Cmd. Steven Macdonald

After a tour of duty in Iraq, Cmdr. Steven Macdonald decided he needed to get more involved in helping veterans.

Returning home, he began volunteering with the LEEK Hunting and Mountain Preserve, where volunteers help wounded veterans how to hunt and fish. 

Starting as just a volunteer, he’s risen to a leadership role in the organization. What keeps him around is to see vets return during their rehab, multiple times in some cases, and to see them gradually recover as they regain the ability to do things their wounds initially prevented them from doing. 

He also sees many recover from mental wounds as they rediscover the social dynamics most came to enjoy about the military. 

“It’s amazing to see them come together and in no time at all, you see unit camaraderie developing and they switch from being wounded veterans and come together as a unit and team, joking among themselves and working together,” Macdonald said. “Yes, it’s focused around hunting — that’s our lane — but it’s not all about hunting and even if these folks don’t get a deer or a turkey, they have experiences and are able to rediscover things they may have thought lost — that’s what has kept me here for the past seven years.” 

Macdonald’s service spans both the enlisted and officer ranks. He enlisted first in 1985 as a general detail seaman, but chance got him assigned to a medical command and after a two-year tour as a non-designated seaman, became a hospital corpsman, attending school in San Diego and rising to the rank if second class petty officer. He joined the Supply Corps through the reserves and was commissioned in 1996.