Here on Our American Stories, we meet Don Newland, a truly American talent who once soared in the design world, even with giants like General Motors. But sometimes, life’s greatest challenges hit closest to home. Don’s story takes us to 2007, when her marriage to Chris faced unimaginable heartbreak. After Chris’s infidelity and subsequent overwhelming guilt, Don found herself in a desperate, harrowing struggle to prevent a tragedy that ultimately left her with profound loss and the heavy burden of PTSD. Her courage to share this deeply personal journey is a testament to the strength found in our communities.
Then, we hear from U.S. Army veteran William Lambert, a hero who survived three deployments and an IED blast, only to confront his toughest battle after returning home. William’s fight with severe PTSD, survivor’s guilt, and his own dark thoughts reveals the hidden wounds many veterans carry. Though their paths are vastly different, Don and William both understand the weight of loss, the struggle for mental health, and the incredible human spirit required to keep moving forward. Tune in to Our American Stories for their raw, honest accounts of survival, healing, and finding hope against all odds.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
In the 2000s, Don Newland was a force to be reckoned with in the design industry, working for General Motors and some of the best designers in the world. But issues were starting to arise at home with her husband, Chris. Let’s get into the story. Here’s Don to start us off, and later you’ll be hearing from U.S. Army veteran William Lambert, too.
In 2006, he decided to start cheating, and I found out and asked him to move out. And May, I believe it was. And because he was my heart and soul, and I loved him dearly, in December, I let him come home, move back in, and just tried to go on with not discussing it. I knew what was going on, and I don’t want to live it every day, so we don’t want to talk about it. And I tried very hard to live by those rules, but he could not. He could not forgive himself for what he had done, the damage he had done to our marriage and to all of the friendships that were involved around the business, and you know, the way the families looked at him. It was very hard on him, and he just—he could not get past it.
So, July 2nd of ’07, at about 11 o’clock at night, we were laying in bed, and he asked me if I had felt any different. I said, “No.” And he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m leaving.” And he went to our spare bedroom, where I heard him making various noises. So I went to go see what he was doing. And when I walked in the room, he was sitting on the floor with a .308 rifle on the floor between his knees and was going to shoot himself. I did everything in my power—beg, plead, cry, you name it—to get him to put the rifle down. And during that conversation, I realized that there was nothing I was going to say. He had made up his mind: this is what he was going to do, and the only option that I had was to try and take the rifle from him. From previous training that I had from being around the police department and some martial arts training, I know better: you don’t ever try and grab a gun from someone, but I felt like it was the only thing I could do.
And I reached over, and I was watching what he was doing and analyzing: there’s so much room between the top hand and his chin, and I can grab the gun, and I can pull it back over here to my right, get it away from him, and hopefully we can make a better ending out of this night. As I started to grab the gun, someone said to me, “Do not pull that gun towards yourself.” And so, mid-swing, I grabbed the gun, and I pushed it the opposite direction of where I was planning on, and I was standing to do the other, and so I didn’t get completely out of his reach, and he grabbed the gun, dislocated three my fingers, taking with us wrestling over the gun, with him trying to take it back from me. He ultimately got it and pulled it up under his chin and shot himself, and I fell at my feet and died.
I don’t remember most of the rest of the night and most of the next of next year. I don’t remember a lot of… I vaguely remember being on the phone with 911. I don’t know how. I don’t remember getting my phone. I don’t remember calling them from there. I learned PTSD very quickly.
Mother two Jacob, Jacob. I did three deployments, too, to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. And my second deployment, by far, was the worst for me. My vehicle was struck with an ID, and you know, I didn’t think anything about it. Then I went on with my day and did did my normal thing, and I got out of the military in 2014, so I did eleven years, twelve years… And that’s when stuff started kind of happening to me. I was having trouble sleeping, I was having nightmares, I was hearing radio transmissions in my head. It’s… it was weird. You know, I had a job where I was working for a satellite company in in Missouri, and I would just be driving down the Interstate in my work van, and I would see an explosion on the side of the road, or I would—I would hear it, and I would feel it, you know. It’s that concussion that you would feel, and I know there’s not—something’s not right here. And I just got really, really down and started drinking a little bit more, and the next thing I know, I’m making a noose and hanging it in my shop, and I’m almost in it. You know, luckily I was caught and was taken to the doctor, you know, to the hospital for evaluation, and they got me on some medicine. And then I was like, “Well, the medicine, I know, it takes a little while, but it still didn’t work.” And I tried to do it again.
Well, I had what they called survivor’s guilt. My unit, my second deployment, lost fifteen guys due to eighties. I was hit with the same ID. Why not me? What makes me special? Why didn’t I lose an arm? Why didn’t I lose a leg? Why didn’t I die? That was very, very hard for me to figure out. And I still don’t know.
The fact that I couldn’t take the gun from him stood for a very long time: that I failed and I let him die. And I know that’s not true. I know that’s not true now, but it doesn’t make you feel any better.
