Thompson doesn’t often lead with his military story. He doesn’t need to. It’s in the way he communicates, the way he leads, the way he talks about people. But his experience is not small. One of his closest friends in Iraq became entangled in a murder case. A tragedy that would later become the basis for a Hollywood film. Thompson served as a technical advisor, and in The Hurt Locker, the character “Sergeant Matt Thompson” carries his name. Behind that unusual footnote lies a more human truth: coming home is its own kind of war. “When veterans get out, they lose the team, the structure, the purpose,” says Serena Lorien, Matt’s wife and the vice president of Construction Corps. “A lot of them don’t know what to do with that loss.”
Construction Corps, in many ways, is Thompson’s answer.
It’s a company built to restore purpose, recreate structure, and provide a new kind of unit. One where accountability and camaraderie still mean something, and where every member knows their work matters.
A Return to Civilian Life, and the Weight That Came With It
48 VETERANS TRIBUTE EDITION
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