Veterans Teaching Veterans – Door County Pulse
Jake VandenPlas was a gunner for his first tour in Iraq, a convoy commander for the second. The Wisconsin Army National Guardsman saw combat enough to recognize his good fortune.“There were a few times and several scenarios where you look back, and you’re trying to figure how you even made it out,” he said. “And it’s those things when you get back home that make you appreciate just watching the sun come up in the morning from the greenhouse. The little stuff like that keeps you wholesome, brings you back down to earth.”And now, VandenPlas wants to share all of that with as many veterans as he can and set them up for success so they can achieve on their own what he’s discovered.
…An assignment in an environmental-science class that VanderPlas took while working toward a business-management degree at UW-Green Bay created the inspiration for his new lifestyle. The class watched the 2007 documentary King Corn and then had to go two weeks without eating or drinking anything that had corn in it.
“So now we’re looking at product labels,” he said. “Corn is in literally everything.”