And you’ve been listening to Don Newland and U.S. Army vet William Lambert sharing their very different stories about survivor’s guilt, and of course, PTSD. And when we return, more of the story of Don Newland and William Lambert, and how the two stories intersect. Here on Our American Stories.
Lei Habibe here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we’re bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can’t do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love what you here, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give.
And we returned to Our American Stories and the story of Don Newland and William Lambert. When we last left off, Don and William were both describing their respective nightmares with PTSD. Don’s husband had committed suicide in front of her, and William had survived a hellish deployment overseas. Let’s return to their stories.
My mom was coming over once a week, helping me pay my bills because I couldn’t remember how to write a check. I was putting Post-it Notes on my mirror in my Durango during the day when I would think of something that I had to do, and then I would put them in order of the way I had to do them, because if I did not have a step-by-step for my day, I had no idea what I was doing, where I was at, why am I here? And there was one day that I was… I have no idea what I was doing. I left my home, and I call it “woke up” down at Pinnacle Mall in Arkansas. There were three or four hours between when I left my house and when I was aware again of where I was at, and I literally looked around in my truck to see if I had been shopping. I was like, “Nope, haven’t been shopping. Might as well go. I’m here.” So you can’t function. There are just some days that there’s nothing you can do. You can’t express what’s going on, and if you told people was actually going on in your head, they put you in a padded room. I ended up doing three, three stays in the VA mental ward, and the therapy sucked. I don’t know if I can say that, but it was horrible because I can’t remember the actual medical term for it. But they make you relive the event over and over and over, and your conscious mind knows that it’s not real, but it’s still there. Survivor’s guilt.
Chris had actually planned on killing me that night with him. He had actually researched serial killers and suicides. Yeah, there were three big books that he had, and he had them pages marked on how to kill your significant other and then yourself so that you could stay together forever. And he had planned on taking me with him that night. And that was a very, very harsh reality also: that by the grace of God, I’m still here, and that is it. But although I know in my head and my heart that none of that was my fault—he was the one decided that he was going to do to do the suicide—the fact that I couldn’t take the gun from him stood for a very long time: that I failed and I let him die.
But anyway, at the end of that year, I had decided that I needed something that was just me, that didn’t revolve around that—the shop, the business, what I was doing, anything that had any memory of him. And I’d always wanted horses, always loved horses. So because I’m me and I never do anything the easy way, my very first horse was a five-year-old untouched wild mustang, and I named him Katana, after the Samurai sword, because the Samurai consider their sword as part of their soul. And I decided that I had survived near death, and this was part of—this was my soul, and so his name was Katana. And then my second horse was a two-year-old untouched wild mustang, and I named him Trinity for my horses, me and God, and that was my Trinity. Trying not to cry. Then I got Comanche, and he was a three-year-old untouched wild mustang, and I spent the next three years every day, a lot of times all day, training with those horses. Very emotional.
For the next three years, that’s all I did: eat, sleep, live horses. The nights that I couldn’t sleep, instead of calling a friend, I went to the field with a brush or brushes, and I would come back in, and every horse in the field was spit-shine and polished before I came back inside. And I would come straight in and literally drop the clothes on the way to the bedroom and crawl in bed and try to go to sleep before any of it could rush back in. And I discovered that even in the first month of working with just Katana, that I was beginning to rest, and the hallucination seemed to fade.
About four years in, I started my business back up for about two years, and something was missing, and I couldn’t figure out what. And a friend of mine brought four or five kids over, and all of them but this one girl were all excited about the horses. And the one girl stood in the corner by my barn and fence. She was very closed off. I asked her what was wrong, and she whispers, “I’m afraid.” And I said, “Why are you afraid?” And she said, “Because the horses are mean.” I said, “Oh, honey, my horses aren’t mean.” “Why are you whispering?” And she said, “Because they can hear me.” I said, “They can hear you whisper.” I just kind of giggled, and she goes, “What?” I said, “They can hear you whispers.” They can hear things we can’t even think about. And I said, “They can smell things we will never understand.”
