Healing is more than one moment.
A powerful experience can open a door. Continuing change takes reflection, integration, support, and time.
Our Story
Built from lived experience.
Operation Solace was founded by U.S. military veteran Gabriel Gonzales after his own experience taught him that healing is not a single event. The support surrounding an experience, preparation, integration, honest conversation, accountability, and community, can matter just as much as the moment itself.
Veteran-led Built from Gabriel's lived experience.
Partner-supported Services are delivered by independent partners.
Focused on what follows Preparation, integration, community, and practical help.
The point where something had to change
For years, Gabriel carried more than people could see.
Depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and the visible and invisible wounds of military service accumulated over time. Life kept moving, but internally the weight became harder to carry.
Those years eventually led to a failed suicide attempt.
Gabriel survived, but survival was not the same as healing.
One experience opened a door. The work continued afterward.
The experience mattered. So did everything that followed.
Later, Gabriel participated in a carefully supported psychedelic healing experience. It was meaningful, but it did not erase his trauma or magically fix his life.
What changed most was what happened afterward. Through integration, honest conversation, accountability, reflection, community, and continued support, Gabriel began turning the experience into lasting changes in how he lived and responded to difficult emotions.
He came to understand healing as a continuing practice rather than a finish line.
Building what he wished had existed
Operation Solace grew from a simple question: what happens after the experience?
Gabriel saw how difficult it could be for veterans to afford responsible support, navigate independent programs, stay connected afterward, and find people who understood the longer process of healing.
He created Operation Solace to help reduce those barriers.
The organization helps fund preparation, integration, practical assistance, community, and connection to independent partners. It does not directly provide psychedelic medicine, ceremonies, therapy, or clinical treatment.
See How We Help →What we believe
Healing is a practice, not a single moment.
Veterans deserve dignity, not pity.
The website, the organization, and the community around it should treat veterans as whole people with agency, strength, and different needs.
Connection matters.
Healing is harder in isolation. Trusted relationships, peer connection, and community can make the path more sustainable.
Support should continue beyond access.
Helping someone reach a program is not enough if they are left alone with what comes next.
Carry the mission forward
Help another veteran keep moving forward.
Operation Solace exists because Gabriel experienced both the power of a healing opportunity and the importance of what came after it.