Andrew Coughlan marched with the Wounded Warrior Project in the Veterans Day parade downtown, Wednesday.
Wounded Warriors, originating in Jacksonville, offers 20 free programs to veterans and their families.
He says within a 100 mile radius of Jacksonville there are around 400 wounded warriors registered to the organization, and 7,000 in the entire state.
Coughlan, the alumni manager, is an alumnus himself after serving in Iraq in the Army. He says his wounds were invisible.
"I experienced a lot of traumatic events over there — motor explosions, roadside bombs, small arms, ambushes, things like that," Coughlan said. "And when I got back, my transition wasn't ideal to civilian life. I struggled for a long time, in and out of in-patient VA programs and psych wards and things like that, and then Wounded Warrior Project found me."
Coughlan says the organization took him from a statistic to happy. He says he now runs marathons and is on the dean's list in college.
