‘A Letter From Home’ shines spotlight on veteran suicide prevention

U.S. Army veteran Jason Graven’s life has been touched by the issue of veteran suicide, which inspired him to do something about it.

The 42-year-old Anthony Wayne High School graduate is the founder of the organization Task Force 20, which encourages physical fitness as a form of therapy for veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. Graven’s story and those of veterans like him have been turned into the documentary film A Letter From Home, made by local film producers Alex Hinsch and Spencer LeGros.

A Letter From Home premieres at the Maumee Indoor Theatre at 7 p.m. Saturday, and screens again at the same location at 6 p.m. Oct. 6. Admission to the film is free, but seating is limited.

When Graven was 2 years old, his father left his family, and the little boy never saw his dad ever again. When Graven was 12, he learned that his estranged father, a U.S. Army veteran, had committed suicide.

“I never met my father. Technically I was a child of one of the 22 veterans that committed suicide every day back then,” said Graven, who joined the Army at age 21, enlisting two weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. He trained as a member of the military police and was part of the initial invasion of Iraq from March, 2003, to March, 2004.

In November, 2016, Graven founded Task Force 20, a nonprofit organization based in Grand Rapids, Ohio that provides various health-related services to veterans, from yoga to CrossFit classes, as a way of dealing with PTSD and depression.

Graven said most veterans who come to Task Force 20 take advantage of the gym membership assistance program. Veterans can apply for financial assistance, and Task Force 20 will cover the cost of a one-year gym membership. The organization has promotional partnerships with Revitalize Fitness in Maumee, all branches of the YMCA of Greater Toledo, and Pillar Fitness in Rossford and Monroe, but will cover whatever fitness center the veteran chooses.

Since its founding, Task Force 20 has assisted approximately 130 local veterans with reaching their fitness goals.

A Letter From Home takes a documentary look at Graven’s story and that of Task Force 20, courtesy of Hinsch and LeGros and their film production company LoudKid Films, which they founded in 2017.

“We’ve worked with Jason since we started our company,” Hinsch said. “We started our company about the same time as Jason started Task Force 20. We kind of grew together.”

Graven met Hinsch and LeGros at a Barry Bagels and pitched the idea of doing a documentary on his program. Intrigued, the two filmmakers agreed. The first resulting film Train/​Compete/​Survive Together, won an Addy Award at the 2020 American Advertising Awards. From then on, Graven has hired LoudKid to produce a documentary on Task Force 20 every year. But A Letter From Home is different from the previous documentaries because this time the story focuses more on Graven’s backstory.

“Some people say I have an intriguing story, but I lived it, so it’s not all that intriguing to me,” Graven said.

“This documentary is largely about my own personal history, but it’s about overcoming tragedy and obstacles and how our organization is helping veterans deal with the service to civilian transition,” said Graven, who said the number of veteran suicides each day is slowly but surely dropping.

“Now that number is down to 18, so we’re going in the right direction.”

Contact Jason Webber at jwebber@theblade.com.