Prep. Cook. Plate. Repeat.

The routine of cooking food can be very healing, said Sgt. Joshua Robinson, a wounded warrior with Charlie Company who is also a student with the culinary school Le Cordon Bleu.

"It's very therapeutic, I think... to be able to focus all of your energy on something like that, and to see it disappear, and to know you're going to do all of it again," said Robinson, who is transitioning from the Army due to a back injury. "You can live for the moment; you don't have to worry about the future."

Planning, and re-planning, for his future has taken up quite a bit of time these past few years. A military policeman, Robinson was accepted into the Green to Gold program, which sent him to ROTC at the University of Wyoming to earn his commission and a criminal justice degree.

During physical training, an old back injury flared up, causing a disc in his back to herniate.

"I couldn't shrug it off; I couldn't walk it off or anything," he said.

After surgery to replace two discs with prosthetic, chronic pain and arthritis set in. No longer able to meet Army physical standards, Robinson sought a permanent profile and to join the Warrior Transition Battalion. He arrived two classes shy of earning his degree.

"It was kinda devastating because I worked so hard to get into the Green to Gold program," he said. "I had literally gone into Afghanistan with a GED and came out with 90 college credits."

Realizing he couldn't stay in the Army changed his perspective.

"I said this is a great opportunity for me; I can do whatever I want," Robinson said.

And what he wanted to do was cook and prep food.

"You can take all the things you're learning and put it right into your personal life," he said.

His personal life is where his passion for food came from. As a child, he cooked with his grandmother, and as a family man, visiting new restaurants became the highlight of family vacations.

Robinson recently got accepted to do a six-week externship in February with Coi, an exclusive San Francisco restaurant that focuses on very natural and local food.

"Coi was my very first pick of any restaurant in the world," he said. "Hopefully, I'll get offered a job at the end of the externship."

Either way, Robinson plans to stay in the culinary field.

"It's very artistic- plating food, prepping food - all of that is very artistic."