It is undoubtedly one of the more unusual methods designed to help ease the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, but that doesn't mean it isn't effective. The papier-mâché masks Melissa Walker, an art therapist and coordinator of healing arts with the National Intrepid Center of Excellence at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, asks veterans to make after returning stateside from Iraq and Afghanistan are vivid, expressive creations.

"It's actually the first art directive they're introduced to as they come through the program," Walker told The Daily Beast. "These are servicemembers that sometimes have trouble verbalizing what they're struggling with and these masks, along with all the artwork [they] create, help to make their invisible wounds visible."

Representing their experiences in combat and their military identities, the masks are incredibly evocative. One described by The Daily Beast is wound with razor wire and its lips sealed by a silver lock, while another succumbs to the pressure of a tightening vice marked with the acronym PTSD.

The veterans' creations have made such an impact that the National Endowment for the Arts has decided to fund an in-depth look at 400 of the masks at Drexel University in Philadelphia. 

Girija Kaimal, an assistant professor in Drexel's Department of Creative Art Therapies, told DrexelNOW that the masks have helped to create a bond between returning veterans. 

"For some service members in the program, the masks become a 'visual community,'" Kaimal told the university's paper. "They see the masks and say, 'I'm not alone.'" 

With so many veterans struggling to explain their experiences to families, friends and doctors in their life after service, the masks provide an outlet that doesn't require words. 

"A lot of research will tell you that when you're in a traumatic experience, the part of the brain that controls speech shuts down," Kaimal relayed to The Daily Beast. "So having a nonverbal way – such as art – to communicate is key to understanding what they're going through." 

Overlong wait times have been one of the Department of Veteran Affairs' biggest and most chronic problems for years. After facing criticism and scandals, the VA has instituted new measures to cut wait times by expanding veteran benefits to allow access to private sector physicians. Even with the recent changes, they have a lot of ground to cover.

According to News Channel 8 in Florida, the national office of the Veterans of Foreign Wars found that, after close analysis, 26 percent of veterans seeking treatment from private doctors still had to wait 30 days or more to get an appointment.

Why the long delays? Until a few months ago, the VA had treated the private sector as a pressure release valve – to be used only in case of emergency.

"VA has traditionally wanted to be everything for every veteran," a VFW senior legislative aid told the news channel. "And what the health care crisis taught is that you know that's not plausible, not very feasible for the VA to provide every instance of care to every veteran."

The Veterans Choice program, unveiled in late 2015, was meant to open up treatment possibilities and cut back on wait times and backlog. So far, however, the program has run into problems, in part due to miscommunication between the VA and Health Net, the contractor paid by VA to schedule appointments, about how many veterans would utilize the new option. 

In North Carolina, only minutes from Fort Bragg, a new VA Health Care Center was just opened in Fayetteville. Legislators and VA officials alike promised that new center would brighten the outlook for local veterans, the Fayetteville Observer reported.

Fayetteville, with one of the nation's bigger veteran populations, had some notoriously bad wait times back in summer 2014, when Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson first visited. The new 250,000-square-foot outpatient facility is a big step toward righting that wrong. 

"You served our country. You wore the uniform."

That's how a new statewide television ad from the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency begins, according to UPMatters.com. It is a simple message, but one that the agency hopes the state's more than 660,000 veterans take to heart as part of an effort to inform them of all options available. 

According to WLNS 6, the ads have appeared on billboards and radio in addition to TV. They all direct servicemembers toward information regarding the veterans benefits and assistance programs available to them. Personnel – many of them with time in the armed forces – are on call all day, every day to answer any questions veterans may have.

The TV ad is especially effective. It features four veterans entering their life after service, preparing for job interviews, exercising and relaxing in retirement. Each of these is representative of education, employment, health care and quality of life – pillars crucial to the MVAA's mission. 

"Assistance is just a phone call away," Jeff Barnes, MVAA director, told UPMatters.com. "This TV ad is a reflection of how our agency works to help veterans in all walks of life, whether they took off the uniform six months or 60 years ago." 

"As an agency, we have been serving veterans around the clock for nearly three years, but we still hear people say they don't know about us or the services we provide," Barnes continued. "When you see the TV ad or a billboard on the highway, share it with your dad, your niece or your coworker who's a veteran. We want to use this ad campaign as a conversation starter about their service to our country and how MVAA can connect them with the benefit they've earned." 

