From Combat To Chemo
At 17, Matthew King watched the Twin Towers fall on his father’s television and knew exactly what he had to do. By 19, he was sleeping on the hood of a tank in Iraq, a machine gunner, Infantry Division.
He survived mortar attacks. He survived chemotherapy. But it was homelessness that nearly broke him, until HVAF stepped in.
Matthew’s story isn’t a simple one. It’s a story about how trauma compounds, how good men lose their footing, and how the right support at the right moment can change everything.
Matthew enlisted in the Army in February 2002, inspired by his father, and by the attacks he’d watched unfold on television. What are you going to do about that?” His father, a Marine asked, and Matthew answered the call.
He deployed to Iraq in 2003 with the 1st Regiment, 12th Infantry Brigade, spearheading the invasion as a teenager carrying a machine gun. He made it through six years of active duty and built a solid civilian life in Kokomo, Indiana, first at a grain elevator, then as a steelworker at Haynes International. He married his high school sweetheart. He had children.
Then, about a decade ago, everything changed: Matthew was diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
Eight months of intensive chemotherapy left him physically and mentally depleted. “It was very zapping,” he said. “Not only physically, but mentally also.”
He lost his factory job when his sick time ran out. Unable to process the weight of what he’d survived, combat, cancer, and the sudden collapse of the life he’d built, Matthew turned to alcohol.
A DUI followed. He lost his license, then his job, then his apartment. His marriage ended, not out of animosity, but because Matthew wanted to protect his children from watching him struggle. “What would’ve been best in hindsight would’ve been for me to go ‘Hey, quit drinking,'” he reflected. “But I wasn’t there yet.”
With nowhere else to turn, Matthew checked into a homeless shelter in Kokomo. He felt lost with no clear path forward. It was there, through the VA, that he first heard about HVAF.
Matthew moved to Indianapolis, hoping the city’s larger job market would give him a fresh start. When he arrived at HVAF, he had no driver’s license, little clothing, no food, and fighting a battle for sobriety.
What he found was a team ready to meet him exactly where he was.
“There is not a doubt right now that I could, if I need anything, I could pick up that phone and HVAF would be there” he said.
The first step, getting Matthew off the streets. HVAF placed Matthew in transitional housing. From there, the real work of rebuilding began, one deliberate step at a time. He met with the mental health team to continue working on his sobriety. He received a veteran’s bus pass so he could get to appointments and job interviews. He met regularly with an employment specialist, who helped him polish his resume and connect with opportunities.
The turning point came at a job fair at HVAF’s headquarters, where Matthew was hired on the spot by In&Out Unlimited and began working construction at the new downtown hospital. HVAF supported that momentum with an Uber card to get him to and from work until his paychecks started coming in.
“They made the transition pretty easy,” Matthew said. “Not only that, but they also followed up. Kept checking in, and that is rare, because in my experience you don’t run into that anymore.”
Today, Matthew works as a fabricator and installer for Pyramid Design and Construction, back in the skilled trade of plumbing and HVAC work he loves. He felt right at home after discovering a local church in the neighborhood, where he now plays guitar on the worship team twice a month. Thanks to you he has found his community.
And this summer, Matthew accomplished one of his biggest milestones, he moved out of transitional housing and into a home of his own!
With a steady job, a secure place to call home, and a renewed connection with his kids, his future is looking brighter than ever.
“You changed not only my life, but my children’s life”
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