Bridgeville veteran featured in WQED documentary

When he returned home from U.S. Marine Corps service in 2005, Bridgeville resident Devlin Robinson embarked on traditional paths to success, pursuing a college degree and starting his own company.
“Doing everything that everyone says you’re supposed to do. And I wasn’t happy,” he recalled. “At the same time, my friends started passing away from drug overdoses or suicide – I attribute all of this to post-traumatic stress – and car accidents, too.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac
Devlin Robinson served as keynote speaker for the Upper St. Clair Veterans Day observance on Nov. 12.
Recognizing a need to help fellow veterans, he became involved with applicable organizations, including Semper Fi Odyssey, which is designed to get participants ready for life after military service while preparing them for success.
Through that group, he met retired WQED host and Vietnam War veteran Chris Moore, who in turn recommended Robinson’s participation in the station’s recently released documentary “… after war” on the PBS affiliate in Pittsburgh.
Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of returning veterans, the production is intended to showcase Pittsburgh-area men and women who have found success after service.
The documentary actually opens with Robinson’s segment, showing him on a run along the Peters Township portion of the Montour Trail, the repurposing of which from a railroad line he compares to veterans repurposing their lives.
“As a veteran returning home, you never cease from exploring yourself, your skills or your talents,” he says in the video. “You are best fitted to take those aspects that made you a good soldier, sailor, airman or Marine, and use them to succeed in other occupations. In that way, you can begin to truly know yourself for the first time.”

A photo featured in “… after war” shows Devlin Robinson getting some rest during his service in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Robinson’s successes include earning his bachelor’s degree in business management and international business from Robert Morris University, and his master of business administration from the University of Pittsburgh. His company, Veterans Medical Technology LLC, leases surgical lasers to hospitals.
With a grandfather, brother and cousins having served in the Marine Corps, Robinson joined in July 2001, shortly after his graduation from Central Catholic High School.
“I was a lifeguard at the South Park wave pool, and I said to my recruiter, ‘I’m ready to sign up, but I want to finish out the summer and have a month to work out,'” he said, and so the date of his leaving for recruit training was set for Oct. 15.
In the meantime, he was the first patient in the office for a dental appointment on Sept. 11.
“I went out to see if I had a co-pay or anything, and the news showed the first tower was hit,” Robinson said. “I drove home and turned on the TV, and saw the second plane hit the tower.”
That day, he called his recruiter and said he wanted to be assigned to the Marines infantry, so as to be on the front lines. He proceeded to serve two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
While overseas, he decided to learn more about the histories, cultures and languages of the nations in which he was serving. Robinson said he was inspired to do so while in Kuwait, just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“There was a guy driving a dump truck through the base, and he was Kuwaiti,” he recalled. “After Sept. 11, you thought that everybody of Middle Eastern descent hated America, hated the military. I remember kind of looking at him, and he just looked at me and smiled and raised his hand, like ‘what’s up?'”
He observed further encouragement from the people of Kuwait as the invasion began.
“While Saddam Hussein was launching Scud missiles into Kuwait, they drove out to the highway and were waving American and Kuwaiti flags. They were getting out of their cars and cheering us,” he said. “There was a Kuwaiti soldier at the border of Iraq, and he jumps out of the booth and starts yelling, ‘Go get ’em, my friends! Go get ’em!'”
After seeing action in some heavy military operations, including the battles of Fallujah in Iraq, Robinson returned home with some perspective to offer about what he and others face in those types of situations.
“The human being is designed to survive. So whenever you’re going to warfare, your brain adapts to get you to survive. When you come back, your brain is still in that mode to look out for bombs on the side of the road and look out for suspicious people,” he explained. “And it takes a while when you’re home and you’re in that safe environment to kind of get rid of that extreme survival mechanism.
“That’s why you gravitate toward other veterans who have gotten out and are transitioning well,” he continued, “so that they can know where you’re coming from and you can say, ‘It’s OK. You have to forget about that stuff and work your way through it.'”
For more information about WQED’s “… after war” documentary, which debuted Nov. 8, go online to www.wqed.org/afterwar.

A scene from “… after war” shows Devlin Robinson running in Peters Township.