The military trains its personnel well, and the ride-hailing company Uber looks to take advantage of that by recruiting thousands of San Antonio veterans in 2016. By all accounts, it's an arrangement that's beneficial to both parties, KSAT 12 in San Antonio reported.

"They love the flexible work Uber provides, and, as you know, San Antonio has a very large military veteran community," said Chris Nakutis, the company's general manager in Texas.

Both Nakutis and San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor were on hand at a Wednesday Work on Demand event, showing current drivers their appreciation and making efforts to recruit more.

"We are focusing on our veterans, military folks, in using this as an employment option for them as they transition out of the military," said Taylor.

At the moment, about 600 former servicemembers are using Uber to make money as they transition into their life after service.

"Unlike a lot of positions that you have to interview for and/or wait for them to call you, as soon as you pass the background check and do all the essentials that Uber qualifies for you to do, you can get going and you work at your discretion. The sky is the limit," Air Force veteran and current Uber driver David Tolliver told KSAT 12.

San Antonio is just a small part of Uber's wider commitment – called UberMILITARY – to hiring veterans and military family members. According to a recent press release, the company hopes to onboard 50,000 military drivers over the next year and a half. 

Uber's partners in the initiative include members of all service branches, a retired four-star general, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. With minds like these serving as advisors, it's no surprise Uber has realized the value of hiring veterans. 

No one understands the needs of veterans like a fellow veteran, as Jesse Brown of Plymouth, Massachusetts is proving beyond a doubt. A former Marine, Brown established Heidrea for Heroes – a nonprofit organization supplying home and vehicle modifications, equipment, and various other kinds of support to veterans and their families absolutely free of charge – back in 2013 with the help of Matthew Mastroianni, another veteran.

"We're all in this together," Brown told the Boston Globe.

"The end goal is to help vets," Mastroianni, Brown's business partner, added.

Heidrea for Heroes' origins begin in the 1990s, when Brown and Mastroianni served. According to Heidrea's website, Brown was a Marine Corps field radio operator whose service stations included Camp Pendleton and Okinawa, Japan. Mastroianni, also a former Marine, is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 

In their life after service, the men founded their own construction firm and saw real success before agreeing that they wanted to help other veterans in some way. Heidrea – a combination of Heidi and Andrea, their wives' names – was the result.

So far, the Globe reported that more than 100 veterans in the Plymouth area have been recipients of the nonprofit's efforts.

"We just got a disabled Vietnam veteran in Rockland an all-terrain wheelchair; he had been an avid hunter but can't walk. Now he can get back out into the woods," said Brown. "And that's the whole thing…giving veterans that independence and freedom they're looking for and deserve."

Some of the organization's funds come from the state, but Brown and Mastroianni say they take none for themselves. Every single donation goes straight to helping veterans, some of whom are stubborn about accepting help.

"That self-identification of need can be a problem sometimes – veterans are proud," Brown explained to the Globe. "We let them know we're there." 

Homelessness among veterans is a major issue across the country, but now many large municipalities are trying to do more to address it. One such place is Los Angeles County, where two lawmakers recently proposed a huge program to deal with the problem.

The Home for Heroes program, proposed by county supervisors Don Knabe and Hilda Solis, would cost $5 million and serve 1,000 or more homeless vets in the next year and a half, according to a report from the Los Angeles Daily News. That would include giving incentives to landlords who rent to homeless veterans, grants to cover some of their initial costs, and even something as simple as more beds in shelters specifically for veterans.

"One of the challenges in housing our homeless vets has been identifying housing for them, even when they had a voucher in hand," Knabe told the newspaper. "It was taking vets 90 days or longer to find an apartment."

This is part of a larger initiative to provide more support for the homeless in general, but Home for Heroes receives a special focus for obvious reasons, the report said.

Veterans who are struggling in any way should be on the lookout for programs such as these, offered by private groups as well as governmental agencies.

Many Americans are more than willing to help out veterans in any way they can, and often that includes making unique items for them to use in their everyday lives. One such person in the greater Philadelphia area has been crafting knives for veterans over the last few years.

