"For Injured Veterans, Healing in Service to Others," New York Times, 2011The Mission Continues, which provides stipends for veterans to work at nonprofit organizations, is one of an array of nonprofit groups created by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to help other veterans return to civilian life by engaging them in civic service. They include organizations like Tempered Steel, which recruits wounded veterans to give public talks about their injuries -- whether amputations, blindness, severe burns or post-traumatic stress -- as a way of breaking down stigmas concerning the disabled. Or Purple Heart Homes, a group founded by two friends who were injured in Iraq while serving with the Army National Guard that builds or rehabilitates homes for disabled combat veterans. Or Team Rubicon, a network of veterans and health professionals who travel to communities -- from Haiti to Pakistan to Joplin, Mo. -- devastated by natural disasters to provide emergency services.
