Tim Dippon has spent as much time in nature as he can over the last couple of years, whether he’s hanging out with his dog, Scotty, going canoeing down the river, hiking or working with horses.

Nature has been his escape, the place where he feels the most at peace. His road to now hasn’t been easy, though. His time since leaving the Marine Corps in 2004 was partially spent homeless.

He’s gone through addiction to both alcohol and drugs, and there was a point where he was going through pancreatitis so bad he thought he wouldn’t make it.

Dippon has made it, and he’s found some semblance of peace in treating his post-traumatic stress disorder with nature and community. He’s taken the time since he’s gotten clean to take care of himself. He’s no longer living a risky life, chasing adrenaline.

Part of learning to slow down for Dippon came through getting his service dog, Scotty, through Mission K9 Warrior, an organization that provides veterans with service dogs at no cost.

Dippon also has been involved in equine therapy.

“You work with the horse, and the horses teach you social cues and relational skills through body language and the persistent, rhythmic, repetitive, and predictable communication,” Dippon said. “I’ve learned a lot about reading people.”

He said working at the Mustang Adoption Academy in Evansville, Indiana is one of the best things he’s ever done. They take mustangs captured out west, which are considered a nuisance to people running cattle farms, and corral them and train them to redistribute them to people who love horses.

“If the VA isn’t working for you, then find some of these people,” Dippon said. “These organizations, you’re going to find guys like me that will be able to share their struggle and help you learn from their hardships.”

What Dippon asks, although, is that those seeking help come with authenticity.

“Don’t show up because your wife’s ready to divorce,” Dippon said. “Don’t show up because, all of a sudden, your anger problems got you in a judicial problem and you want to look good for the judge. You have to be ready to improve yourself. Nobody can save you. You have to save yourself.”

Dippon said the real struggle for him came when he was right out of the military. He could get jobs, but he couldn’t keep jobs. He was 22 years old, and he struggled to find a purpose in work.

“The problem with getting out of the military at 22 after defending your country in a real environment is, what’s left?” Dippon asked. “I turned to alcohol. I couldn’t hold a job. I could get a job. I could get promoted at a rapid rate. Within four years, I’d be two, three promotions in. But when I got a seat at the table, I didn’t know how to act.”

Dippon said the impulsivity and attention to detail instilled in him in the U.S. Marines made that kind of life difficult.

“It’s like when you go through football practice as a high school kid,” Dippon said. “Even if you didn’t like that kid, you got respect for that kid. They went through those hard three-a-days, right? In the Marine Corps, amplify that times a million. How do you find that level of non-financial reward?”

Dippon enlisted in the Marines in August 2000. He was nine months and six days into active duty with a four-year obligation when planes hit the World Trade Centers on Sept. 11, 2001.

In his own words, Dippon was barely a deployable marine. At the time, he was on 96-hour liberty after a combined arms exercise in the Mojave Desert.

“My phone was going off that day,” Dippon said. “We had T9 texting on an old bar phone. It was so full of text messages I couldn’t get any more, and I was worried how much it was going to cost me.”

Text messages used to cost extra, and Dippon said he was only allowed a certain number before he started getting charged per message coming in and per message going out.

“My buddies are like, ‘Are they going to draft me?’” Dippon said. “‘Should I just join up?’ I’m like, I’m an E3 in the Marine Corps. I’m worried if I’m gonna sleep in this bed tonight or get put on an airplane or a ship to somewhere else.”

Dippon served his first 421 days in Okinawa with a combat assault battalion before serving 123 days in the Middle East as part of a MAGTF, or Marine Air Ground Task Force. He said that deployment included Greece, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, Kuwait and later on, Iraq.

He was a crew chief on amphibious assault vehicles or AAVs. Dippon started as a crewman and ended as a crew chief. He exited the Marine Corps in 2004.

Dippon said he finally started the process of filing claims and getting medical care for injuries he suffered in the military in 2020.

“They looked at me and told me I’d never been to Iraq,” he said.

It was then up to Dippon to track down as many photos as he could and get statements from the people he served with. He said the negatives of the photographs were enough to convince the VA that he was in Iraq.

“As I grow later into my life, I’m extremely appreciative,” Dippon said. “For a long time, I was ignorant, but I see what the Vietnam veterans did for us, all the veterans that came after them. The VA improved. Sadly enough, the VA has come a long way, maybe at a snail’s pace, but there has been progress since the 70s.”