1 00:00:08,684 --> 00:00:11,845 Mike, this is such a tremendous pleasure. 2 00:00:11,905 --> 00:00:16,847 And what the audience don't know is that we have been in concentric circles for a 3 00:00:16,847 --> 00:00:20,909 long time, but never met face to face or virtually. 4 00:00:21,449 --> 00:00:24,711 So I'll share my background so everybody knows. 5 00:00:24,831 --> 00:00:30,783 Actually, the military committee for the rotary that I was part of is a big 6 00:00:30,783 --> 00:00:31,894 partner. 7 00:00:32,768 --> 00:00:33,950 with your organization. 8 00:00:33,950 --> 00:00:39,206 So we've been huge fans of your work for a long time. 9 00:00:39,387 --> 00:00:42,601 And with no further ado, tell us what you do, Mike. 10 00:00:42,601 --> 00:00:44,994 Tell us what the organization is and what they 11 00:00:45,164 --> 00:00:50,004 Well, the Warrior Bonfire Program, and to tell you what we do, I kind of got to tell 12 00:00:50,004 --> 00:00:53,844 you how we got started, because that's not what we do. 13 00:00:54,744 --> 00:00:59,384 A guy named Dan Ford, I suppose, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a guy I started my 14 00:00:59,384 --> 00:01:03,164 Army career with 40 plus years ago. 15 00:01:04,064 --> 00:01:05,516 Dan in 16 00:01:05,516 --> 00:01:12,256 to late 2012 had this idea that he wanted to take some wounded warriors on a deer. 17 00:01:12,256 --> 00:01:17,636 Tim and his brother have a nice piece of hunting property in Mississippi. 18 00:01:18,296 --> 00:01:25,536 so Dan, being who Dan is, he calls up Walter Reed and BAMC in San Antonio, all 19 00:01:25,536 --> 00:01:27,276 these big military hospitals. 20 00:01:27,276 --> 00:01:29,176 And they're like, who the hell are you? 21 00:01:29,176 --> 00:01:29,516 away. 22 00:01:29,516 --> 00:01:30,956 Don't call us again. 23 00:01:31,056 --> 00:01:34,276 And so Dan figured, well, if I'm going to do something like that, I might as well 24 00:01:34,276 --> 00:01:35,510 start a nonprofit. 25 00:01:35,510 --> 00:01:36,851 somebody to listen to. 26 00:01:36,851 --> 00:01:46,094 So we went through all that process and he also during that process ran into a 27 00:01:46,614 --> 00:01:54,457 wounded veteran, Purple Heart recipient Chuck Williams, who had been injured in a 28 00:01:54,457 --> 00:02:02,960 rocket propelled grenade attack and we call him GCC and he told Dan that, you 29 00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:03,700 know, 30 00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:06,481 First of all, we don't need to go all over the country. 31 00:02:06,481 --> 00:02:09,813 There's plenty of people in our own backyard, plenty of wounded veterans in 32 00:02:09,813 --> 00:02:13,885 our own backyard, meaning Mississippi and Louisiana. 33 00:02:14,065 --> 00:02:19,118 And then he tells Dan that, you know, I could spend all day with the counselor and 34 00:02:19,118 --> 00:02:24,731 not find the therapeutic value I could get with hanging around a bonfire with five or 35 00:02:24,731 --> 00:02:26,492 six guys that had been there. 36 00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:34,173 So with those two things, Dan went out and brought these guys to a deer hunt. 37 00:02:34,173 --> 00:02:39,516 And all he thought he was going to do was show them a good time. 38 00:02:39,516 --> 00:02:43,387 Let them hunt and have fun together. 39 00:02:44,416 --> 00:02:48,419 But the first night, Dan and his brother Hunter are talking after everybody had 40 00:02:48,419 --> 00:02:49,420 gone to bed. 41 00:02:49,420 --> 00:02:55,224 And they're like, holy crap, there is a lot more going on here than deer hunting. 42 00:02:55,224 --> 00:03:00,288 Guys are opening up with each other, sharing with each other, advising each 43 00:03:00,288 --> 00:03:01,107 other. 44 00:03:01,729 --> 00:03:05,131 So what it turned into is what we do today. 45 00:03:06,334 --> 00:03:12,466 We take small groups of six Purple Heart recipients, those guys wounded in combat 46 00:03:12,466 --> 00:03:17,157 at the hands of the enemy, and we bring them on what we call bonfire retreats 47 00:03:17,157 --> 00:03:18,467 around the country. 48 00:03:18,467 --> 00:03:24,089 Now we base it around recreational therapy. 49 00:03:24,089 --> 00:03:30,491 There's healing in the great outdoors, know, skiing, hunting, fishing, surfing, 50 00:03:30,491 --> 00:03:33,011 kayaking, you name it, we've done it. 51 00:03:36,185 --> 00:03:40,589 And to anybody that ever questions me about a recreational therapy, that's a 52 00:03:40,589 --> 00:03:42,030 bunch of hogwash. 53 00:03:42,571 --> 00:03:45,644 I kind of tell them, hey, have you ever had a crappy day in the office and you 54 00:03:45,644 --> 00:03:49,138 went outside and walked around the parking lot a couple of times, came back feeling 55 00:03:49,138 --> 00:03:49,858 refreshed? 56 00:03:49,858 --> 00:03:51,840 That's recreational therapy. 57 00:03:52,661 --> 00:03:55,103 But what we're really doing. 58 00:03:56,158 --> 00:04:03,090 is helping these guys build support communities, fostering their healing and 59 00:04:03,090 --> 00:04:06,011 improving and saving their lives. 60 00:04:06,011 --> 00:04:09,612 there's three things we do on every bonfire retreat. 