There was a storm coming, and he could feel it. He could feel it in his bones. He certainly felt it in his heart. For Shawn Moore, a student veteran at the University of Wyoming at Casper, the storm was a long time coming.

Moore enlisted in the military in 2016. He did it because he wanted to be a part of something bigger than himself. He wanted to represent his country. He wanted to help people.

Unfortunately, while serving, Moore suffered an extremely traumatic brain injury. The injury impacted his right frontal cortex, which severely impacted his ability to walk and talk. He had to re-learn how to do both of those things and, due to the severity of the injury, he was processed out of active service.

"During that time, I went to the VA to try and get some mental health help," Moore stated. "And, long story short, I basically got told that I walked in there, and I could turn around and walk right out."

Moore said that many veterans are familiar with the struggles of dealing with the VA and all of the various hoops that one must jump through. He had heard the horror stories, sure. But to experience his own, close up, after having already survived such a traumatic injury -- it was disheartening. But he kept it inside. "Why make it anyone else's problem?" he asked himself.

"Then, I ended up finding work with a construction company," he remembered. "They sold me on unlimited overtime; you could work as much or as little as you wanted to. So, since I couldn't sleep anyway, I chose to work about a hundred hours a week. The paychecks were good, I'm not going to lie, but I did that for about four months and I was just pouring gasoline on an open flame, inside."

The flame began to consume him, especially once he started burning the candle at both ends. He worked because he couldn't sleep. And when he wasn't working, he was thinking. And when he was thinking, well...that's when things got bad.

"One day, there was a thunderstorm," Moore remembered. "And the thunderstorm caused my brain to think that somebody was outside, with a gun."

In retrospect, Moore knows that it was clearly an instance of PTSD. But at the time, it was the scariest, hardest, biggest thing he had ever gone through. And he just wanted it to stop. By any means necessary.

"My brain basically lost control," he said. "It wasn't a stereotypical 'life flashing before your eyes' kind of thing. It was like, 'You're a POS because of this.' And 'You did that!' Ultimately, I was just trying to get my thoughts to stop. I wanted to feel worth it. I wanted to feel the sense that I wasn't a screwup. The thunder is what scared me, and that's what led to me ultimately pulling the trigger."

Moore shot himself, and it almost cost him his life. But while his brain may have momentarily betrayed him, luckily, his body took control. And his heart kept beating.

"My military training is ultimately why I'm alive," he revealed. "Because after I pulled the trigger, I knew I had messed up. I had to realign my jaw, what felt like four or five different pieces. I had to put my jaw back together in order to properly apply pressure the way I needed to, and I did that myself."

Moore had, effectively, saved his own life.

"My body and my mind knew that I messed up; that that wasn't actually me. That was not me. That was something outside of myself. But the interesting thing is, when you're fighting for your life, your body knows what it needs to do. So I fixed my jaw and called somebody for help."

Eventually, Moore got the help he needed -- physically, as well as emotionally, mentally and spiritually. He would eventually heal, his head and his heart, and then he went back to school and enrolled in the University of Wyoming at Casper. He received his degree in Organizational Leadership and, eventually, he joined the UW Casper Veterans Board.

He's come a long way from those dark days after being processed out of the military. But he still thinks about that day. And he smiles, because he survived it. The storm had passed.

For people like Shawn Moore, there is the UW Casper Student Veteran Support Services program. The University of Wyoming at Casper offers this program as a way to help its student veterans who, according to the UW Casper website, make up more than 10% of its total student population. Many of these students are service-connected and combat veterans and UW Casper does what it can to help these students however it can.

"Our mission is providing support to our student veterans in the ways of scholarships, support funds, tutoring support, recreational therapy, suicide awareness, community support, and other services," the website states. And to be able to offer this program, UW Casper relies on donations and fundraising events, such as the second annual UW Casper Student Veteran Support Service Target Clay Competition.

The clay shoot competition took place on Sept. 14 and featured more than 13 teams -- almost double the amount of teams from last year's event. The team sizes varied; some had three or four people, others had five or six. But the teams themselves were made up of some of the Student Veteran Support Services' biggest sponsors, including HF Sinclair, the Combat Veteran Motorcycle Association, The Wooden Derrick Cafe, Eggington's and many more.

The event was hosted by the Casper Skeet Club, who also sponsored the competition, and it was an opportunity to both honor and raise money for student veterans in Casper.

