In 1990, I raised my right hand and joined the United States Air Force.
For the next twenty years, my world revolved around discipline, precision, and responsibility. I worked as an Aircraft Electrical and Environmental Systems specialist, maintaining some of the most complex aircraft systems in the military. Every wire, every sensor, every system mattered. When those aircraft left the runway, people’s lives depended on the work we did on the ground.
The Air Force taught me how to solve problems, how to work under pressure, and how to never quit until the mission was complete.
But life has a way of delivering challenges no training prepares you for.
In 2009, I lost my wife to Lupus.
At 38 years old, I became a widower.
Two years later, I retired from the Air Force. The career that had given my life structure and purpose was suddenly gone. What followed were some of the hardest years of my life. I battled PTSD, major depression, and the overwhelming feeling that I had lost the mission that once defined me.
For a long time, I was just trying to survive.
Eventually, I decided to start rebuilding. I went back to school using my Post-9/11 GI Bill and committed myself to finishing a degree. I graduated with honors and a 3.76 GPA, proving to myself that I was still capable of pushing forward.
But the bigger question remained:
What was my purpose now?
During my time in college, my wife Tara asked me a simple but life-changing question:
“What do you actually want to do for the rest of your life?”
The truth was, I didn’t want to sit behind a desk designing things. What I had always loved was working with my hands, solving real problems, and helping people directly. That’s when the idea started forming.
Starting a business wasn’t something I thought was possible. No one in my family had ever done it before, and the idea felt overwhelming. But Tara believed in it before I did. She helped put the plan on paper and pushed me to take the first step.
On February 22, 2022, Rent A US Vet was commissioned.
At the beginning it was just me, my tools, and the skills I had built over a lifetime of fixing things. The jobs were small. Installing doors. Fixing flooring. Painting rooms. Hanging attic staircases. Replacing mailboxes. Helping homeowners solve problems that were keeping them up at night.
But something powerful happened through that work.
I realized that the same things that made me successful in the Air Force — attention to detail, pride in craftsmanship, and doing the job right the first time — were exactly what people were looking for in their homes.
More importantly, the work helped me heal.
Working with my hands gave my mind a place to focus. Completing a project gave me the same sense of accomplishment I used to feel completing a mission in the military. And the trust people placed in me when they invited me into their homes reminded me that I still had something valuable to offer.
Rent A US Vet became more than a business.
It became my mission.
Today, my goal is bigger than fixing homes. My vision is to create opportunities for other veterans who are fighting the same invisible battles I fought — PTSD, depression, trauma, and the struggle to find purpose after service.
When veterans work with their hands, build something real, and see the results of their effort, it restores confidence and pride that many of us lose when we leave the military.
We are warriors who left the battlefield, but many of us still fight battles in our own minds.
Rent A US Vet exists to give those warriors a new mission.
One project at a time.
One veteran at a time.
One life rebuilt at a time.
W/R
Rob Curran
U.S. Air Force Tech Sergeant, Ret.
Founder, Rent a US Vet