It Is What It Is – Until It Isn’t! – Tim Pena Navy Vet – Part I

When faced with a difficult reality, events clearly out of one’s control, most people enter the frozen landscape of “It is what it is” and hunker down. No cavalry coming over that hill. No rescuer in sight. hopeless.

This temptation does not occur to the few, the impassioned, the determined – those like Tim Pena, Navy Seabee and veteran advocate. Tim’s focus is on bringing “until it isn’t!” into existence. His grit and determination turns “What is” into past tense – “What was.” 

By what magic does Tim (and if you are a veteran or on active-duty person soon to become one) bring to bear to deal with a VA bureaucracy and military charities and NGOs but just not getting the results that matter? And, in spite of heartbreak, pushback and setbacks, make the difference that everyone talks about, but few experience?

You are about to learn how this improbable person has become a primer on that subject.

First, history and context

Tim, after six years of enlistment and an honorable discharge in 1981, had a troubled reentry into civilian life. Not too long after returning to his home state, Arizona, he had his first encounters with the law. It took a while, but similar to many veterans his world began to crater.

In 2014, he was arrested in Arizona for a DUI and marijuana possession and found himself in the Phoenix County jail. In the next pod over from his, he overheard a veteran engaged in a heated cellphone call. It didn’t seem to end well. During the next rounds by the jailers, the veteran was discovered to have ended his life with a razor. This was Tim’s second such experience of being in the vicinity of someone ending their life. 

“I was present for one in the Persian Gulf in 1980 by a Marine who had gotten a bad letter from home,” Time relates. “That was the first time I began contemplating suicide as a way out.” Shaken, he made his first overtures to the VA to get assistance with his emotional problems and bad choices. The diagnosis was PTSD, and he began the process of getting professional help and the disability checks he was due.

In 2016, Tim was again taken into custody after his bail was revoked (for the 2014 incident), and he spent the next 70 days in jail – half of this time under suicide watch. 

What he remembers most clearly from that period was having a woman judge lecture him that “Being a veteran is not a get out of jail free call.” Yes, that cold. In May 2018, he was convicted and sent to prison for being in possession of 1/3 of one gram of marijuana. 300 milliliters. A thimbleful. 

He served two year for this first offense and was released in October, 2019. After working with fellow veterans in prison, his next step was to create Veteran Justice Project (VJP). 

Providentially as part of his release, he was referred to the GPD program for veterans experiencing homelessness. His lifeline was the AZ VA CRRC (Community Resource and Referral Center), which helped him find a room and a job with the highly respected M.A.N.A. House charity. 

M.A.N.A. (an acronym for Marine, Army, Navy, and Airforce) provided him with a roof, bed, nourishing meals, and as their front desk “Ninja” helped him gain his first experience as a “photojournalist” through posting NANA stories and pics online and on their bulletin board. (More on that evolution in Part II.)

He flourished, for a while

In late 2021, Tim started failing, mentally and emotionally, and began the self-medication path of alcohol and drugs (again). Three days before Christmas he woke up with a decision. “This day, I will end my life,” he decided but managed to escape that urge. The Universe had other plans for him.

In June 2022, his @VetJusPro posting on Twitter got the attention of Jerry Ashton…yes, that’s where I and my Veteran Mission Possible (VMP) came into his life. I invited Tim, and this was his response:

“…I am well aware of how the VA neglects veterans in the judicial system and then prevents them from accessing VA benefits while they’re imprisoned…I would certainly like to sit in and even speak if possible.” The opportunity to meet and work with “Solution Providers” and not naysayers gave him the lift he needed.

On July 26, Tim landed at JFK. As he puts it, he traded Arizona in for NYC because, all things being equal, “I would rather be homeless in NYC than housed in Arizona.” That was put to the test when he got sucked into a maze of ill-designed and poorly delivered ‘veteran services’ and met the vets who had surrendered to “It is what it is” and were in a world of pain.

“Until it isn’t” was about to be put to be applied by a determined Mr. Pena. 

Coming Up in Part II – NYC’s Borden Avenue veteran homeless shelter nightmare, the struggle to go from unhoused to housed, and some very real tiffs with various city Veteran Services and officials to get what he was promised by the VA.