Command Sgt. Major (ret.) Tom Satterly served in the Army for 25 years, 20 of those years were spent in the military’s most secretive and elite Special Operations unit, Delta Force. As an Operator and CSM, Tom fought in and lead countless high profile military missions including Operation Red Dawn (Saddam Hussein’s capture) and the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) which was the longest sustained firefight since Vietnam. That 18-hour firefight ended with Tom, along with several of his team mates, running the Mogadishu Mile to safety.
Although the physical, mental, and emotional toll of war had compounded over the years, Tom never faced his Post-Traumatic Stress symptoms and in 2013 he nearly ended his life. Had it not been a text from his now wife, Jen, he would have joined the 22 veterans who commit suicide every single day.
As Director of Film and Photography of an elite Special Operations training company, Jen embedded with Navy Seals, Green Berets, and Army Rangers in (RMTs) Realistic Military Training exercises sometime for weeks at a time. During this time, she began to notice the same symptoms Tom was battling and began to ask questions. What was being done? Who is helping our warriors on the homefront heal? Who is helping the families with secondary PTS? She didn’t like the answers and became certified in health and wellness to better understand PTS and the body.
Tom and Jen decided something had to be done and the work they did together training and preparing warriors to fight overseas turned into a mission of helping warriors and their families fight the silent war and to heal from it on the homefront. The Satterly’s founded All Secure Foundation in August 2017 as a resource library for helping warriors and their families navigate the maze of treatments and modalities of healing from PTS. They have worked individually with hundreds of warriors and their families and soon became more than a referral website but also a provider of education, awareness, and programs for healing.
In 2019 ASF launched one of the only programs in the country for warrior couples to tackle PTS and Secondary PTS together with Emotionally Focused Therapy through their Special Operations Warrior Couples Retreat Workshops. The program was so successful that they filled all 6 of the retreat workshops in 2020 in a single day. With additional funding, more workshop retreats will be added (to donate to or sponsor a retreat, please visit our DONATE page).
In 2020, All Secure Foundation has also began working directly with Special Operation units and the FRG (Family Readiness Group) by providing PTS Resiliency training at bases across the United States. In addition to working with the DOD, Tom and Jen also speak across the country to provide awareness and education on PTS including Congress, the Senate Committee on Veteran Affairs, The White House Communication Agency, USAA, Lockheed Martin, NAMI, and countless veteran organizations.
