American service members overseas looked across the rubble, the destroyed fields and the ripped-up homes and saw possibilities after two decades of war.
One tasted tea for the first time, while the other was wearing flip-flops. Women in Afghanistan were befriended by female soldiers who imagined prosperous lives for them. An Army helicopter pilot came back sick from exposure to burning plastic and changed his views on the environment.
Many veterans have struck out on their own, using small business programs to build companies inspired by their combat experiences and to address social or economic issues in the countries where they served.
Nick Kesler, a veteran advocate who once ran a nonprofit consulting firm dedicated to supporting these sorts of deployment-inspired businesses, said the veterans behind them know the true cost of instability and conflict on the families they aim to support.
He said that the businesses created a connection for them between their life in uniform overseas and their civilian lives back home.
The stories of four such businesses are below.
While growing up in Louisiana, Brandon Friedman thought tea was the most gross thing ever.
He remembered that his idea of tea was British ladies with big hats.
His first sip of tea was in Iraq with Kurdish fighters. It was one of the most eye-opening moments of his deployment to Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr. Friedman said that tea drinking in Iraq was a way to stop and slow down.
He was in Dallas in 2004, and he was looking for brown bags of loose tea. I left the war and went to graduate school to work in politics.
Mr. Friedman began to research the origins of tea. The black tea he had in Iraq came from other nations. He started looking at how he could import tea from conflict zones. His tea education began as he learned about the different types.
He and an Army buddy started the business in the back of a small building in Nepal, working with a nonprofit and seeking money on Kickstarter. They have a storefront and 45 teas from nine countries.
There have been challenges. In Vietnam, the 300- and 400-year-old wild tea trees that grow in the mountains and forests are difficult to manage.
He said that some suppliers were hard to get to meet holiday sales schedules. The supply-chain challenges brought on by the Pandemic have caused the biggest issues to arise.
Mr. Friedman said that selling tea has become an extension of his military mission.
When Emily Miller first deployed with the Army in Afghanistan a decade ago, the military realized how culturally inappropriate it was to have male service members talking to women and children. She joined a team tasked with engaging the other 50 percent of the population that has been largely ignored.
She ended her two deployment because she was pretty dissatisfied with the war effort and how we weren't making a difference. Ms. Miller was at Harvard Business School and on a call with a friend, Kim Jung. A veteran of the Army was on the call.
Mr. Alaniz told his friends about his second tour in the Maidan Wardak Province and met a saffron farmer who was eager to enter the U.S. marketplace.
The three friends were together. They wondered if they could connect farmers with restaurants. They talked about starting a business that could improve the economic situation in rural Afghanistan.
The three met with farmers in Afghanistan and decided to create a Spice. Carol Wang, a civilian who spoke Dari, was added later.
Ms. Jung said that when the saffron came into the room, she thought a chef would like it.
Thousands of local women have been trained by Rumi Spice to work in its processing and fulfillment centers, with some of them receiving their first paychecks.
The team was careful not to align themselves with the Americans or the Afghan government.
After the fall of the country's government last year, Rumi Spice has 12 products in 1,800 stores across the United States, and still employs thousands of women and farmers.
During his time in Iraq, Chris was able to notice all the trash. A black haze of pollution darkened the skies as there were piles of it everywhere. There was a smell of burning plastic.
The burn pits were so bright that Mr. Videau could see their light.
Thousands of people were exposed to burn pits while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have filed claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Congress is also taking up their cause.
When he returned to Kansas in 2007, Mr. Videau thought he had left the burning waste behind him. His morning runs began to suffer. He was in his early 30s when the doctor told him his lungs were like 70 years old.
Mr. Videau said that he and his wife began to remove plastic from their home as soon as possible.
He could not avoid the plastic laundry detergent tubs. He was researching whether laundry sheets could replace soap. Mr. Videau and a partner started their business after negotiations with a company that had a patent for such sheets. They sold 25,000 boxes of soap sheets.
The Sheets Laundry Club has had $9 million in sales and prevented more than 615,000 plastic containers from being sold.
He said the intent was to create a sustainable business for his family. The money will come if we do the right thing.
Mr. Videau's journey has come full circle, as he now makes a point to donate his products to troops overseas.
He said that he knows what it is like to not get things in the mail.
Matthew was thrust into the war immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and he thought the best way to serve his country was to join the military.
After leaving as a captain, Mr. Griffin went back to Afghanistan to help set up medical clinics.
He was impressed by the workers at the combat boot factory in Kabul, who made a boot that looked like a flip-flops. It seemed that many Afghan fighters were struggling with the laces on their combat boots and were losing tens of thousands of man-hours a day.
The military sandals the factory owner invented were in line with the cultural norm. The owner of the factory told Mr. Griffin that he had no plans for the business after the war.
He called another Ranger, Donald Lee, and the two pondered how to get Afghan footwear into the American marketplace. He said that they started making flip-flops in the country in 2012 and immediately failed. They began selling Combat Flip Flops online in 2013 after shifting production to a country that had bilateral trade agreements with the United States.
When we first started, 80% of our customers were military and military families.
Their customer base grew and diversified as they added scarves, bags and jewelry made in Afghanistan, Laos and the United States. After the Taliban regained control over Afghanistan last year, Combat Flip Flops pivoted its Afghan textile factory to make blankets and cold-weather clothing for Afghans. Some of the proceeds have gone to help girls in Afghanistan, land mine removal in Laos, and disabled veterans in Washington State.
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