Scott Durham, of Haddonfield, Pennsylvania, has personally spearheaded his own Honor Your Hero Project, which involves him engraving a metal multi-tool with the names of veterans, and giving it either to the veterans individually, or their families, according to a report from CBS Philly. Included with the tools, particularly those given to families of veterans who died in combat, is a handwritten letter thanking them for their service.

Durham, who receives donations to help cover the cost of the materials and engraving, has made thousands of tools since 2013, including two sent to Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, the report said.

"And I don't know 99 percent of these people I send them to," Durham told the station. "They're in Montana. Idaho, Wisconsin. They're everywhere."

This is the kind of thing that many may not know is available, but it's one of the benefits for veterans that can help in their daily lives and better illustrate that people are always there for them.

Veterans entering their life after service often find that one of the hardest parts of communicating with others is that so few have shared their experiences. Clara Reynolds, president and CEO of the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, told The Tampa Tribune that starting a few years ago, the center received numerous calls from veterans pleading for counselors who understand what they were going through based on personal experience in the armed forces.

Reynolds made sure that their requests didn't go unanswered. Tampa's crisis center now has a dedicated phone service specifically for veterans. If a servicemember calls in from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, they'll find themselves talking to a peer counselor who is also a fellow veteran.

Military training isn't the only thing that makes these counselors so effective. Being able to discuss similar backgrounds and experiences with callers can make all the difference in the world. The program has proven so successful that the crisis center is seeking more veteran volunteers to participate in the effort. 

Former Marine Jamie McPherson told The Tampa Tribune that "There's a stigma in the military culture about asking for help. In the military, you have a buddy to help you back up and we're extending that hand." 

The power of a phone call isn't lost on New York Sen. Robert Ortt, who in partnership with AT&T and Niagara County Veterans Service Agency helped to donate more than 900 cell phones to Cell Phones for Soldiers last month. Niagara Frontier Publications reported that the proceeds from the recycled phones went a long way toward assuring active duty military serving overseas could call home during the holiday season using long-distance calling cards.

There has never been a sign at the Utah border telling veterans to beware, but there may as well have been. For years they've been warned that, because the state is 1 of 16 that doesn't offer its veteran residents an income tax benefit in their life after service, Utah was a poor choice of retirement destination. That may soon change, however.

"Utah was one of the states they said do not move to," Mike Dunn, an Air Force colonel, told Fox 13 in Salt Lake City. "They had one of the things to talk about of where to go and where not to go based upon financial advantages of being in certain states and being in other states."

It was Dunn who brought the issue to the attention of Rep. Lee Perry, who presented house bill 99 to the state legislature this week. The bill amends the tax code to offer military veterans a statewide exemption on retirement income. The proposal would cut $5 to $7 million out of Utah's tax revenue, but Perry takes a practical approach to the matter.

"There are people who have come here, served at Hill Air Force Base, and would like to retire in Utah," he told Utah's NPR station. "If they came back here and retired from active-duty military, they're going to get a second job, and we are going to collect income tax on those jobs, as well as they're going to spend the retirement money on buying houses and cars and all kinds of things, so we can get that money back in sales tax as well."

The Utah legislature will take Perry's measure under consideration at their next general session beginning Jan. 25.

Many groups exist to extend significant help to veterans through healthcare, financial means, or other issues they may be facing in their everyday civilian lives. However, there are some others that can help just by showing they care.

A nonprofit organization in Washington state called Quilts from the Heart aims to provide veterans across the country – and others going through difficult times – with handmade quilts, according to a report from the Colorado Springs Gazette. Since 2003, the group has provided more than 12,000 blankets to individuals and organizations nationwide, with another 500 or so quilts being given to veterans of a number of foreign wars.

"It's the least we can do for what they've done for us," Marilyn Canitz, the founder of the organization who once spent four years as a dietitian in the Army herself, told the newspaper. "Some of them cry. They say the medals are nice but the quilts they can wrap up in."

Canitz added that the group currently has 30 quilts ready to be given away in case a crisis arises, the report said. The group – currently made up of about 15 volunteers – can complete a new quilt in about 10 hours, and finishes somewhere between 10 and 15 per week as a result.

Veterans who are having difficulties of any kind should understand that there are many groups designed specifically to provide benefits for veterans in need. Whether that help is financial, medical, or otherwise, assistance is often just a little bit of research and a phone call or email away. The more veterans and these groups can do to find each other, the better off both are likely to be in the future.