LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) – “All of a sudden the atmosphere changed and it just rocked us,” said Jacob Skriba.

Skriba is an Army veteran from Lansing.

In 2010 he went on a supply mission in downtown Baghdad when his truck hit an IED.

It’s a moment that would change everything.

“To believe or think you’re are going to die and truly believe it. Is a life-changing experience.”

The attack left him and several of his team injured. Skriba still feels the pain today.

“I’ve also suffered from strokes, closed head injuries, burns,” said Scriba.

But he says it was the stress of that day that left a mark unseen.

“The feeling of helplessness, hopelessness.”

Those feelings led him on a personal journey and one that started a new mission.

“To find something that I loved, something that I enjoyed, something that made me happy on a day-to-day basis.”

He found that healing in an unexpected place through LEGO.

“I was given you know this opportunity to heal through Legos, through something I loved.”

So piece by piece his work gave him his own peace while helping him rebuild his own life.

“Like our lives, LEGO is one brick or one step at a time and that’s very very freeing and very therapeutic.”

It’s work that inspired him to start his own organization called Bullets to Bricks. Today he gives out free LEGO sets to veterans with the hope they can do to others what it did for him.

“It’s such a wonderful medium for me to get out there and show other veterans that there are other answers. It’s not one size fits all,” said Scriba.

Skriba says too many times, veterans feel alone.

“That this is the best thing for the world if I am not here and if I can stop that with a Lego brick I’m going to throw as many Lego bricks as I possibly can.”

A mission that he says is just getting started. For ways you can get involved there is a link here.