Former inmate helps others keep their lives on track

Thelbert “Thad” Lawson walked out of prison on Jan. 12, 2007. After 16 and a half years behind bars, he was more than a free man. He was a better man.

Before leaving the confines of the Twin Rivers Corrections Unit of the Monroe Correctional Complex, Lawson was already well on his way to a new life.

If his name sounds familiar, you might recall meeting him. It was in this column, in September 2006. I wrote about Lawson being honored as Incarcerated Veteran of the Year by the Vietnam Veterans of America, a national organization.

Since his 2007 release, Lawson has moved to Wenatchee, near Cashmere where he grew up. At 43, he’ll soon graduate from Wenatchee Valley College.

There, he isn’t just studying. Lawson helps other veterans as president of Student Transitional Assistance for Veterans’ Education, a group known on campus as STAVE.

“I really got involved with STAVE,” Lawson said last week. “Here are kids the same age I was coming home from war, doing the same things I was — out drinking, with a bad attitude. I really do not want them to do the 16 years or more that I did. It’s absolute dead time.”

Although he was honored in Monroe by the Vietnam veterans group for helping incarcerated veterans, Lawson is too young to have served in that war. He was in the Army in Operation Desert Storm.

Sharing few details of his crime, Lawson said in 2006 that he “fell” after returning from duty in the Persian Gulf war. In 1992, he was convicted in Chelan County of solicitation to commit murder in the first degree. The case, he said, centered on a plot to kill his former wife.

Lawson now believes the root of his trouble was war-related post-traumatic stress disorder. “I had never heard of PTSD until I was put in prison,” he said. “I didn’t know the symptoms. I wasn’t sleeping. I was self-medicating with alcohol. I’m not saying I condone anything.

“Now I talk to these guys coming into the group. When they get home, they’re all aware of PTSD. They’re screened five times before they’re released. It’s awesome.”

“I’m very proud of what he’s doing,” said Dennis McNamara, a volunteer at the Monroe prison complex who worked with Lawson there.

McNamara, 66, works with veterans and in a release preparation program at the prison complex. A member of the Snohomish Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, he started volunteering 13 years ago through his church.

He was at the prison’s front gate with Lawson’s parents the day Thad Lawson was released. “Dennis bought me breakfast,” Lawson said.

McNamara, who lives in Monroe, is trained by the state Department of Corrections to help families and former inmates with challenges that come with freedom. He meets with family members and inmates to weigh expectations, which often don’t match.

“An inmate may say he’s not going to do anything the first 30 days except lay on the couch and go fishing,” McNamara said. “Yet the family will think, ‘No, you’re looking for work on the first day.’ We help them come up with a game plan.”

Even something a simple as picking cereal from packed supermarket shelves can be overwhelming. In prison, McNamara said, “they are not allowed choices.”

For Lawson, who had no online access behind bars, technology has been daunting. “I was arrested at the age of 24. I got out at 42,” he said. “The Internet — I’m still trying to figure out that one.”

While in prison, he married a woman from Cashmere. His wife, Karen, goes with him to counseling. “She’s a real positive in my life,” Lawson said.

He is driven to help veterans stay on the right path. The veterans group uses a house owned by Wenatchee Valley College. “Guys use it as a time out, a break area between classes, and a study lounge. If we have a veteran with a problem in class, we get them a tutor,” said Lawson, whose work with the program was recently featured in The Wentatchee World newspaper.

In Monroe, McNamara is also driven to help. He offers a hand to men who are otherwise feared and scorned.

“I’m never intimidated. I had a wild side in my life one time,” McNamara said. “These people in the worst part of their life, to reach out and help, they become valuable citizens again.

“I like to say I have several sons throughout the state,” he said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.