Looking to expand his mission, what he works for all the time, Patrick Nettesheim had planned to return to Nashville in March. Back in November, he had joined the local chapter of Guitars for Vets (G4V) at the Gibson Guitar factory, joined by Sully Erna of Godsmack, to share the story of a program bringing hope to American veterans suffering from PTSD or at risk. That day, Gibson Gives presented a dozen custom Les Paul guitars to the graduates of the local chapter of Guitars For Vets overseen by Pat McGuire.
Although the “shelter in place” announcements—and common sense—disrupted his plans to return to Nashville, Nettesheim is still passionate about getting out the message in order to enrich the lives of more veterans. Every day without that message, he reminds us, is a day we might lose somebody.
Patrick Nettesheim says he is not a “glass half empty guy.” Instead, he says he’s more of a “guitar turned halfway up” personality, continuing to work raising fund and awareness, gathering resources, especially guitars, and growing the mission.
“Right now we’re at 120 chapters plus, but it’s a stand down at the moment,” said Nettesheim. “A lot of chapters are located at VA Medical Centers, so we’re not able to get access to the students. To compensate, we are teaching guitar lessons online, trying to keep a short, entertaining approach. I want to keep their attention, keep them enthused.”
Like many educators now, having to find alternatives to traditional approaches, volunteers in the Guitars 4 Vets programs are finding ways to keep the program going, particularly now when it is even more crucial to keep hope and to help those who are isolated in VA facilities to deal with loneliness and isolation
The founder of the program, Nettesheim has been teaching guitar since he was about sixteen and estimates he’s taught as many as 5000 students over the years. “I teach cultivating enthusiasm,” he said. “That’s what I believe these guitar lessons are about. We give people the tools and show them the path and then it’s up to them to do the work.”
He encourages what he calls “practice times three,” referring to a music teacher who told him, “If you can play something three times in a row without a mistake, you’ve probably got it.”
Since 2007, when Patrick Nettesheim started what grew into this nationwide program, he and volunteers have been offering guitar lessons to veterans of all ages. Students are given loaner instruments for lessons, and upon completion of the program, graduates are given guitars of their own. They also are invited to continue by participating in weekly jams, some with three or four members, and other groups as large as twenty.
Nettesheim estimates there are about 400 teachers in G4V across the United States, 500 if you count the other volunteers who come together for events and fundraisers. The Coronavirus and resulting quarantine have raised challenges for the program.
“As with a lot of nonprofits, ours is based on a model where at least half of what we bring in, maybe even two thirds, is related to events, having our veterans out performing, raising money from the community at large, rather than depending on corporate sponsorships alone,” he said, adding how important corporate sponsorships are to the program, particularly the ones in the music industry—Gibson Gives, the Yamaha Foundation, the Les Paul Foundation and others.
“Our fundraising is mainly based around people like you and me, coming to events and giving what you can—maybe giving that old guitar that’s in the closet or under the bed.”
At a time when ordinary citizens are fielding numerous requests for donations—and spending time at home removing clutter—the opportunity to donate unused musical instruments is particularly timely.
“We’re working on establishing official drop-off points all over the country because in June, PTSD Awareness Month, we’re planning a guitar drive. We know money will still be tight for folks, but they might have a guitar they can let go of. We’re really going to concentrate on equipment donation rather than monetary donations. We’re looking at what people can give that’s not going to cost them a bag of groceries.”
Anyone interested in donating instruments to the programs can email info@guitarsforvets.org or call 855-G4V-HERO.
As June approaches, Nettesheim says he wants to use online platforms and social media to get people excited. “I want to keep them laughing,” he said. “You know music and laughter together is a very powerful antidote. We see that in our lessons. It can even be pretty funny when you stink at guitar,” he joked.
“We can’t take these lessons with vets too seriously. Classical or traditional lessons are very serious, very disciplined, and there are enough things like that in life. We’re not really calling to those folks who want to play in symphonic orchestras. They’re going to musical conservatories. We’re teaching the public at large,” he said.
Without the opportunity for live jams, as well as live lessons, G4V is exploring other options. Nettesheim mentioned some online platforms that allow people to jam together with a fairly low latency rate—so participants can play together without the asynchronous echoes.
