{"id":2451024,"date":"2019-11-13T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=315895"},"modified":"2019-11-13T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T12:00:00","slug":"finding-center-snowmass-veteran-reflects-on-life-during-and-after-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/finding-center-snowmass-veteran-reflects-on-life-during-and-after-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Center: Snowmass veteran reflects on life during and after service"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Don Stuber, left, shakes hands with Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo at the Veterans Memorial Park in Aspen on Monday, November 11, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This story was written in honor of Veterans Day and to recognize all of the men and women who served our country in the military.<\/p>\n

When Snowmass Village resident Don Stuber moved to the Roaring Fork Valley over 40 years ago, he was in search of something specific.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying to find calm in my life. \u2026 I was unable to relax, was anxious and ended up here to try to fix that,\u201d Stuber said. \u201cIn some ways, it was like starting over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuber, wearing a camouflage scarf and U.S. Marines Corps jacket, fidgeted with a wide-brimmed hat as he spoke. The Vietnam veteran said it was his nearly two years of experience in the war that caused much of his anxiety and desire to live on the edge \u2014 and why it\u2019s taken him much of the rest of his life since to find peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty lucky I was able to stumble and fumble my way to reconciliation and being a civilian again without causing serious damage or despair to others,\u201d Stuber said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever be completely healed. It\u2019s an ongoing process and I can keep getting better but I\u2019ll never be perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an Aspen coffee shop just before the area\u2019s Veterans Day ceremony at the memorial adjacent to the Pitkin County Administration Building, Stuber talked about the years he served in Vietnam as a Marine.<\/p>\n

The Minnesota-native said his dad and his uncles had all served in the military, which is one reason why he decided to enlist in 1967.<\/p>\n

The other reason was because he wanted to learn more about the war and why the U.S. was fighting it for himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was so much controversy around the war I wasn\u2019t sure who to believe and figured one way to find out was to volunteer to go over myself and make my own decisions,\u201d Stuber said.<\/p>\n

Stuber, who grew up in aviation, thought he would be recruited to use his air skills to serve. Instead, he was a part of the Marine infantry that fought in the Battle of Hue, one of the war\u2019s longest and bloodiest, and later was responsible for transferring high security, confidential documents and information between military and government officials.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really lucky to be provided the opportunity to find out what was going on myself, which is what I had intended to do,\u201d Stuber said. \u201cI realized the war was not right, but that didn\u2019t disturb or minimize my loyalty to the Marines even though I lost faith in parts of the country and its leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Stuber, life in Vietnam depended on his fellow Marines, which he described as a community where things like loyalty and trust were unspoken truths. As a messenger of sorts, he also spent a lot of time alongside print and photojournalists, who he said he developed a lot of respect and admiration for.<\/p>\n

After he was discharged in 1969, Stuber attended the University of Minnesota and became involved in the peace movement, attending protests and rallies and pursuing photojournalism, art, and martial arts.<\/p>\n

He said he studied yoga and meditation to try and help center himself after returning from Vietnam, but that he struggled to adjust to a normal life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept looking for the same excitement and adrenaline I found in the war, as bad as that sounds,\u201d Stuber said. \u201cT(The military was) really good at training and preparing us to kill but did very little to un-train us. We were dehumanized in a sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuber said he began to find calm and center after he moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in 1976 and started his family. But it wasn\u2019t until the late \u201980s when he met Dick Merritt, a longtime Aspen local and Marine veteran, and other local retired military officers that he started to identify himself as a veteran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the beginning of reconnecting with veterans,\u201d Stuber said.<\/p>\n

Since then, Stuber has been active with the area Marine veterans and services aimed at helping retired military adjust back to civilian life.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a board member for Huts for Vets, a local wilderness therapy program free for veterans; has volunteered during the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic for the past 16 years and is working on a multimedia project that addresses the different ways people remember wars and how those memories can change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings opened up to me and I realized I had something to offer and share,\u201d Stuber said of identifying as a veteran and working to give back. \u201cI recognize some of the same tendencies in other veterans that I had and I want to be there for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don Stuber, left, shakes hands with Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo at the Veterans Memorial Park in Aspen on Monday, November 11, 2019. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times Editor\u2019s Note: This story was written in honor of Veterans Day and to recognize all of the men and women who served our country in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 06:52:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451024\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}