Wounded Warrior Fellow John Riccio
Wounded Warrior Program Fellow John Riccio.
As a boy in Kenosha, Wis., John Riccio dreamed of distant shores.
Riccio, the latest addition to the CAO’s Wounded Warrior Program, had a bad case of wanderlust growing up in a small town between Chicago and Milwaukee.
“You have this weird sense that you’re from those places, but you’re not,” Riccio says.
When college didn’t work out and the job market looked bleak, Riccio decided to follow his wanderlust. He joined the Navy to see the world. Six months later, planes slammed into the World Trade Center, and the U.S. was at war.
Riccio’s ship was part of the first strike group to steam out after 9/11. From San Diego, it was on to Hawaii, Singapore and then Bahrain. The ship, designed to transport smaller assault boats, supported Marine Corps operations in the area. “We were kind of the taxi,” Riccio jokes.
Riccio sailed for another three years, and then did shore duty supply work at a Marine Corps medical clinic for a few years. After leaving the Navy in March 2009, Riccio began working toward a degree in alcohol and drug counseling. He interned at a recovery / treatment center for homeless veterans, where he felt a sense of purpose and hopefulness. By December 2009, budget cuts had forced Riccio to look elsewhere for work.
“I somehow stumbled upon the Wounded Warrior Program link on the VA website,” he recalls. Shoulder and lower-back injuries from his time doing supply work made Riccio eligible for the program.
Riccio, now 29, is spending his fellowship as a community representative for Rep. Bob Filner of California. He handles constituent questions on a range of issues, and gets to work with many veterans as a backup to the office’s veteran liaison.
Riccio’s work keeps him connected to his interest in counseling veterans. “The district is just full of vets,” Riccio says. “I talk to vets every day. The older ones, especially, like to get stuff off their chests. They want someone to listen to them.”
Whatever the issue, Riccio tries to direct constituents to solutions, to give them hope. “It feels good to re-energize the person,” Riccio says.
