because when we tackle those things and we overcome those things is how we grow,” Jon says.

To hear the full story, listen to “Boots On The Farm” now.

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