9/11 Fighter pilot now leads fight for veteran mental health

DALLAS, TEXAS (WWAY) –While many of the brave heroes were on the ground after 9/11, one man took to the skies to protect his country.

Matthew Buckley was preparing for his first day as a commercial airline pilot when he watched the second plane strike the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Buckley, then a pilot with American Airlines and a Navy Reserve fighter pilot, immediately changed course.

“I went from flying in an airliner for the first time as a first officer at American to potentially shooting an airliner down as a fighter pilot in the Navy Reserve,” Buckley said.

He swapped his work uniform for a flight suit, broke the speed limit on his way to Naval Air Station Fort Worth and taxied an armed F/A-18 to the end of the runway.

“I was filled with rage. I was angry,” Buckley said. “I’m a student of military history. This was our Pearl Harbor.”

At the time, Buckley said he did not understand the full scale of the attacks unfolding across the country.

“I didn’t know the scale of what was going on. New York, the Pentagon, hearing about an airliner missing in Pennsylvania,” he said. “I assumed it was an attack on all of our major cities.”

Days later, Buckley would fly supersonic over Texas while responding to an unresponsive aircraft.

His commercial aviation career, however, was short-lived. American Airlines let him go after he had completed only one commercial flight.

Buckley eventually shifted careers, taking the combat mindset he developed as a fighter pilot to Wall Street, where he built a successful career as an options trader.

But the experiences of his military career continued to weigh on him.

“In 15 years of flying fighters for this country, I lost 16 buddies,” Buckley said. “And then along the way, I’ve lost four F-18 brothers to suicide.”

Those losses prompted Buckley to focus on veteran suicide and mental health.

“I looked at my wife and said, ‘We gotta do something about veteran suicide,’” he said.

Buckley later traveled to Mexico for a psychedelic-assisted therapy retreat with Navy SEALs. He said the experience helped him address decades of grief and post-traumatic stress.

Today, Buckley leads the No Fallen Heroes Foundation, which provides retreat grants to veterans and first responders and advocates for alternative approaches to treating trauma and mental health conditions.

Buckley said he believes personal experiences with emerging treatments should be part of the broader conversation about how veterans and first responders receive care.

“If regular mom and pop walking down the street can, they’re saying that these compounds helped them, maybe there’s something to it then,” he said.

For more information on the No Fallen Heroes Foundation, you can head to the organization’s website