Eureka boys volleyball coach Bryan Pieschel talks and gives treats to Allie, a 6-year-old black lab service dog outside Dogs For Our Brave headquarters on July 1, 2024. Paul Halfacre, Post-Dispatch
Eureka boys volleyball coach Bryan Pieschel lived by a simple motto while serving in the United States Army: “No man left behind.”
So, when he saw his fellow brothers and sisters getting left behind once their service time had ended, Pieschel knew he had a new mission.
“We've lost a lot of guys from my unit since we've been home, whether directly to suicide or, you know, just poor lifestyle habits because of dealing with the aftereffects,” Pieschel said. “The mental strain, it's only getting worse, right? We see it. We see the numbers. We hear about it all the time. But a lot of us, you know, because it's personal, because we know these individuals, it really weighs on us. And as much as I love coaching, I knew I had to do something to get back in the fight.”
That meant a radical change in his full-time employment.
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Last July, Pieschel stepped down as a director in the High Performance volleyball club to become the director of veterans services for Dogs For Our Brave, a local nonprofit that trains and provides service dogs for wounded veterans at no cost.
“Our dogs are specifically focused on mobility assistance so our veterans that we serve, the majority of them have some pretty significant injuries, we have quite a few that are double amputees,” Pieschel said.
Dogs For Our Brave, founded by Andy and Marylynn Gladstein, is getting ready to place its 15th service dog with a veteran in August. In a full circle moment for Pieschel, the dog is going to Gabe Heefner, a 2000 graduate from Kirkwood High who played volleyball for the Pioneers. Heefner, a Marine, was shot in the head in an accident by a man who was squirrel hunting while Heefner was driving near his home in Iowa in 2021.
Dogs For Our Brave uses rescue dogs to rescue the veterans it serves.
It takes about $40,000 and 18 months of training before a service dog can be matched. But Dogs For Our Brave doesn’t stop there, providing food, veterinary care and anything else the dog needs, which runs anywhere between $75,000 to $150,000 for the life of the dog.
“If the veteran has to travel to come back in town for whether it's an event or whether it's annual training, we pay for all those costs,” Pieschel said. “We don't want our veteran to ever have to take anything out of pocket in order to have one of our dogs. They've already sacrificed enough.”
Eureka boys volleyball coach Bryan Pieschel sits and talks with Allie, a 6-year-old black lab service dog outside Dogs For Our Brave headquarters on July 1, 2024. Paul Halfacre, Post-Dispatch
The United States Veterans Administration estimates 22 veterans commit suicide each day.
Pieschel said these dogs can be literal lifesavers in stemming the mental health crisis within that community. He said the dogs are a tool to allow the organization to provide a wide array of support.
“The goal is to allow that relationship to develop, so it's a sense of comfort,” Pieschel said of the dogs. “It's not a crutch, right? But it empowers the veteran through a sense of purpose, because obviously they have responsibilities. They have the daily, you know, care of that animal. They have to utilize the skills that that dog has been trained on. Those are perishable skills. So, this is something they have to work for. This relationship is something they have to invest in. And through that investment, they find purpose. And through that purpose, they find discipline, daily discipline. Through that daily discipline, they find self-confidence. And when they find that self-confidence, that's when we're really moving some mountains.”
Pieschel enlisted shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. He spent a tour in Iraq searching for IEDs.
“Sometimes we found them,” Pieschel said. “A lot of times they found us.”
He was medically discharged in 2009 after being injured by an IED. That experience helps him build rapport with the veterans Dogs For Our Braves serves.
“I give a voice to veterans within the organization,” Pieschel said. “I obviously speak their language because of our shared experiences, if you will. It garnered a lot of trust pretty quickly, not fully. That has taken time. I've almost been on board for a year. It's taken time to build that trust. Most veterans, they struggle to trust organizations, because you never know if they're on the up and up or just using veterans to raise money.”
Pieschel also knows what these veterans are going through having suffered from PTSD himself. He credits volleyball for saving his life.
“If it wasn't for volleyball, I wouldn't have made it through,” Pieschel said. “I was struggling badly. Mentally, I was in a really bad place, despite receiving excellent care, but yeah, I think it absolutely saved my life, because it gave me purpose. And a lot of these guys that get out, especially those that are medically retired, they get out, it's like, ‘What do I do now?’ And that's where a lot of them, you end up turning to alcohol, drugs, gambling, you name it, whatever vices they can find to kind of fill that gap. ... Having that (volleyball) community to fall back into absolutely made a massive impact on my ability to move forward and work through a lot of what I struggle with.”
Zac Clark of Eureka talks with coach Bryan Pieschel during a time out against Oakville in a volleyball match at Oakville High School in Oakville, Missouri on Thursday, April 28, 2022. Paul Baillargeon, Special to STLhighschoolsports.com
Pieschel said his military experience has influenced his coaching in terms of teamwork, sharing the work load and how his players carry themselves.
Now he’s bringing those same values with him to help his fellow military brothers and sisters.
“This dog and that relationship that they build can mean everything,” Pieschel said. “It can change all of the aspects of their life and really give them back their freedom and independence, which so many of them lose because they're paralyzed. They're paralyzed with anxiety, with fear, fear of the unknown, fear of being out in public, fear of crowds, you name it. … So, having this companion with them is very much building a sense of independence back into their lives, which so many of us take for granted.”
As much as financial support, Pieschel said Dogs For Our Brave is in constant need of volunteers to help with the mission.
“Volunteers are a massive part of our organization,” Pieschel said. “We are still very small, but we have big visions, big goals for the future, and we're moving towards them, but volunteers are always great to come in and help and relieve some of the stress off of our training staff.”
Volunteering and donation opportunities are available through the organization’s website, DFOB.org.
Pieschel said the need is only growing as the mental health crisis within the veteran community rages.
“Moving forward, it's really hard for the veteran community right now," Pieschel said. "We are hurting massively. So, the more people who can recognize that and really understand how hard this is the better, because on top of that, the veteran community, the majority of us are not ones to go out of our way to ask for help. We're just not. It's ingrained in us that we'll figure it out, right? I'm tough enough. I can fight through this, and that's why these numbers just keep rising, and we've got to stop. It's got to stop.”
