Melvin Gatewood, a native of Columbus who now lives in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, grew up in a family of service.
His mother was a social worker who worked primarily in the Starkville schools, where he received most of his education, before going to West Lowndes High School and graduating in 2003.
“I just enjoy what I do,” Gatewood said during an interview in Starkville. “… When I think about service, I even think about my grandmother. When I didn’t want to go to school, my mom would leave me with my grandmother. Then I had to go to the nursing home with her. After she got finished seeing everybody at the nursing home, she would start going to people’s rooms that she didn’t even know.
“I was like, ‘You don’t even know these people.’ She’d say, ‘If you were in here, you would want somebody to come and see you,’” he continued. “All of those things in life, I guess they kind of played a part with me wanting to do what I do.”
As a peer support specialist with the Department of Veteran Affairs in Nashville, Tennessee, Gatewood continues serving.
“I just got finished talking with a veteran and he was just like, ‘Melvin, I just wanted to talk. It’s not anything just going on.’ … And so that’s what I do,” he said.
“It could be a 20-year-old veteran who just came out of Fort Campbell, or it could be an 85-year-old veteran who just wants to talk about the news because his grandkids are not calling and checking in on them.
“It seems so small, but it’s those small things that are missing,” he said. “Doing those things shows someone the simple fact that someone cares.”
During high school, Gatewood enlisted in the Mississippi Army National Guard. On April 19, 2005, he was injured on a convoy mission in Iraq when the vehicle he was driving ran over an improvised explosive device.
This weekend, Gatewood honored Staff Sgt. Tommy S. Little, who sat behind Gatewood in that vehicle and died 10 days later due to his injuries, as part of the mission of his nonprofit, Operation Continue Service.
Because the Saturday forecast called for rain, Gatewood went to Aliceville, Alabama, to start a 3-mile memorial ruck — walking with a weighted backpack.
Besides the nation’s flag, they carried a photo of Little, so people could see who they were honoring.
Saturday, Gatewood went to Aliceville’s old Army National Guard building to finish the ruck and to present items to the family and Mayor Terrense E. Windham.
“We wanted to do it for individuals who died in the line of duty,” Gatewood said of the memorial rucks. “We know so often on Memorial Day they’ll be recognized, but we want to recognize them all year round in some type of way.”
Gatewood is the husband of West Point native Sgt. 1st Class Shalonda Gatewood, who is an active-duty U.S. Army National Guard member. They have a 4-year-old daughter.
When he’s not working on his nonprofit, Gatewood also serves as a volunteer peer support group leader in the Wounded Warrior Project, a veterans service organization.
In 2016, Gatewood enrolled in school. He completed his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Strayer University close to when the pandemic started.
He said that it was hard to find work in the criminal justice field at the time, so he continued his current career and started working on creating Operation Continue Service.
“I ended up going back to the VA, but I felt like God wanted me to be there,” he said.
Last month, the nonprofit received its federal recognition as a 501(c)(3) and work was completed to have it recognized in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi.
Operation Continue Service supports the veterans community by performing memorial rucks and recovery rucks and hosting veteran coffee socials.
Memorial rucks honor and remember fallen military personnel who died in the line of duty. Recovery rucks bring awareness to veteran suicide and mental health issues.
“The rucks and weight we’re carrying symbolize the trauma, the issues that a lot of military personnel are carrying now,” Gatewood said.
Operation Continue Service will host a 20-mile recovery ruck, starting in Starkville and ending in Columbus, on May 7. Gatewood plans to carry his ruck, which will contain six bricks — about 30 pounds total, a flag and a vest with labels of different mental health problems veterans and active duty personnel face, such as depression, anxiety, military sexual trauma and post traumatic stress disorder.
The ruck will end at the Lowndes County Soccer Complex, where Operation Continue Service and other veterans service organizations will participate in a resource fair from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event will be hosted in conjunction with the VFW Inaugural Day of Service #StillServing.
“What we want to see with those is veterans coming together talking and receiving resources,” Gatewood said. “Later on, I would like to incorporate support groups.
“This (veteran coffee socials) is not really considered a support group,” he continue. “It’s more so the family member of a veteran could come, the child of a veteran could come, and they’re just sitting there, socializing and receiving information.”
Gatewood hopes to share resources to underserved veterans in rural communities.
Among his recent accomplishments include being recognized by NHL’s Nashville Predators and the Tennessee Titans for his work.
Gatewood was also selected as the inaugural Wounded Warrior Project Rusty Baggett Peer Leader of the year award recipient in 2021. He was chosen by DeAndre Hopkins, USAA and the Wounded Warrior Project to attend Super Bowl LVI.
Recently, Gatewood visited his alma mater of West Lowndes and spoke to Air Force ROTC students.
“I was honored that they allowed me to come out to speak to the students,” he said. “I think I have achieved some success, but at the same time I feel that just giving back and letting them know that the world is your oyster. Don’t just, just go and live life. Try to try to do the right thing.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 46 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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