FREDERICK COUNTY, Md. — Tucked inside the Goodwill Industries campus in Frederick County is a sanctuary for veterans facing one of the toughest battles of their lives: transitioning home.
WATCH: “We’ve lost too many”: Platoon 22 helps veterans heal beyond the uniform
It’s called Platoon 22 — and its name carries weight. The number reflects a sobering statistic: an estimated 22 veterans die by suicide each day.
“We're kind of long past the day of just raising awareness for suicide,” said Nikki Falzone, Executive Director of Platoon 22. “We've evolved more into those upstream barriers. So everything we do is like the suicide rate is really at the root of it.”
For Falzone, a Marine Corps veteran, this mission hits close to home. The walls of the Platoon 22 Resource Center are lined with boots and paintings — tributes to lives lost. Among them, faces she knew personally.
“There's personal connections to a lot of the veterans that are on that wall, one specifically my husband and I served with,” Falzone said. “So for us it is a very deep seated mission.”
Falzone and her husband struggled with their own transition to civilian life. She says even the basics — like securing health insurance — felt foreign after years of military structure.
“We didn't land the jobs that we hoped. It took a little bit to kind of put it all together,” she said. “You know, we were adults and we didn't… we never picked up health insurance.”
Platoon 22 offers free services to veterans including case management, mental health referrals, employment help, peer support, and transportation — all under one roof.
That holistic approach is what drew Kelly Hartzell to join the team. As Director of Veteran Services, she supports veterans one-on-one. But she also brings the perspective of a military spouse.
Her husband, an Air Force veteran and reservist, is preparing to retire. Her brother-in-law, also a veteran, died by suicide in 2016.
“He served six years active duty and then the rest of his time in the reserves,” Hartzell said. “My brother-in-law is an Army veteran who unfortunately we lost to suicide back in November of 2016, which is why the mission of Platoon really speaks to me.”
She says far too often, families are left to quietly carry the emotional weight.
“They get out of the military, they tend to be forgotten about… have a difficult time transitioning back into regular life,” Hartzell said. “That is a lot of what happened with my brother-in-law and unfortunately we missed the signs with him.”
“If I can do anything to prevent another family going through the heartache that we went through of losing him, then I will consider that very successful.”
In June alone, Platoon 22 served over 100 veterans and provided nearly 300 individual services. The mission continues — not just to support — but to save lives.