23Protocol was built at the intersection of three worlds: combat deployments, trauma therapy rooms, and late nights in front of code and research papers.
I’m Thomas James — a combat veteran, licensed clinical social worker, and AI researcher. For years, I watched the same pattern repeat:
Veterans, first responders, and high-achievers walked into therapy carrying loads that didn’t fit into neat diagnostic codes. They weren’t broken. Their nervous systems were doing their best under impossible conditions.
In the clinic, we had tools—CBT, ACT, polyvagal theory, behavioral activation. On paper, they’re effective. But for people who think in missions, ops, and systems, the language often felt abstract or soft.
The Protocol started as a quiet experiment: translate the best of clinical psychology into operational language, field-test it with real humans under real load, and turn it into a system they could actually run.
The Protocol is my answer to a problem I watched for years: we were asking people under load to “open up” and “just talk about it,” without giving them an operating picture or a daily system.
23Protocol is one piece of a larger project: using science, story, and technology to save lives and strengthen families.
The Protocol is the operating manual. The app is the daily cockpit. The convoy is the support structure that keeps you from drifting back into isolation.