Rejections and waitlists from colleges. A lack of interest from corporate America. Oh, and a severe combat injury that derailed his military career and required extensive medical care and recovery.

But Flike persevered through everything, landed a job that allows him to use his leadership skills and launched a blog to help his fellow vets.

“I realized my recovery was hard, but it was still better than others’,” Flike said. “This blog allowed me to help others one-on-one and share how I dealt with hard times.”

Flike enlisted in the Army in 2007, becoming a Green Beret after two years of Special Forces training.

But Flike’s world was turned upside down during a 2011 deployment to Afghanistan, when he was shot in the stomach.

“They could barely read my MRI. There was so much damage,” he said.

His stomach was cut open from right below his sternum to below his belly button. His left leg was paralyzed, his spine was fractured and 20 percent of his colon was removed.

In February 2012, Flike had surgery at the Mayo Clinic that led to an incision into the left side of his stomach. There was a cut from the bottom of his ankle to three-fourths of the way to his thigh, leaving him with no feeling in his left leg and 40 inches of scars.

“About 18 months after the surgery, I had full extension back in my leg,” he said, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to continue his service anymore.

When he came home from the hospital, his wife gave him a book: “How to Get into the Top MBA Programs.”

Flike had thought about going to business school while he was serving, and after a hard-fought recovery, he saw it as the light at the end of a tunnel.

He applied to Harvard’s schools of business and government, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was rejected from both Harvard institutions and waitlisted at MIT.

Flike said he received tremendous support throughout his recovery from a lot of people – including some he didn’t even know – and that gave him motivation to push through.

“I wanted to do everything I possibly could to achieve my long-term goals. I told myself I would celebrate the small milestones to avoid getting discouraged. I didn’t want to let down the people who helped me.”

Flike eventually got into MIT and was later accepted into a master’s degree program at Harvard.

Although Flike was attending renowned universities, he struggled to land an internship. He had the “incredibly humbling experience” of being rejected by 16 out of the 17 companies he interviewed with.

“If 16 out of 17 say no, then it’s not them, it’s you,” he said. This made Flike think about how he presented himself at interviews. “I needed to do a better job of explaining what I’d done in the past as a Green Beret to someone who had never been in the military.”

He persevered and eventually landed internships with Amazon and then Goldman Sachs, the latter leading to a full-time position.

In 2013, Flike started a blog called “Wounded by War” to share his story with others who were in the same position as him. Flike said his suffering became bearable when he understood that he could “take the darkest periods of my life and use it to help oher people.”

Flike’s top advice for vets trying to land a corporate job?

“Learn how to translate your resume so that somebody outside of the military completely understands what you’ve done and what you bring to the table.”

The biggest strength Flike said former military members have is their ability to operate in high-stress environments, which is something people don’t normally think of.

While working at Goldman Sachs, Flike said he learned a lot about business and markets. But what he wanted to do was lead, motivate and mentor others. That desire led him to Threat Stack, a cyber security firm in Boston employing almost 150 people.

“I talked about my past and everything I went through and how I wanted to lead and mentor. They made a position for me – director of strategic projects.”

Flike’s position involves a lot of project management, which includes gathering and allotting resources. “I’m quarterbacking a lot of projects to ensure they make it to the end zone.”

In addition to managing projects, Flike has also made a big impact heading the company’s culture committee, said Brian Ahern, CEO of Threat Stack. “He’s someone people go to when they have a concern and he’s a trusted individual who has the executive team’s and CEO’s ear.”

Ahern said he almost hired Flike right on the spot.

“Based on his experiences, I saw that he’s able to overcome any obstacle that comes his way.”

Decades ago, Logan bought three hair salons in Texas, as part of the Command Performance franchise brand. But Logan quickly began noticing problems. Logan said the franchisor was opening locations even though store owners did not want them open.

Nearly three years later, the entire franchise was bankrupt.

“This was a good way for me to gain knowledge of franchising and how to operate the system,” Logan said in an interview.

Armed with that knowledge of what to do — and what not to do — Logan would go on to start his own hair salon franchise. Now, Sport Clips is perhaps the nation’s best-known salon for men and boys.

“I always had a clear picture in mind,” he said. “My goal was set — I wanted to be successful, get a job and continue learning. I did what I needed to reach my goal.”

Born in Sumter, South Carolina, Logan attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his bachelor’s degree in engineering.

It was 1969 and the Vietnam War was raging. Logan didn’t have to worry about getting drafted — he had a deferment through his job — but he decided to join the military anyway, after his friends started getting drafted.

“I went down to an Air Force base and talked to a recruiter. I decided to join the Air Force and thought pilot training would be more fun than engineering.”

He served as aircraft commander, separating from the military in 1976 but staying on with the Air Force Reserve after that.

Logan attended the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania after leaving the Air Force and then began working at Price Waterhouse & Co., a consulting firm now known as PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“I know I needed additional education to be a in a company or business. Being at a consulting firm also gave me a good foundation on what I required in business.”

