GLOUCESTER, Va. — When he opens the throttle to the Mobjack Bay, Daniel Knott is on his way to a place where he can find peace.
There is something about the repetition of commercial fishing, he said, that lets him let go of life’s burdens.
"It's something about the water, it's about being close to nature, being close to the world. Whatever it is, there's something about being out there on the water that definitely gets people to open up," he said.
Whether it’s steering the boat or pulling the lines up for a crab pot, fishing comes easy for someone looking to wash away a dark past.
"After I retired, I thought I was doing OK," he said, "and it took a couple of years to really realize that I was not ok, didn't want to be around anybody.”
Adjusting to civilian life hit Knott hard after serving 22 years in the Army, he said. He found his retirement from the structure of active duty left him without a direction.
"I was in a very, very, very dark place and I didn't want to admit that to anybody. I didn't want my family to know it. I pulled myself back from my friends, my relatives, everybody, because I was in such a dark place," Knott said. "I didn't want to show them that pain and suffering and i didn't wan to put that burden on them.
“A lot of times, guys retire from the military and they're so used to having such a intense sense of purpose with their life and their daily activities. And when you retire and you step away from that, you lose that," he said. "You lose your brotherhood and sisterhood that's around you, you lose all of that."
But the one joy he never lost was the water. Two summers ago, when Knott would leave his dock, he would try to bring someone else. Specifically, another veteran who may be battling through the same mental health struggles.
On the water they would talk, either about life or traumatic experiences they lived through while in the military. For Knott, he's listening from a perspective of someone who's walked in their shoes.
“Veterans will open up to other veterans about things a lot quicker than they will to anybody else because, you don't want to burden that person with those thoughts but the other thing is you have that shared connection and opens doors that I think a therapist or sitting around a table can't," he said.
In the most recent Veterans Suicide report conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the United States recorded 114 more veteran deaths by suicide between 2020 and 2021. The adjusted rate for suicide among veterans -- based on sex and age -- increased by 11.6% as well.
Knott says most of the veterans who have asked to come aboard have come from the Hampton Roads region, but have travelled from as far away as North Carolina and other regions of Virginia.
But everyone who ventures out on the water is another veteran that Knott hopes will realize they're not alone.