When Eric Greitens visited fellow Navy SEALs who had been wounded in Iraq, one of their worries about post-military life surprised him.

“Every single one of them said he wanted to find a way to continue to serve,” Greitens said. “They needed to know that when they came home, we saw them as vital.”

In the weeks after that 2007 visit to the military hospital in Bethesda, Md., Greitens founded the Mission Continues, a group that helps veterans make the often rocky transition to civilian life by placing them in six-month stints with nonprofit agencies that have a high sense of civic purpose.