The bang of the jail cell door was enough to jolt some of the veterans from a deep sleep and catapult them back to combat.

“At night, the loud pop of the door opening would scare a lot of us. Or we’d be asleep, and we’d just wake up panicked. It’s kind of stressful,” said Hondo Underwood, a Marine Corps veteran and one of the first inmates to be part of the Jeffco jail’s veterans unit.