Resources for veterans can be sketchy at best. Finding a way to reach veterans and stay technologically current was a challenge Wilson Feliz was ready to address.

Chapter3Five is an app created by Feliz, a Bethlehem resident and Army veteran who retired in 2019.

“The number three suggests communication, while five indicates a new direction,” he said about the app’s name, which launched in late August with just 40 users to start. “Put it together and ‘Chapter3Five’ marks the beginning of communication in a new direction.”

Feliz’s experience in the Army made him see a need for a very specific way for individuals to tell their story and pass it on, or receive objective, nonbiased feedback.

Chapter3Five was created in a quiet moment with Feliz pondering two thoughts everyone experiences at some time – loneliness, and death.

“I thought to myself, so many veterans and so many people grieve and are lonely. A lot of the suicide rates among veterans come from the fact that they feel like they’re alone, and they have nobody to talk to,” Feliz said.

According to the 2024 Pennsylvania Veteran Suicide Data Sheet, the suicide rate among veterans ages 18–34 was 42.2 per 100,000 in Pennsylvania, compared with 45.5 nationally. This age group had the highest number of suicides.

According to Department of Veterans Affairs Vocational Counselor Joseph Bryan Barbato this is precisely the age group an app would appeal to.

“It could be very beneficial for the younger generation of veterans,” Barbato said. “They’re generally more comfortable with technology and may be more open to using an app as a way to connect with others and find support.”

Chapter3Five is available on the App Store and Google Play.

It walks users through 45 questions about their own life, in their own words, at their own pace, so their story survives them, and it gives the people left behind someone to talk to at the hours when grief does not keep business hours. It is text on purpose, never a cloned voice.

“After you answer all 45 questions, a code is then given to you and then shared with family and friends who will then inherit their way onto their application,” Feliz said

Bethlehem based Essential Grace Founder/CEO Damien McCaulley, reviewed the need for chapter3five and suggests “there is a great need for therapeutic services with a focus on individual needs, such as chapter3five.”

Essential Grace provides compassionate grief support services in Bethlehem, focusing on creating a safe environment for individuals to process their emotions and find healing.

Feliz is quick to remind people that the app is not a replacement for therapy.

For military families who’ve lost a loved one in the line of duty, to even a child who died prematurely, Feliz said Chapter3Five can make death less about a person dying and more about how they lived.