MARTINSBURG – Since 2019, Army veteran Samuel Rock has led Battle Buddy Response Team, a Martinsburg-based nonprofit that sends trained volunteers to check on veterans in crisis, a door-to-door approach he believes has already saved lives.

Rock, a Hagerstown, Maryland native, enlisted in the Army at 17 and was deployed to Iraq the following year. He came home at 19 with scars that weren’t visible but were life-altering. He battled post-traumatic stress disorder and long stretches of isolation and said what hurt most was that no one ever came by to check on him.

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