Stephen Ross (at right) with a participant in his flag woodworking workshops
On Nov. 25, 2018, Stephen Ross was sitting on the porch of his backyard woodworking shop talking to his son, Drew, who was stationed in Ghazni, Afghanistan, with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Special Forces Group. The two talked about family and life.
“I told him I loved him, and he told me he loved me. I told him to be smart, be careful and hurry back. Two days later, he was gone. His vehicle was hit with an improvised explosive device,” recounts Ross, a Virginia Military Institute alum, U.S. Air Force veteran and, since 2014, the director of military student services at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Inspired by his dad, Drew had gotten into woodworking before starting his second deployment. “Drew made a table that is now in the special forces team room at Fort Liberty [in Fayetteville, North Carolina]. They plan their operations around the table,” Ross says. “Woodworking was a hobby Drew enjoyed.”
Drew Ross
Despite his own love of the hobby, Ross couldn’t go back to woodworking for almost two years after Drew’s death. He would go into the shop and just sit or tinker. “I couldn’t do anything with [his tools]. They sat for six months. After time, I started organizing them and slowly started doing woodworking again,” he says. “What I found is that it gave me great peace. I found joy in being out there.”
Now, Ross shares that joy through recreational therapy opportunities with the Drew Ross Memorial Foundation. He invites active-duty military personnel and veterans who are enrolled in or have attended the Servicemember Transitional Advanced Rehabilitation program at the Central Virginia VA Health Care System to his workshop, where they build wooden American flags inspired by flags Drew made. “Mine was the first one he made before making them for other people,” Ross says.
The STAR program treats active-duty service members, special operations forces and veterans affected by mild traumatic brain injury and other traumatic injuries. Ross learned about the initiative through a participant who was also in the 3rd Special Forces Group. “It was divine intervention. … He didn’t know I was Drew’s father,” Ross says. “After that, I went to visit the STAR program and met Andrea Cooper, the recreational therapist.”
Hearing that some of Cooper’s patients had tried woodworking at a local facility, Ross asked if they would be interested in coming to his workshop. “I thought I could do something that was more meaningful to them,” he says. Cooper chose patients who were interested in woodworking or knew Drew to join Ross’ flag-building group.
Woodworking as a leisure outlet can address several therapeutic goals, such as learning to decompress, stress management and mindfulness, Cooper notes. “It’s interesting that Mr. Ross is engaged in woodworking to connect with his son. That just adds to the experience,” she says. “A lot of the guys have lost friends. There is an intimate connection between a Gold Star family [a family that has lost a service member during combat] and a service member.”
Master Sergeant Kenny Day, on active duty with the 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Liberty, saw taking one of Ross’ daylong workshops as an opportunity to recognize Gold Star families’ losses. “We want them to know we support them even though their son or daughter has passed. We are here for them,” he says.
The workshop was memorable for Day, as well. “What [Ross] provides and how he leads you through the process of making the flag is therapeutic,” he says. “The most enjoyable part was just sitting with Mr. Ross and letting him open up to us about how he is dealing with the loss of his son. I can’t imagine how difficult that is. I have lost many friends. I don’t think that is even comparable to losing a family member.”
Master Sergeant Jason Davis, on active duty with the 7th Special Forces in the U.S. Army at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, has been in the military for 25 years. He attended a woodworking workshop last summer. “It was just good to work on the wood and be in a woodshed for four to five hours and forget about everything,” Davis says. “I enjoyed meeting one of the Gold Star parents and hearing what it was like losing someone like that.”
Since starting the woodworking program in June 2023, Ross has hosted 39 current or former members of the military in his workshop. “It’s been awesome to be around guys that knew Drew,” he says. “Guys open up about their lives and struggles and what they want to do with the next part of their life. We talk about Drew and their lifestyle. All that is very therapeutic for me.”
Ross is the only community partner of the STAR program who is a veteran and has direct connections with the special operations community, Cooper says. “That is a credibility the guys appreciate. They can truly be themselves, and that adds value to the experience. Mr. Ross has been invaluable to this program. He’s an amazing gentleman.”
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