Captain Machuga is a 1998 graduate of Purdue University with a degree in Russian linguistics on an ROTC scholarship. He is a former Army Infantry/Military Intelligence officer and Airborne Ranger, having spent the majority of his service at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2003, he deployed to Iraq with 2nd Infantry Division and whittled through the seemingly endless 13-month deployment with the help of video games.
Captain Machuga left the service in 2006, where he moved to Washington DC with his wife Margo to work as a government counterterrorism analyst. Once he started to see success with his charity work, his wife and he moved back home to Pittsburgh to run Stack-Up full time.
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SUMMARY:
Captain Machuga is a 1998 graduate of Purdue University with a degree in Russian linguistics on an ROTC scholarship. He is a former Army Infantry/Military Intelligence officer and Airborne Ranger, having spent the majority of his service at Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2003, he deployed to Iraq with 2nd Infantry Division and whittled through the seemingly endless 13-month deployment with the help of video games.
Captain Machuga left the service in 2006, where he moved to Washington DC with his wife Margo to work as a government counterterrorism analyst. Once he started to see success with his charity work, his wife and he moved back home to Pittsburgh to run Stack-Up full time.
Stack-Up is here to help US, NATO and ANZAC veterans get through deployments to combat zones, unemployment, homelessness, and whatever the world can throw at us. As one, together.
The organization sends care packages filled with video gaming and nerd goodness, delivered to veterans deployed to combat zones, humanitarian missions, recovering in military hospitals, or even to bases stateside in support of any number of family readiness missions. And it’s not just about having fun: scientific studies show video gaming has been tied to helping veterans deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, stress, even help with pain relief! Instead of going of considering self destructive things, they are distracted in a fun and entertaining way to get them preoccupied.
Stack-Up hand-picks deserving veterans and pays for them to attend life-changing video game and geek culture events, whether it be a Comic-Con, an Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), a Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) or even a game developer studio tour. With the help local Stacks providing support, those veterans have a weekend that they will never forget! Deserving active duty or retired veterans with an honorable discharge are eligible for this benefit.
The Stacks are a core part of the Stack-Up team, they are a living breathing extension of the passionate people behind Stack-Up.org and they want you to be a part of that mission. They are groups supporting Stack-Up locally making sure that they get to help people out within their area. They are like-minded gamers supporting veterans.