Logan started Sport Clips in 1993, sensing an unmet need for hair salons that cater to men and boys.

“I saw that places for men and boys to get haircuts were lacking. Traditional barber shops were closing, and salons were more catering to women.”

Today, Sport Clips has 1,770 stores across the U.S. and in five provinces in Canada.

Mike Runyan, the chief talent officer at Sport Clips, said Logan talks to everyone and is committed to his vision. “He wants to be out and connect with people at the stores who are doing the hard work.”

Runyan, who served in the Marine Corps from 1989 to 1997, met Logan about a year ago, when he was working in human resources at another company. Runyan wasn’t sure what his role would be but after looking into Logan and the company, Runyan found it appealing.

“All military members have an unspoken bond. We’ve walked the same dirt. I looked at Gordon’s background and how much he gives back to the community, and I was amazed.”

Runyan said Logan is someone who remembers everything, and he admires his attention to detail.

“If you want to go and talk to him about something, you better go in with facts and data. Even six months from now, he will remember what you told him,” Runyan said.

Logan also gives back to the veteran community.

“Every year we work with (Sport Clips) Help a Hero Scholarship and sponsor veterans to go back to school and get an education. We’ve raised and sponsored a total of $4 million for education benefits,” Runyan said.

Going into the business industry can be tough if there aren’t proper preparations made beforehand, and Logan said he has seen too many people, both young and old, start a business and fail because they had no experience or knowledge about the industry.

“Business is a different world than the military. You either need to further your education or work with a company where you can learn.”

But when time came for Hall to transition back to civilian life, Hall blazed an unexpected trail all his own, with a stop at one of the world’s most prestigious universities, help from some finance bigwigs and the transformation of an off-handed idea into a business that has become a pioneering digital verification platform.

Hall, a recipient of two Bronze Star medals, began his service in the Army in 2004 as a second lieutenant in the infantry and later attended ranger school. He also served as a battalion reconnaissance platoon leader where he led 450 combat patrols through Iraq without any casualties in his platoon.

Hall decided to leave the military in 2008 after feeling like he wasn’t making the impact he hoped to.

“I felt frustrated with the lack of strategy and thought that I would make a bigger impact in business where I can have a team and solve practical problems,” Hall said.

Hall decided to pursue an MBA degree and when it was time to apply to universities, Hall’s battalion commander told him the only way he would get a letter of recommendation was if he applied to Harvard. “He told me to apply to the best of the best if I’m going to do this.”

So that’s what he did.

“Harvard accepted me, which was great, but I struggled initially,” he said. It was hard for him to find a sense of purpose after leaving the military, but Hall said being at Harvard and following his entrepreneurial passion helped him overcome those struggles.

Hall didn’t plan on being a tech entrepreneur or working in the digital arena. While attending Harvard, however, he noticed companies that were trying to give benefits to veterans had an elaborate and tedious process to verify the veterans.

“Microsoft was doing e-learning vouchers for veterans but they asked veterans to bring in identification paperwork” establishing their veteran status, Hall said. He noted the irony in Microsoft having to resort to old-fashioned stacks of paper to approve vets for high-tech digital training.

“These companies were trying to verify vets on their own and it was a hassle,” he said. “We decided to do PayPal for digital identity where we can tie identification and verification together in one place.”

In 2010, Hall started the company ID.me, a digital identification platform where individuals can verify who they are online and receive discounts and benefits if they are part of groups like first responders, the military, students or teachers.

Based in McLean, Virginia, ID.me employs nearly 200 employees and is used by more than 6 million individuals and 200 partners, including federal agencies, health care organizations, nonprofits and retailers.

Having a good mentor was crucial to Hall’s successful transition. He worked with Kelly Perdew, who took Hall under his wing and helped him learn more about entrepreneurship.

Perdew, also a veteran, is the co-founder and managing general partner at Moonshots Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage tech companies and leans more to those founded by veterans.

The two met after David Tisch, an investor in Hall’s company, met Perdew at a seed investing event in New York in 2010. Tisch told Hall he thought Perdew would be a great mentor to him.

“Blake talked to me and flawlessly executed what he wanted to do with his company,” Perdew said. “We had six to seven phone calls over the course of two months before I invested, but I gained more and more confidence in him because he was able to successfully execute his vision.”

Perdew said one of the qualities he admired most about Hall was his ability to quickly implement changes to his initial business plan. “There were some flaws in his plan but I as I would suggest fixes, he would immediately talk to his team and make those changes.”

ID.me started out as TroopSwap, which was exclusively for service members and veterans to receive benefits. TroopSwap became ID.me in 2013 after creating verification services for teachers, students and first responders.

“We started with vets but we reached out to nonprofits and learned that verification was not just a problem for the military community but it was affecting groups like students and first responders as well.”

Hall said being in the military taught him the qualities of great leadership, and the experiences are what helped him become successful in his business.

“I don’t think there is any other institution that would have taught me responsibility and leadership. I learned how to work with a team under hard circumstances and this translated to my business.”