Mixed Martial Arts hero is veteran with PTSD

Chad Robichaux: The MMA Hero You Haven't Heard of but Need to Know

By Matt Saccaro

There's Brian Stann and Tim Kennedy, but there's also Chad Robichaux.

Robichaux served in the United States Marine Corps, going on eight tours of duty in the US's ongoing struggles against terrorism.

However, he's far more than a regular soldier.

He's a hero—not for guns-blazing or Ramboesque exploits (although I'm sure he has many such escapades to boast of) but rather, for his humanity and generosity.

When soldiers fight a war abroad, returning to regular civilian life is almost like a war in and of itself, only the battlefields are varied. Instead of deserts, mountains and cities, the battles are fought in the mind, in the house and in the office—in large part due to a growing threat to soldiers: post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

It is this foe that Chad Robichaux seeks to vanquish.

But this wasn't clear to him when he first left the service.

No, his road to being an admirable hero of a different sort started when he used his considerable martial arts skills to found profitable Gracie Barra gyms.

"I did eight tours of duty. When I came back from the last one I was diagnosed with PTSD. That was what kind of lead me to open my gyms in the first place," Robichaux told Bleacher Report.
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