Destruction of Depression didn't come from nowhere. It came from a lifetime of living, losing, rebuilding, and learning how to stay. This is that story, told in pictures.
Long before any of this, he was just a kid who loved his family, the outdoors, and the family dog.
As a baby, with his dad.
Climbing rocks in a mountain stream, the kind of afternoon that made up most childhood summers.
With his uncle and Buster, the family's new puppy. Around eight years old here, well before the Navy.
Christmas morning with his dad, before his parents divorced.
With his mom as a baby — one of the earliest photographs.
With his dad, just learning to sit up.
On the San Francisco waterfront with his mom, Alcatraz in the distance.
In the cockpit of his grandfather's crop duster, around age six. The love of flying started here — it was in the family's DNA.
With his cousin, his closest companion growing up — around two or three years old, sharing a lawn chair.
With his cousin again — inseparable from the very beginning.
A family portrait — his dad, his mom, his stepbrother, and a young Jason.
By his late teens, Jason was active, social, and physical, the kind of person who said yes to a dare. Rock climbing was a regular outing, including trips to Great America amusement park with one of his closest childhood friends. A graduation trip to Hawaii, then a skydive on Mother's Day at eighteen, just before he shipped out and left his friends behind for the Navy.
A post-graduation trip to Hawaii with his cousin and two close friends, not long before he left for the Navy.
A skydive on Mother's Day, age eighteen.
The same jump. A few months later he'd be at boot camp.
High school prom.
His 18th birthday, surrounded by his closest friends — the people at the center of his world.
At Great America with some of his closest friends — a regular spot for the group.
On the climbing wall at Great America, back in high school. He went every chance he got.
Indoor rock climbing gym. Always looking for the next challenge.
With his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend at the time. Me and my best friend were inseparable. Any chance we got, we hung out — his girlfriend right there with us.
Jason enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was assigned to the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), where he worked in Visual Landing Aids — the systems responsible for helping aircraft land safely on the carrier deck. He later served as a SERE instructor, working specifically in the Resistance Training Laboratory. SERE — Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape — is Level C training designed to prepare high-risk personnel for the possibility of capture by a foreign government or terrorist organization. His work also included PDAHS: Peacetime Detention and Hostage Survival, a highly classified Level C course that trains service members to survive captivity by hostile governments or terrorist cells during peacetime — preparing them to return with honor regardless of circumstances. It was some of the most psychologically demanding instructional work in the military.
Official boot camp portrait. Eighteen years old, freshly enlisted, and ready to serve.
The USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) underway, somewhere in the Persian Gulf.
Aboard ship during deployment, the work that kept aircraft landing safely on the flight deck.
In the island camera enclosure aboard the USS John F. Kennedy, filming flight operations during deployment.
Jason worked as a SERE instructor in the Resistance Training Laboratory — the part of SERE training specifically designed to prepare high-risk service members for capture, interrogation, and detention by a foreign government or terrorist organization. Alongside that, he taught PDAHS: Peacetime Detention and Hostage Survival — a highly classified Level C course preparing service members to survive captivity by a hostile government or terrorist cell during peacetime. The instructors in this photo — including those from the same resistance training laboratory — were the people he served alongside in that work. The setting is the POW camp used for training.
At a Navy retirement ceremony, part of the honor guard. These men were more than people I served with. They were family. One of them made it home, discharged honorably from the Marine Corps, and went on with his life. But the battles in his head never stopped. He hid it, the way so many of us do. Years after he left the service, it took his life. When you lose someone to suicide, it becomes personal. These people mattered to me. That is part of why I fight so hard.
One of Jason's closest friends growing up went with him everywhere. Great America, playing basketball, sitting in another friend's driveway talking, listening to music and drinking soda, hanging out at his grandparents' house, hanging out at his house. They did everything together. While Jason was deployed in the Persian Gulf, that friend was killed in a car accident back home. Jason learned the news from thousands of miles away, unable to be there, unable to do anything but keep standing his watch.
With his best friend — more like a brother. Home on leave from the Navy, two months before a car accident would take his life.
Home on leave from the Navy, surrounded by his closest friends and family — and meeting his best friend's baby daughter for the first time.
With his closest friends, back home on leave. These were his people.
Home on leave from the Navy, wrestling around with his closest friend. This was the last time he saw him before deploying to the Persian Gulf.
His friend's wife and daughter became, and have remained, two of Jason's closest friends since high school. What began in loss has lasted for decades.
Holding his friend's daughter as a baby.
Years later, old enough to ride on his shoulders.
His closest friend's wife and daughter — all grown up. The friendship didn't end. It continued.
With his friend's wife and daughter, 2004.
2005, the bond continuing.
After the Navy, Jason became a police officer, first completing the Oakland Police Academy before going on to serve with the Antioch Police Department.