“I’d ideally like to given online lessons like [some college teachers] are right now—working with somebody in Los Angeles or some other part of the country. This pandemic is going to go on for awhile, unfortunately, so out of this national crisis, technology is developing. We learn how to adopt. I like to use the world ‘evolve’ as well. I see this as a change to grow empathy. As I told someone the other day, ‘Empathy sustains humanity; indifference is the fast path to extinction.’”
Looking ahead to June’s PTSD Awareness Month, Nettesheim said, “One of the cool things we’re going to be doing is a guitar lesson challenge where we’re going to ask folks to send in videos of themselves teaching guitar that we’ll put up on social media. It’s free, and everybody teaches with a different perspective, so it should be fun to see the different teaching approaches.”
He says they plan to involve a few big names in the music industry who are already supporters of the program and will accept the challenge and then pass it on to their “rock star friends.” He especially wants to reach out to Nashville to grow support among the country music stars. “I think that’s where we can leverage our ability to reach out to artists, to get them to contribute their expertise and grow the base.”
In addition to guitar lessons, says Nettesheim, they’re already including bass guitar lessons and look to expand. “My vision is to become the School of Rock for veterans, basically guitar, bass, drums, keys, and vocals.”
He says part of the magic of what they do happens in group lessons as graduates form bands, start to play together, write songs together, and start to perform together. “That’s where the ‘I’ve got your back’ mentality comes in, no man or woman left behind,” he says. “They become evangelists for the program and keep growing it that way. It’s really exciting to see the success of a nonprofit you support play out before your eyes.”
One of the goals of the organization is to build more chapters. They’re looking at Los Angeles, the second largest city in the U.S. with a tremendous number of vets. It poses a problem because the group is volunteer driven and it’s not a cheap place to live or an easy place to get around. New York poses some of the same challenges, as they seek people who are not only passionate about the program but close enough to an area to have a chapter and where transportation is doable.
The main impetus behind the push to grow more chapters is the sheer numbers. Nettesheim pointed out that the government has been reporting numbers of vets with PTSD at about 800,000, and that statistic has not been adjusted in ten years. He said G4V has graduated over 4000 students, which is wonderful, but the number of vets with PTSD is probably closer to two million, and even if there are million, and among them 5 percent would like to join forces and do what G4V does, that’s 50,000 people that require volunteer instructors.
Guitars 4 Vets recognizes the opportunity in over a thousand VAs in the country, as well as Community-Based Outreach Centers. They are also interested in reaching non-traditional settings, college and university campuses and technical schools.
“There are veterans of all ages who are students, but the majority are younger, says Nettesheim. “In PTSD in general, you’ll see a latency. Sometimes it may be fifteen or twenty years after combat when they begin to realize why their lives keep falling apart. Now there’s a little more knowledge in the world about PTS, but Vietnam vets went fifteen years or more sometimes before they realized why they are abusing substances, why they can’t keep a relationship together or hold down a job, why they suddenly can’t figure out where they are when they’re driving around.”
Nettesheim wants to target these folks early because the science shows that while somebody eighty years old can benefit from the music, if they deal with it early, healing is easier. He says, “People tend to think as they get older, ‘I’ve been living with it this long; nothing’s going to change.’ With that attitude, it’s guaranteed that nothing’s going to change.”
Guitars 4 Vets builds a community of support around veterans so they can start dealing with the effects of combat with other vets, as well as with civilians in the volunteer force. He believes through social media, people are also beginning to open up more about anxiety. He compared what the nation and the world is experiencing now to what happened during the Great Depression and coming right out of it, World War II.
“You don’t think it can get worse—and it does. But also some great things come out of it. Of course there’s a lot of anxiety, but people now have more of a forum to talk about it and there is consequently less stigma. The positive effect is that people are communicating more about their mental health struggles and others online rally around them saying, ‘I’m here for you. I’ve got this too.’”
While life is disrupted, Nettesheim says they plan to perfect their online presence through promotion and marketing. He hopes that once events start happening again, they will have doubled efforts and be in an even better position. He looks forward to increasing the number of volunteers willing to take part in the challenge, sharing 3-5 minute lessons and downloadable worksheets, and passing on the challenge to others.
“Guitars for Vets is about enriching our veteran brothers and sisters, and it’s about cultivating joy—for the students and for the teachers. It’s healing for both sides of the equation,” says Nettesheim. “Do the algebra.”