And long story short, over about a forty-five-minute period, I got her to come into the round pen with me, and I brought one of my smaller mustangs. And she said, “But they bite.” “He didn’t bite you.” I said, “No.” She said, “But they kick.” I said, “No,” and I went behind him, and I wiggled his tail, and I stood behind him, and I scratched down his legs, and she’s like, “Oh, he didn’t kick you.” And I said, “No, he won’t kick you.” And so I moved him over, and I stepped up on the fence, and I slid over on him, and I walked him around the round pen, and she was like, “Oh, he didn’t do anything bad.” And I said, “No, ma’am,” and I said, “Trust me,” and she’s like, “Yes.” And I got her to sit on him. And when she sat on him, I had her slide back and lay down and just drape her arms around his neck and hug him. And she just burst into tears because this was the coolest thing she’d ever done in her life. We walked one lap around the round pen, and she was like, “This is awesome,” and I said, “And see, you did it,” and she looked around, and it hit—hit her. “I did it.” And I said, “Honey, you can do anything you set your mind to.” Said, “You just have to set your mind to it.” I said, “You may not do it like I do it, or the way she does it or he does it, but you can do it your way and make it your own special thing.” I said, “In all that matters as you try.” And she just looked at me, and she cried again, which made me cry, and we all a good cry. But she was all happy. And this little girl had such a horrible family life. She had painted a cat face on her face in all black because she told me she didn’t want to be human because humans suck, and it just broke my heart. And I noticed that she was wearing leather wristbands. What I was getting her on the horse, I’d reached my hand out and said, “Give me your hand.” I said, “You trust me,” and she took my hand, and as I slid over—slid her over—the wristband moved, and I could see fresh cuts. And the friend of mine told me she had just gotten out of the psych unit for trying to commit suicide. I mean, she had only been out long enough for them to take her out and bring her to me. We’re talking forty-five minutes, and she managed to cut her wrist, and nobody even knew it. And about two weeks later, that friend sent me a post off Facebook—the same little girl. Her hair was black. The cat-faced, goth look she had posted on Facebook. She had put her hair back her normal color, had very light makeup done like a pretty young lady. And on her post, she said, “Someone told me that I can do anything I want to. All I’ve got to do is try.” And it hit me right then: “There’s something there.”
And there’s something there, indeed. Anyone who’s been around equine therapy knows the power of the horse to heal. And you’re listening to Don Newland tell the story of her trauma and what helped her get through it, and U.S. Army veteran William Lambert, too, struggling with survivor’s guilt. When we come back, these two lives intersect, well, in a beautiful way. More of their stories here on Our American Stories.
And we returned to Our American Stories and the story of Don Newland, William Lambert, and their respective walks with PTSD that brought them together. When we last left off, Don had discovered that working with wild mustangs had greatly impacted her life. She could sleep again, think again, and live well again. And after watching her horses help a child, she decided to start advertising her equine assisted therapy to others. Let’s return to the story.
I started advertising that I would see people that had emotional traumas of whatever kind, and especially working with anyone with PTSD, because obviously I was quite fluent in that; so, as was as I’m trying to get the word out, started visiting with all the local VFWs and any other military-related facility where I could go and talk. I’m pretty sure I did a horrible job talking because I was nervous and trying to explain something that I’m not sure I fully understood how to relate. I knew how it worked, why it worked, but to put it into words… But several militaries started coming out. I worked with a lot of people. I had gotten out of the hospital for the third time. I was on some medicine that was—it was working. It was keeping me calm and mellow. And then I met Don.
When we first met, I was actually doing a fundraiser at Orcelin’s, and he happened to buy, and we visited for a little. While I was up there, I was looking for peach trees. We were going to put peach trees out, and we saw her booth, and she had a sign up that says, “Veterans Welcome and PTSD.” I can’t exactly remember what the sign said. And just me being jokingly, I walked over, and I said, “Well, how much is it for a veteran with PTSD?” And she looked right at me, and she said, “It’s free, come out.” And I was like, “You know what? I grew up around horses. Um, my dad had a whole bunch. Let’s go up there. Let’s go visit her and see what she can do for me.”
A month or so later, a couple of months later, about that, yeah, she just kind of said, “Here’s here’s this horse.” And I can’t—I think it was Trinity that you put me on. “No, it was—I put you on the first time—it was Bourbon.” And she got him in the round pen, and I started loving on him and everything like you’re supposed to, and she put me on him, and we kind of walked around a little bit, and she, you know, she mentioned it earlier, she made me lay down, and I put my arms around him, and I was like, “You know, I really—I really need that.” And I kind of said, “You know what? I’m gonna start coming out here.”
PTSD is not curable. It is something that you have for life, but you learn how to cope with it, and the horses teach you those coping skills. In the round pen, if you’re trying to work with your horse, and you’ve got a smile on your face and you tell everyone, “Yeah, I’m fine, I’m in a good mood, the world’s great, blah blah,” the horse looks at you and goes, “Try again.” They feel what you’re feeling, not what you’re saying. So when you go to try and handle the horse as you’re angry or extremely emotional, the horse will back away from you or avoid you in any way if they can, because they don’t know what it is that has you so emotional. But they don’t want that anger or frustration pointed in their direction. They’re like, “Oh, no, you go pet somebody else or try to move somebody else.” But then you learn to analyze: why is my horse not doing what I want it to do? And you can go, “Oh, because I’m in a whatever mood,” and that’s why my horse is acting like this. And for people with PTSD, it is a huge thing to be able to self-analyze. It helps you learn to trust yourself again, because with PTSD, you don’t.
I fell in love with Faith. She’s just beautiful horse. There was something about William that just really struck me that he needed that extra—because that I’ve hand-raised our extra loving—and he fell in love with Faith. And I was like, “Oh, I don’t know about letting me work with her.” She had never been saddled and ridden, and you want to talk about a huge leap of faith with him and I, because he trusted me not to get him killed, and trusted the horse not to blow up on him, and he got to do her first. I hadn’t even ridden my horse. He got to do the first ride on her, and he was a bit nervous. He discovered that whe…
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