My Why: Dr Rick Boone

Dr. Rick Boone was born and raised in Gallipolis, OH, a rural community located in the southeastern Ohio River Valley.

He attended Ohio University in nearby Athens, OH before leaving for Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama’s psychology graduate school. While there he learned of the military’s Health Professions Scholarship Program and, because he’d always been interested in the U.S. Navy, applied for and received a scholarship.

As an ABD psychologist he served on active duty for nearly 9 years before returning to graduate school, this time in California at Biola University, where he completed his Ph.D. in a program that specialized in the integration of psychological science and Judeo-Christian theology.

Following completion of his doctorate he returned to his hometown where he launched a behavioral health service for the Holzer Clinic. Additionally, he served as a liaison-psychologist to the Holzer Medical Center and consultant-psychologist to the Bariatric Treatment and Physical Rehabilitation Departments.

In the late 1990’s Dr. Boone transferred from the Naval to the Army Reserves. He later was deployed to Iraq on two occasions, 2003 and 2005, where he served as Officer-in-Charge of two Combat Operational Stress Control Teams.

Upon his return to the U.S. in late 2005 he voluntarily mobilized to Ft. Sam Houston’s Army Medical Department Center and School (AMEDDC&S). He remained at the AMEDDC&S for three years as an Instructor and Interim Branch Chief with the Mental Health Specialist Branch and as a Program Director (Provider Resiliency Program) within the Soldier and Family Support Branch.

In 2009 he was employed by the Department of Defense as a Social Scientist with the Human Terrain Teams in the Kandahar and Logar provinces of Afghanistan.

Later he was employed as an adjunct professor at Austin Community College and, obtaining his Texas psychologist’s license in 2015, was hired by Pathfinders Psychological and Psychiatric Services.

Dr. Boone has four children ranging in ages from 37 to 11. The older three live back east in NC and VA while his youngest resides in Austin, TX.

Dr. Boone is an avid reader and appreciator of music. Exercise, the arts, history, spirituality, travel in the U.S., and certain sports teams (e.g., Browns, Celtics, Red Sox, Crimson Tide, and the Midshipmen of the USNA) are among his passions.

In 2021 Rick married Rose Mary Espinosa Elias, a former TV and radio personality who is both a published poet and novelist in her native Mexico.

My Why:

It all started with my mother’s cedar chest in which she kept odds and ends and memories.

Among those memories were my father’s WWII medals and a diary detailing his experiences on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor and later at Iron Bottom Bay, Guadalcanal where his ship, the U.S.S. Blue, was torpedoed.

Consequently, as a kid I thought I’d be a sailor. After all, there was my father’s example, as well as his younger brother, my favorite uncle, who was an active duty, sea-faring sailor during the years I was being enchanted by my Dad’s shiny, mysterious medals.

As the years passed by, I realized my childhood dreams of attending the Naval Academy were at odds with my academic skills. I was no engineer or mathematician, and, in those days, those subjects dominated the Academy’s curriculum.

Instead, I found my way into the military as a psychology graduate student and wound up in the Navy, being stationed up and down the east coast in various naval hospitals.

Later, two things occurred that directly relate to why I am here at Warriors Heart.

First, I transferred from the Naval Reserves to the Army Reserves. This was fateful because while training in the Army I was exposed to its Combat Operational Stress Control doctrine.

The other event was 9/11.

For while I thought my transfer from one branch of the service to another was simply going to make my final years until retirement more convenient for me, it resulted instead in two deployments to Iraq. Those deployments and the events that occurred altered the arc of my life in a variety of ways, both professionally and personally.

First, I encountered many soldiers, Marines, and other servicemembers experiencing the “first fruits” of PTSD . . . and later, in other academic and clinical settings, I saw what happened to many of these individuals when their conditions were either not or incompletely addressed. It was like a plague of psychological and moral disease.

Secondly, my younger son, Tyler, a Marine NCO, twice was wounded by IED attacks. The consequences were severe: mTBI, PTSD, substance abuse, the deterioration of health and well-being, the near-demise of his young family.

The good news is that Tyler pulled through it. He did so with loving family support, good behavioral health care, the 12-Steps and AA, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Consequently, when Warrior’s Heart reached out to me with an opportunity to share in their work, to participate in the accomplishment of their mission, it felt to me that I’d received a call from home saying, “Come back, we could use your help.”

So here I am..