WHAT: Yamaha is joining with Guitars for Vets to hold a live music performance in Nashville to highlight National PTSD Awareness Day, featuring students and graduates of Guitars for Vets’ program of PTSD rehabilitation through music. This event is free to the public.
DATE: Wednesday, June 27, 2018 (National PTSD Awareness Day)
TIME: 6 pm to 9 pm
PLACE: Benchmark Bar & Grill, 177 2nd Ave. N, Nashville, TN (less than 0.5 mi from Music City Center/NAMM)
WHO: Patrick Nettesheim; founder, Guitars for Vets (G4V)
Tom Sumner; president, Yamaha Corp. of America (YCA)
Guest guitarists Bobby Tomlinson, Isaac Matthews
Guitarists and G4V ambassadors Sonny Moorman, Ali Handal
Yamaha Drum Artist Brian Fullen
G4V formed in response to the mounting casualties of PTSD among returning veterans. Roughly 20% of service members deployed in the past six years have developed PTSD, and since the Vietnam War, more servicemen and -women have committed suicide than have actually died in battle. G4V provides veterans suffering from PTSD with lessons on the guitar and a forum to play as a means to heal and cope.
Since its inception in 2007 as a two-man operation in Milwaukee, G4V has grown to support 80 chapters in 40 states, operated by over 300 volunteers. Each student in the program is presented upon graduation with his/her own guitar pack, the crown jewel of which is a new Yamaha acoustic guitar. Graduates describe their guitars and the music they play as a way to ease their pain, give them focus, build their self-esteem and strengthen their sense of purpose.
Yamaha has been supplying G4V with guitars since 2012 at dealer cost, making it practical for G4V to expand to its current scope. To date, through this cooperative effort, over 2,000 new guitars have been awarded to grateful veterans as they graduate from the PTSD rehabilitation program, along with 100 additional guitars donated outright by Yamaha.
Patrick Nettesheim of G4V and Tom Sumner of YCA will both be available for comment on the day of the event and will perform onstage at the event itself. Performers and attendees will include students and graduates from the Nashville G4V chapter, along with the chapter’s coordinator, Brandon Branham. Guitarists Bobby Tomlinson and Isaac Matthews, G4V ambassadors Sonny Moorman and Ali Handal, and Yamaha Drum Artist Brian Fullen will be part of the ensemble as well.
