Thursday, August 20th 2020, 6:54 pm
Kris Morgan has made a flag or two in his time. About 600, give or take.
"To see another vet smile for something you've spent hours upon hours building...they know someone out there cares about them,” said Morgan, who runs Flags for Vets by a Vet.
He’s donated more than 400 of his wooden flags to veterans free of charge.
Morgan was in the Air Force. He was medically discharged in 2001, and that's when things went downhill.
"Spent about 10-15 years in really bad depression, felt suicidal numerous times,” said Morgan.
Major Ed Pulido stepped in and gave Kris the push he needed to seek help.
Part of that therapy was not having idle hands.
“Figured out working on these flags, I don't think about the inner demons, I don't think about the depression, the anxiety," said Morgan.
Feelings that Kris's friend Ashlee Byrd knows all too well.
A former Air National Guard member, Ashlee connected with Kris a year ago through Facebook when she saw his work. It became a form of therapy for her as well.
She was struggling dealing with her mother's death and then a divorce in November of 2017.
“I started drinking on November 2, 2017, and I didn't stop until January 3rd of this year. I hit my rock bottom."
And Kris was there. When friends couldn't reach Ashlee on her phone that night, Kris went to her house, called 911 and got Ashlee help.
She's been sober ever since.
"He saved my life, and he'll tell you that he didn't, but he'd be lying,” said Byrd.
Kris wants to touch more lives through his flags. A Go Fund Me has been created to get him a bigger workspace so he can host veterans’workshops, in the hopes that it will be just as therapeutic for others, as it is for him.
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