Outdoor Immersion group aims to connect veterans to others with same experiences [Video]

Channel 11 News is helping to break the stigma of mental illness.

It’s long been documented the struggles many military veterans face when coming home from overseas.

A local group called “Outdoor Immersion” is working to connect veterans to others who have been through the same thing.

Jim Skal founded the group. He’s not a veteran but his father was in the Navy.

“A pastor at our church said ‘what’s your purpose?’ He said if you didn’t know what your purpose was, outside of raising my four kids with my wife, what are your passions? Passions are for a purpose,” Skal said. That was in 2009. Two years later, Outdoor Immersion was born. It started with teens in Aliquippa and grew.

Once a week, a group of veterans gets together and hikes, sunshine or rain, as part of the program.

The first five minutes of the three-mile hike is spent …