How Gary Sinise is helping the nonprofit CreatiVets build ‘a place to go
when the PTSD hits’
[November 10, 2025]
By GLENN GAMBOA
NASHVILLE (AP) — Richard Casper shakes his head as he touches one of the
boarded-up windows in the once-abandoned church he plans to transform
into a new 24-hour arts center for veterans.
The U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Purple Heart recipient said he was an
arm’s length away from military officials, including Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth, at Marine Barracks Washington when he learned the former
church his nonprofit CreatiVets just purchased had been vandalized.
The physical damage to the building and its stained glass windows
saddened Casper. But what worried him more was that the church had
remained empty since 2017 without damage. That vandalism came just weeks
after CreatiVets bought it, suggesting that maybe he and the veterans in
his program were not welcome.
“I almost just left,” Casper said. “It put me in a weird headspace.”
However, Casper, 40, a CNN Heroes winner and Elevate Prize Foundation
winner, needed more support for the center — “a place to go when the
PTSD hits.” Like so many veterans, he said his PTSD, caused by seeing a
close friend die on patrol in Iraq, would generally come in the middle
of the night, when the only places open are bars and other spaces that
can be ”destructive.”
He figured a 24-hour center where veterans could engage in music,
painting, sculpture, theater and other arts could help. It could “turn
all that pain into something beautiful.” The artistic element factored
in when Casper, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in
Iraq, returned home and found it hard to be in public — unless he was
listening to live music.
So he completed his mission that night in Washington, introducing new
people to CreatiVets' work. Then, Casper returned to Nashville to
practice what he has preached to hundreds of veterans since his
nonprofit opened in 2013. He asked for help.
And help came.
Within weeks, CreatiVets’ Art Director Tim Brown was teaching a roomful
of volunteers how to create stained glass pieces to replace those that
were vandalized. Brown said the volunteers wanted to give back to the
organization, “but also because of the impact that these activities have
had on them."
Gary Sinise believes in art's impact
Gary Sinise values that impact. The actor, musician and philanthropist
had already signed on to donate $1 million through his foundation to
help CreatiVets purchase the building. Sinise’s involvement encouraged
two other donors to help finalize the purchase.
The “CSI: NY” star said he believed in CreatiVets’ work and had already
seen a similar program in his hometown of Chicago help veterans process
their wartime experiences.
“In the military, you’re trained to do serious work to protect our
country, right?” Sinise said. “If you’re in the infantry, you’re being
trained to kill. You’re being trained to contain any emotion and be
strong.”
Those skills are important when fighting the enemy, but they also take a
toll, especially when veterans aren’t taught how to discuss their
feelings once the war is over.
“Quite often, our veterans don’t want any help,” Sinise said. “But
through art – and with theater as well – acting out what they are going
through can be very, very beneficial.”
David Booth says he is living proof of how CreatiVets can help. And the
retired master sergeant, who served 20 years in the U.S. Army as a medic
and a counterintelligence agent, wishes he participated in the program
sooner.
“For me, this was more important than the last year and a half of
counseling that I’ve gone through,” said Booth. “It has been so
therapeutic.”
After years of being asked, Booth, 53, finally joined CreatiVets’
songwriting program in September. He traveled from his home in The
Villages, Florida, to the historic Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, to meet
with two successful songwriters – Brian White, who co-wrote Jason
Aldean’s “Blame It on You,” and Craig Campbell, of “Outskirts of Heaven”
fame – to help him write a song about his life.
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Army veteran Clay Jensen, left, talks about events in his military
career as songwriter Brian White, right, puts them into lyrics as
they work in a dressing room in the Grand Ole Opry House as part of
the CreatiVets program on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2025, in Nashville,
Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
 Booth told them about his service,
including his injury in Iraq in 2006 when the vehicle he was in
struck an improvised explosive device and detonated it.
He suffered a traumatic brain injury in the explosion, and it took
months of rehab before he could walk again. His entire cervical
spine is fused. He still gets epidurals to relieve the nerve pain.
And he still suffers from nightmares and PTSD.
In Iraq, Booth's unit was once surrounded by kids because American
soldiers used to give them Jolly Rancher candies. Snipers shot the
children in hopes the soldiers would become easier targets when they
tried to help.
“Things like that stick in my head,” Booth said. “How do you get
them out?”
He also told them about his desire for a positive message and Combat
Veterans to Careers, the veteran support nonprofit he founded. Those
experiences became the song “What’s Next.”
Booth hopes “What's Next” becomes available on music streaming
services so others can hear his story. CreatiVets has released
compilations of its veterans' songs since 2020 in cooperation with
Big Machine Label Group, Taylor Swift’s first record label. This
year’s collection was released Friday.
“It’s almost like they could feel what I was feeling and put it into
the lyrics," said Booth, after hearing the finished version. "It was
pretty surreal and pretty awesome.”
Why Lt. Dan from ‘Forrest Gump’ launched a nonprofit
Sinise has seen the unexpected impact of art throughout his career.
His Oscar-nominated role as wounded Vietnam veteran Lt. Dan Taylor
in “Forrest Gump” in 1994 deepened his connection to veterans. His
music with the Lt. Dan Band expanded it. In 2011, he launched the
Gary Sinise Foundation to broadly serve veterans, first responders
and their families.
“I think citizens have a responsibility to take care of their
defenders,” he said. “There are opportunities out there for all of
us to do that and one of the ways to do it is through multiple
nonprofits that are out there.”
Sinise immediately connected with CreatiVets’ mission. When the idea
came to dedicate the performance space at the new center to his late
son Mac, who died last year after a long battle with cancer, Sinise
saw it as “a perfect synergy.”
“Mac was a great artist,” he said. “And he was a humble, kind of
quiet, creative force… If Mac would have survived and not gone
through what he went through, he’d be one of our young leaders here
at the foundation. He would be composing music and he’d be helping
veterans.”
Mac Sinise is still helping veterans, as proceeds of his album
“Resurrection & Revival” and its sequel completed after his death,
are going to the Gary Sinise Foundation. And Gary Sinise said he
discovered more compositions from his son that he plans to record
later this year for a third album.
After the new center was vandalized, Casper said he was heartbroken,
but also inspired knowing part of the center was destined to become
the Mac Sinise Auditorium. He decided to take pieces of the broken
stained glass windows and transform them into new artwork inspired
by Mac Sinise’s music.
“I told you we’re going to go above and beyond to make sure everyone
knows Mac lived," Casper told Sinise as he handed him stained glass
panes inspired by Mac Sinise’s songs “Arctic Circles” and “Penguin
Dance,” "not that he died, but that he lived.”
Sinise fought back tears as he said, “My gosh, that’s beautiful.”
As he examined the pieces more closely, Sinise added, “I’m honored
that we’re going to have this place over there and that Mac is going
to be supporting Richard and helping veterans."
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