"We use this event as a fundraiser to help support our student veterans," Moore shared. "We offer two scholarships to our veterans, one of which our advisor and our upper management worked tirelessly on; it's an endowment scholarship. The other is an emergency scholarship, which is a one-time scholarship of, I think, around a thousand dollars, and it's able to help students pretty much go on about their lives without worrying about having to pick up a second, third or fourth job."

They're called Heroes Scholarships and they are absolutely vital to student veterans. Additionally, the event raises money for a veteran support fund, support for the veteran center on campus, veteran-to-veteran tutoring, suicide awareness, recreational therapy and more.

A majority of the funds raised also went towards sending some students to the Student Veterans of America National Conference.

According to the SVA National Conference website, the conference is "the largest gathering of student veterans anywhere in the world. With SVA chapters at nearly 1,600 campuses across the U.S. and in several countries abroad, NatCon serves as a focal point in the academic year to share ideas, best practices, and network with veteran and military-affiliated students, their families, supporters, and allies, as well as corporate, government, and nonprofit partners, and more!"

Moore said that the SVA NatCon serves as an opportunity for veterans, their families, school staff, administrators, advisors and others to network with other Ivy League Universities and colleges from around the country.

"Last year," Moore offered, "we got to meet the Secretary of the VA, Dennis McDonough. We got to meet the CEO of Small Business Administration, Jared Lyon. We got to meet the Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and more, and we talked about anything related to veterans' families, and military accreditation and things like that."

There were breakout sessions designed to help veterans work on résumés. And, more recently, the convention started hosting VA claims clinics.

The University of Wyoming at Casper was able to send four student veterans to the SVA NatCo. And they were able to do that because of funds raised at the clay shooting competition.

The event last month raised more than $11,000 and, even more than that, it served as an opportunity for veterans and non-veterans alike to come together for a day of sun, fun and guns.

"It's a clay shoot competition, but you don't have to be an expert shooter," Moore explained. "You don't have to have ever had to shoot in your life. It's for anybody, any experience, at any level. The only thing we really ask is that you come with a good, happy, positive attitude."

Everybody that came had exactly that, and it was a day full of camaraderie and friendly competition. It was a chance for veterans and their friends, families and neighbors to come together to raise money for a good cause. It was, more than anything, just a really fun day.

"To put it in perspective, I haven't really found camaraderie at an event like this since I was actually in the military, where they preach brotherhood and all of the other military ethos," Moore shared. "And the best part about this was that you don't have to be one of our brothers or sisters-in-arms in order to get a sense of the camaraderie that takes place there. We're always boosting each other up. People are bringing guns for their entire teams. I brought some of my guns to give to one of our instructors that was on a team. And that was the coolest part because it gets us out of our heads, and it brings us back to being helpers again. It's one of the best events I've been a part of and it actually did give us veterans that same sense of brotherhood and camaraderie like we felt in the military."

In addition to the clay shoot competition itself, there was also a raffle, which featured a myriad of prizes, including a Remington 308 Hunting Rifle with a scope that was donated by Hunting with Heroes of Wyoming.

For Moore and his fellow veterans, that day in September served them well and allowed them to serve, themselves. They got to help guide and direct non-veterans and first-time shooters. They got to offer their expertise as they taught "recoil therapy." They got to use their skills for something good, something fun, something important. And for people like Shawn Moore -- people who have seen the best and the worst of military service -- it served as something of a reminder. It reminded them that they are, in fact, helpers. And healers.

And heroes.

"I was given a 5% chance to survive," Moore remembered. "Well, obviously, I kicked ass. And I survived. And that's why I later became a mental health advocate and a support of anything to do with community. Because I'm trying to bring back -- and it's not just me, it's everyone at UW Casper and all of our sponsors -- we're just trying to bring that sense of community back to our town, without there having to be some sort of tragic event that brings a community together."

Universities like UW Casper, organizations like the Student Veteran Support Services and people like Shawn Moore have embarked on a mission to put the "unity" back in community. And it's events like the clay shooting competition that do just that. These events bring people together; they unite them. These events also give veterans a chance to come and be a part of something. Which, to them, could mean the difference between life and death.

"You're cared about," Moore said. "You matter. You're worth it. A lot of times, we get wrapped up in the junk and we forget about those three ideas. We're our hardest, worst critics. But it's important to thank yourself, to appreciate yourself and to value yourself. And that's what I love about events like these. Because it reminds people that they are cared about. That they do matter."

And that the storm will always pass.

For more information about the University of Wyoming at Casper and all of its programs, visit www.uwyo.edu/uwcasper. You can also follow UW Casper on Facebook for daily updates, announcements and events.