Battling the Darkness with Thomas Burke Jr.

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Manage episode 257441990 series 2300744
By NBCNews, Chris Hayes, MSNBC, and NBCNews THINK. Discovered by Player FM and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Player FM, and audio is streamed directly from their servers. Hit the Subscribe button to track updates in Player FM, or paste the feed URL into other podcast apps.

WARNING: This episode discusses violence in war, suicide, depression and drug use.

By the time he was 21-years-old, Thomas Burke Jr. had experienced enough trauma for a lifetime. After enlisting in the Marine Corps straight of high school, his deployments exposed him to horrors that dragged him down into what felt like an inescapable darkness. His journey is filled with pain and grief, struggles with depression and addiction, and attempts of taking his own life. He emerged from those depths a pastor, and a fierce advocate for veterans fighting the same battles he did. This is the story of what happened to an 18-year-old sent overseas – and the changed man who came back.

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