School Opens Doors to Vets

When Mike Correia returned to Manchester, New Hampshire, after a year-long tour of duty in Balad, Iraq, the Army National Guard reservist was reticent about returning to his job as a collections officer for the state. Then he read something he couldn’t quite believe. A newspaper article featured a local massage school that was offering free tuition to soldiers of Operation Iraqi Freedom and their spouses. “I had to read it a few times, it just struck me as funny. You don’t usually see that,” says Correia. “And the timing was just right.”

Correia already had health-care training. While stationed in Iraq he worked as a medic. And he’d been involved with health care—as a nursing assistant and an EMT—throughout most of his adult life. He was introduced to massage while stationed in Germany in the 1980s, and had received it ever since. Now here was a chance to learn it himself.

In November Correia graduated from the 750-hour massage-therapy program at North Eastern Institute of Whole Health. At press time he was waiting to take his state and national exams in order to apply for his state massage-therapy license.

He is one of 21 students who have enrolled in the school’s Operation Healing Hands program since its inception in 2005. And, says school owner and director Gabrielle Grigore, M.D., demand is growing. “What is amazing is that we receive phone calls and e-mail from soldiers still in Iraq, asking me to enroll them in the program, reserve them a space, for when they get out,” she says.

Demand for the program was so high that in early 2006, Grigore opened it up to soldiers who were stationed in Afghanistan and their spouses. “When I said I was going to do this, people said ‘don’t do it, soldiers don’t want to become massage therapists, they have money from the G.I. bill anyway,’” she says. “It’s amazing to me that I’ve had this kind of outcome.”

Grigore is passionate about helping soldiers and their families. An émigré from communist Romania, she is keenly aware of what it means to live in a free society, and wants to support the young men and woman serving this country. “I’m fascinated by young people fighting for freedom,” she says. “I said that as soon as I became a citizen I wanted to do something. I can’t go to war; I have two children. But I had to do something for those people who were fighting for true freedom, and here, in the U.S., there is true freedom.”

Grigore’s gift has earned widespread attention. But at $9,000 a student, she admits that she’s concerned about how to keep the program growing. “Operation Healing Hands can only stay alive if I have other students enrolled,” she explains.

For now, the soldiers’ stories and their dedication to learning massage is inspiration enough. “When I talk to them and they tell you their stories … they are just young kids!” she says.

 “They are not just healing themselves, they are able to touch others in a special way, and they are exceptionally good in their work.”

Learn more about Operation Healing Hands and the North Eastern Institute of Whole Health at www.neiwh.com.