Worn out after an obstacle course run at the Oakland Police Academy, with a fellow recruit.
His mother pinning his badge the day he became an officer.
With his father at graduation.
Range day at the Oakland Police Academy, with a fellow recruit.
In his Antioch Police uniform, standing in his grandparents' family room. That room held everything — Christmas mornings, music and dancing with friends, the first time he met his best friend's baby daughter, and the last time he saw his best friend alive. More of his life happened in that room than anywhere else on earth.
Before the accident, life was full. Great America with friends who felt like family, rock climbing, travel, Fiji, the Navy Ball. This is who he was and what he did with the time he had.
On a roller coaster at Great America with his cousin, his closest friend, and his girlfriend at the time. One of many days they spent together at the park.
On a roller coaster at Great America with his closest friend. One of the people who never gave up on him.
A visit home after losing his best friend. He and his wife at the time sat in the same spot where his best friend and his wife had sat the last time he was home.
Poolside in Fiji, ten months before the accident. The last vacation before everything changed.
On the beach in Fiji, January 2008. Life was good.
At the marina in Fiji. Always near the water.
At the swim-up bar in Fiji, January 2008. Not a bad way to spend a morning.
Heading out to the Navy Ball. This was two days before the accident.
In 2008, an injury left Jason paralyzed. What followed wasn't just a physical recovery. It was the beginning of sixteen years carrying a weight most people around him never fully saw, the weight this book is about.
In the hospital, wearing a halo brace. Awake, and still himself.
The early days were more serious than this single photo can really show.
His dad beside him in the hospital, early days after the accident. Still smiling — both of them.
In the ICU, days after the accident. The machines were breathing for him.
On the ventilator in the ICU. The first days were the most uncertain.
His cousin at his bedside — the same kid he was inseparable from in those early childhood photos, still there.
Still smiling from the hospital bed. That never changed.
Physical therapy — the slow, painful work of rebuilding what the accident took.
For approximately five years, Jason served as an ambassador for Ekso Bionics, traveling to more than a dozen states to demonstrate robotic exoskeleton technology at hospitals, rehabilitation centers, investor groups, and Young Presidents Organization (YPO) events. He took the work all the way to Washington D.C., where he visited approximately 17 congressional offices and 16 Senate offices. Every visit was tied directly to veteran affairs and the VA. The message was simple: this technology could change lives for veterans, and Congress needed to see that firsthand. The mission carried him as far as Finland — and, of course, to the lights of Fox Studios. It was advocacy by living example: showing the world what's still possible.
A studio portrait from his time as an Ekso Bionics ambassador, demonstrating the exoskeleton technology that let him stand and walk again.
At an Ekso Bionics event, with his former stepdaughter.
On stage at Fox Studios, demonstrating the exoskeleton to a live audience.
At the Ekso Bionics event at Fox Studios, with fellow ambassadors, team members, and at least one face you might recognize from music.
With a fellow Ekso Bionics ambassador — and a familiar face from television who happened to be in the same hotel that day.
On the set of Fox & Friends with Soldier Strong, wearing the Ekso exoskeleton. The segment brought the technology — and the mission — to a national audience.
A Soldier Strong promotional image featuring the Ekso exoskeleton — the organization that helped bring this technology to veterans and people with spinal cord injuries.
White water rafting with Disabled Sports USA (DSUSA) — a couple of years after the accident. Adventure didn't go anywhere.
Competing in trap shooting at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic.
Sit-skiing at the Veterans Winter Sports Clinic. The mountain wasn't going to say no either.
Adaptive water skiing. The sport reshaped but not given up. Never afraid to try new things.
The things Jason loved before his injury are still part of his life today, just reached a different way. And the people who were there on the day everything changed are still part of his life too.
Jason's grandfather was a crop duster, and aviation has stayed close to him ever since. This friend, also paralyzed, became a pilot and a flight instructor anyway. Watching him fly is part of what's pushing Jason toward a goal of his own: earning his pilot's license.
With the two Antioch officers who were with him on the day of his accident. Years later, still in his life.
Out on the water — still exactly where he belongs.
With his mom at Christmas.
With his dad at the ocean. The water is always where they end up.
With Zoe. She goes where he goes.
With his closest friend. Some people just stay.
With his closest friend and his wife. Still at the same table, more than thirty years later.
With good friends, gathered for the holidays. The people who stayed.
Still visiting the ocean, still drawn to the water. Some things don't change.
Visiting his dad in Palm Desert. Even in the desert, he finds his way to a pool.
Still finding ways to get to the sun.
At the Golden Gate Bridge.
On the Golden Gate Bridge with Zoe.
Destruction of Depression is available now, in paperback and eBook.
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