Veteran Zachary Griffin is helping to make a difference in his community

THE WOODLANDS, Texas - Adapted from Loren Eiseley’s “The Star Thrower” is a tale you might know as “The Starfish Story.” In one version, a young man finds an old man walking along the shore, picking starfish up off the sand and throwing them one by one back into the sea. The young man laughs at his elder: “Don’t you know there are hundreds of starfish along this beach? You can’t possibly make any difference.” In response, the old man simply picks up another starfish and throws it into the waves. He tells the young man, “I made a difference to that one.”

Zachary Griffin is not an old man, nor does he spend his time tossing displaced starfish into the ocean. But like the old man in the story, Griffin makes a difference one by one, person by person, doing whatever he can: replacing floors, building structures, cooking food and even helping organize weddings.

As a war veteran, Griffin finds solace in helping others. He is empathetic to their problems because he comes from a place of pain himself.

“I was a wreck for a long time,” explained Griffin. “I had lost my ability to function normally. I was hurting enough that I could see it on other people’s faces.”

Like all too many veterans, Griffin suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks in the forms of intrusive thoughts and nightmares, which can disrupt sleep patterns to the point where the afflicted cannot sleep at all. Griffin received little to no sleep for weeks at a time, he said.

After one full week without sleep, Griffin sought a change. He galvanized himself into action and drove to Lone Star Cowboy Church in Montgomery, Texas. There, he met the church’s lead pastor, Randy Weaver.

“Randy the pastor was up on the front corner,” said Griffin. “He said, ‘Are you okay?’ He was the first person to ask me that question.”

Through Randy Weaver and Lone Star Cowboy Church, Griffin was able to make connections with people for whom he would later do favors. That first encounter also inspired him in his own actions.

One encounter mirrors that between Griffin and Weaver almost exactly. On his way to shop for groceries, Griffin came across a woman outside the supermarket. She was sitting on a bench by herself, fighting to refrain from crying. Griffin approached her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. The woman replied, “Just a bad day.” But Griffin pressed: “No, what’s wrong?”

As it turned out, the woman’s car wouldn’t start. She was stranded, unable to drive to a job she desperately needed. If she couldn’t get to work on time, she told Griffin, the job was in jeopardy. Luckily, he took a look under the hood and discovered the problem: the alternator. It was an easy fix.

“Her face changed after,” said Griffin. It was the first time he had witnessed his actions impact an individual directly.

Since then, Griffin has been involved in a variety of projects. He cooks for members of the Lone Star Cowboy Church, sometimes for up to 1,000 people. He repairs floors in neighbors’ homes; he offers advice and support to friends and families of other veterans. In October, he’s traveling to El Salvador to build houses, and he will later officiate a friend’s wedding in Thailand.

“The journey to find more meaning than what I had in my life led to a lot of different things,” said Griffin. In addition to odd jobs, he has also taken up some personal hobbies, including poetry, songwriting, guitar-playing, painting and photography.

Despite everything he’s been through, giving back to his community keeps Griffin going more than anything. Changing other people’s lives, even in the smallest of ways, has changed his own.

“This is the only thing that makes me feel anywhere near normal,” said Griffin. “It doesn’t help me. It is me.”

Please do not hesitate to contact Zachary Griffin with any inquiries at the email link provided.