LOS ANGELES — Music has been a part of Carlton Griffin’s life, but singing became crucial for his healing after returning from the Vietnam War. At 20, he joined the U.S. Navy in 1971, two years after Martin Luther King’s assassination. After three tours overseas, Griffin returned home in 1975, where he felt the toll of war on his mental well-being, compounded by the weight of enduring racism as a Black man.

Reintegrating back into society was tough for Griffin. He faced homelessness, addiction and incarceration over the next 25 years. But in the late 2000s, he discovered hope through the New Directions Choir, a veterans’ A cappella group supported by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.