As a combat-wounded Veteran, Kevin Rumley faced a long road between leaving the Marine Corps and where he is today. Now, as the program director for the Buncombe County Veterans Treatment Court (VTC), Kevin applies his own lived experience overcoming addiction to help justice-involved Veterans navigate their own recovery journeys.
Kevin joined the NCIOM’s Task Force on Veterans’ Health to “take the knowledge gained, bring it back, and empower the clients I support every day.” In an interview with the NCIOM, Kevin discussed his personal history, the Buncombe County VTC, and his hopes for the Task Force on Veterans’ Health.
After losing friends and sustaining a serious injury as a Marine in 2004, Kevin underwent 32 surgeries followed by more than a year on opioids for pain management. He became addicted, something he said “destroyed every part of my life.”
Kevin credits Suboxone as a critical component of his recovery. The medication for opioid use disorder (a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone) partially attaches to opioid receptors in the brain, helping prevent withdrawal symptoms and reducing the effects of other opioids [1].
Kevin was prescribed Suboxone while living in Asheville. “It was like this miracle medication,” he said. Receiving this drug helped him get back on his feet. He enrolled at the University of North Carolina Asheville and began accessing other Veteran resources available to him.
Now that he works with Veterans who need the same support he needed, Kevin leans on his experience to help others connect with the resources they need to get back on their feet.
Veterans face unique challenges when they return to civilian life. Kevin said that many of the qualities that serve people while they are in the military stand in stark contrast to what can help people succeed in civilian life.
“All these values that you had that served you well, this combat mindset, you need the opposite of them as a civilian,” he said. “You need vulnerability, you need an openness and sensitivity to others… I think that isn’t fully understood.”
As the Buncombe County VTC program director, Kevin is a part of a growing push nationwide to provide alternative pathways for Veterans who enter the justice system. The VTC system focuses on vocational training, housing stability, and access to other basic needs to “get at the underlying issues that led to a Veteran’s criminal behavior.”
Kevin said that the VTC’s goal is to get at the root of an issue, address it, and set Veterans up to find a sense of purpose and access the tools they need to navigate life.
Step 1: No wrong door.
“We always say that there is no wrong door to enter the Veterans Court,” said Kevin. He said the best options a person facing charges have are to talk to their attorney or to reach out to their district attorney’s office to ask for more resources.
There are currently VTCs in 14 North Carolina counties [2].
According to Kevin, Buncombe County’s VTC will take Veterans from anywhere in North Carolina as long as they are willing to relocate for the duration of their treatment program.
Step 2: Screening
VTC programming is intense. According to Kevin, these courts are meant for “high-risk and high-need individuals,” not folks facing a first-time, low-level charge. During their screening process, VTC staff are looking for people who have been in the legal system repeatedly, who have tried other interventions and failed, and who are ready to engage in an approximately 2-year program.
Step 3: “Pleading in” and starting the program
Not all VTCs require a pre-program plea. At the Buncombe County VTC, participants take a plea and are on probation for the duration of their program. Once in, participants in Buncombe County go through five phases over a minimum of 16 months. Program work includes community service, a comprehensive clinical assessment, and connection to a volunteer Veteran mentor, something Kevin calls a VTC’s “special sauce.” These personal connections provide Veterans with personal relationships and support as they walk through the phases of their recovery.
“It is the antithesis of the justice system as we know it,” Kevin said. “This is all about relationship, community building, and creating a sense of hope.”
Kevin sees a pattern of Veterans who go through the VTC program wanting to give back, often volunteering as mentors for others.
“It’s just this cyclical nature of healing,” he said.
On top of the personal benefits a VTC can offer, an added plus is the program’s bottom line. According to Kevin, the Buncombe VTC's cost savings are significant compared to incarceration.
“35,000 less [dollars per person], just to go through our program and get a better outcome,” he said.
Kevin joined the NCIOM’s Task Force on Veterans’ Health in 2025. The task force, which is working toward a series of recommendations to improve the provision and navigation of care, develop the health workforce, and address the behavioral health care needs of Veterans, is set to release its full report in the fall of 2026.
“I was drawn to the NCIOM really to expand my understanding of the resources available to Veterans,” he said. “What probably kept me engaged is just the level of stakeholder expert representation that’s at the table at this task force.”
_______________________________________________
Written by
Brady Blackburn
Director of Communications, NCIOM
Featuring an interview with
Kevin Rumley
Program Director, Buncombe County Veterans Treatment Court
_______________________________________________
References