TIPTON — John Abbey joined the Army at the age of 17, served in the Vietnam War, and came home and built a life for himself: marriage, family, career.

But after he retired from the Ford Motor Co. in January 2008, he found that the scars from his experiences in the war had never healed. “Like a lot of veterans, when you have a little more time, these things come back out,” he said. Diagnosed with PTSD, he got mental-health help, but even so, he was in a deep emotional hole.

Then he got involved with a weekly woodworking program geared toward veterans, Woodworking for Warriors, that was hosted by the Sam Beauford Woodworking Institute and its president, Luke Barnett. And it changed Abbey’s life.

It wasn’t the woodworking itself, as such. It was the opportunity the program provided to connect with other veterans. “I came to learn woodworking, and what came out of it was a sense of community,” he said.

In fact, there’s a whole lot more to the group than woodworking. Members get together for everything from hunting, fishing, and skeet shooting to attending baseball games.

The Sam Beauford Woodworking Institute, with sponsorship from the Adrian Noon Rotary Club of which Barnett is a member, provided its facilities, equipment, and materials to Woodworking for Warriors at no charge for about four years. During that time, the group grew to some 300 members, both men and women, from all over Lenawee County, the Detroit area, Ohio, and even much further away.

Both veterans and active-duty personnel got involved, and participants now represent the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, and National Guard.

Eventually, however, the program grew to the point that the Sam Beauford Woodworking Institute, needing the space and resources for its own programs, could no longer host the vets, and Woodworking for Warriors faced a decision about its future.

And, as it turned out, no one wanted it to go out of existence.

With Barnett providing help in getting organized and giving the group necessary items like instructional materials, Woodworking for Warriors became a 501(c)3 charitable organization, installed a board with Abbey as president, and embarked on a search for a new home.

That search ended when Steve Leonard and Jenny Nix, a couple who had recently purchased a home on M-50 in Tipton, heard about the need and offered the group two of the property’s outbuildings for its operations.

“They’re wonderful people,” Abbey said of Leonard and Nix. “You can’t say enough good about them.”

Since getting their new facility, members have been hard at work transforming it into a well-equipped workshop. The larger building will serve as a full workshop, while the smaller one will host classes as well as be a quiet space where members can work with hand tools.

The organization has also been handling all the administrative tasks that are part of such an operation, like getting insurance lined up and consulting with the township office on various details. A few more jobs are still at hand, such as creating walkways and adapting the entrances so that the buildings are handicapped-accessible.

“We’re really anxious to get up and rolling,” Abbey said. The goal is to be open at least two days a week.

Much of the equipment and materials are in place, but the organization welcomes donations not only of money but also of materials, including glue, sandpaper, sharpening stones, dust collection bags, saw blades, and heaters so the buildings can be used in the winter. A CNC machine would also be a welcome addition.

Abbey is far from the only veteran who has found meaning, and friendships with people who know firsthand what being a vet is like, in Woodworking for Warriors.

“If it wasn’t for this group, I don’t know where I’d be,” Randy Lighthall, the organization’s vice president, said.

A Navy veteran who served as a boatswain’s mate (more colloquially, “bos’n’s mate”) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga in the mid and late 1980s, Lighthall’s life after leaving the military took a bad turn when he was hurt at work. He ended up losing both his job and his marriage.

“I lost everything that was important to me,” he said. “Everything that I knew, everything that I expected in my life was gone.”

It all sent him on a downward spiral. But then his daughter saw some information about Woodworking for Warriors and suggested that he check it out. He already had some woodworking experience but because of his injury couldn’t do the sorts of things he had before, but he took a CNC class at Sam Beauford and “I fell in love with it.” Today, he’s a CNC instructor at the institute.

Woodworking for Warriors gave him not only a connection with other veterans, but also a place where he could be himself.

Before becoming part of the group, “the only place I ever fit in was in the Navy,” he said.

Sitting nearby listening to Lighthall tell his story, Terri Butler nodded in understanding. Butler, also a Navy veteran, was one of the first women to serve on a Navy ship, aboard the USS Point Loma where she was an interior communications technician — “basically a phone repairman,” she said, laughing.

When she left the Navy for civilian life, she faced some of the same challenges as Abbey, Lighthall, and many other veterans have. But a conversation with Patty Clark, a member of the Adrian Noon Rotary Club, led her to Woodworking for Warriors.

She had never done woodworking in her life. “I didn’t know how to do anything like that,” she said. But other members took her under their wing, showing her how to make cutting boards, and she was hooked.

“From the first day, it was the best thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I took to woodworking, and everyone was so helpful and so nice.”

Although Butler was originally from Lenawee County, which is what led her to return here after her Navy hitch, she doesn’t have family locally. And Woodworking for Warriors helps fill that hole in her life. 

“It’s that camaraderie that you don’t get anywhere else. … I don’t have family here, but I have friends now,” she said.

Besides missing the fellowship that comes out of life in the military, veterans often find that when they come home, they miss the sense of purpose they had in the service. Abbey knows that Woodworking for Warriors helps him, and other vets, find that purpose again.

“The ability to have a mission,” he said, “and to deliver on that …”

“… is what we need,” Butler added, finishing his sentence for him.

For all the reasons Woodworking for Warriors exists, Abbey said he would like to see it replicated in communities across America.

“It’s woodworking, it’s community, but it’s also a path forward,” he said.

More information about Woodworking for Warriors is available at woodworkingforwarriors.org. Visitors to this year’s Clinton Fall Festival, Sept. 27-29, can also look for the group’s booth, which will have some of the members’ craftsmanship available for purchase.