61 00:04:10,292 --> 00:04:18,774 One is typically the first night after everybody's had dinner and is settled down 62 00:04:18,774 --> 00:04:24,196 is everybody tells their story, whatever that might be. 63 00:04:24,684 --> 00:04:30,084 Now, I've probably been on 50, 60 of these things. 64 00:04:30,284 --> 00:04:37,964 And not once have I come across one where suicide wasn't at least mentioned. 65 00:04:39,144 --> 00:04:44,344 Sometimes it's, I thought about it, I contemplated it, but didn't do it. 66 00:04:44,344 --> 00:04:47,924 Sometimes it's I tried, but I failed, which is a good thing. 67 00:04:48,724 --> 00:04:52,824 And then somewhere in the middle of it, 68 00:04:53,593 --> 00:04:57,116 we conduct a coping session. 69 00:04:57,377 --> 00:05:03,084 And it's really for the guys to share how they cope with different things. 70 00:05:03,084 --> 00:05:07,047 And it doesn't matter if it's, you know, 71 00:05:07,914 --> 00:05:12,808 PT, nothing but military stuff, post -traumatic stress, TBI. 72 00:05:12,808 --> 00:05:15,250 That's usually the stuff they talk about. 73 00:05:15,250 --> 00:05:18,102 But sometimes they talk about dealing with raising children. 74 00:05:18,102 --> 00:05:22,356 Sometimes they talk about marriage, different kind of things. 75 00:05:22,356 --> 00:05:27,580 And really, it's just designed for them to gather other ideas on how to cope with 76 00:05:27,580 --> 00:05:28,301 things. 77 00:05:28,301 --> 00:05:32,444 And I'm going to give you an example of one that kind of helped me. 78 00:05:32,444 --> 00:05:36,166 I'm not a wounded veteran, but it kind of helped me in my regular life. 79 00:05:37,886 --> 00:05:40,729 And it was the first one of these sessions I was on. 80 00:05:40,729 --> 00:05:50,267 And the guy, his name is Art, and he just said he gets angry so fast anymore. 81 00:05:50,267 --> 00:05:55,511 And it happened when he got home, it wasn't before he... 82 00:05:55,788 --> 00:06:00,848 deployed and he gets so angry at people and things and all that kind of stuff and 83 00:06:00,848 --> 00:06:04,568 he learned for him to say the Lord's Prayer. 84 00:06:04,568 --> 00:06:08,488 Now he said, now sometimes I'm mad and I say it once and it works sometimes I got 85 00:06:08,488 --> 00:06:13,088 to say it 10 times but you know and that has kind of helped me a little bit. 86 00:06:13,088 --> 00:06:15,703 I don't have anger issues but with other stuff. 87 00:06:15,703 --> 00:06:16,475 Right. 88 00:06:16,646 --> 00:06:20,519 And then the last thing we do at every one is, know, where your bonfire, we have a 89 00:06:20,519 --> 00:06:21,420 bonfire. 90 00:06:21,420 --> 00:06:25,053 Now, granted, it depends on where you're at in the country, whether it's a big 91 00:06:25,053 --> 00:06:29,626 roaring fire or a very controlled campfire. 92 00:06:30,607 --> 00:06:35,081 But we retire a US flag and we do it a little differently. 93 00:06:35,081 --> 00:06:41,876 And first of all, we use an old Boy Scout ceremony and 94 00:06:42,172 --> 00:06:49,978 Rather than retiring the flag whole we prepare it into stripes red white and blue 95 00:06:49,978 --> 00:06:55,421 and everybody gets one of each and and they retire each one in honor of a fallen 96 00:06:55,421 --> 00:07:01,346 comrade a Lot of these guys when we got started we knew we were gonna have to deal 97 00:07:01,346 --> 00:07:05,599 with survivors Because a lot of guys have survivors go that should have been me not 98 00:07:05,599 --> 00:07:09,271 them Helps him kind of remember that they got to keep going on for that buddy. 99 00:07:09,271 --> 00:07:10,392 They lost 100 00:07:10,558 --> 00:07:15,569 And then the other thing that we weren't really planning on is some of these guys 101 00:07:15,569 --> 00:07:22,511 got injured, blown up, shot, whatever it was, and they got medevaced out and they 102 00:07:22,511 --> 00:07:25,402 lost a buddy in that attack and never got a chance to say goodbye. 103 00:07:25,402 --> 00:07:28,673 So we're giving them an opportunity to say goodbye. 104 00:07:28,673 --> 00:07:39,896 And what's kind of cool with it, about it, is we gather ashes from every bonfire. 105 00:07:39,980 --> 00:07:44,100 We have all these little urns and we gather ashes from every bonfire. 106 00:07:44,100 --> 00:07:48,840 Then we have a big urn that we put all those ashes in. 107 00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:54,800 We just completed 199 bonfire trips. 108 00:07:56,560 --> 00:08:00,320 So we've got ashes from all 199 mixed together. 109 00:08:00,320 --> 00:08:05,660 So we're kind of memorializing each bonfire, but we're memorializing each 110 00:08:05,660 --> 00:08:08,420 person we've honored at the bonfire. 111 00:08:10,914 --> 00:08:15,736 think that when people read about the organization at the beginning, then I 112 00:08:15,796 --> 00:08:22,999 don't think people understand how fundamentally valuable it is towards a 113 00:08:22,999 --> 00:08:24,660 process of healing. 114 00:08:48,194 --> 00:08:52,852 But you're also supporting the families, not just the veterans. 115 00:08:52,852 --> 00:09:02,647 Right, because we do spouses retreats, which mirror the retreats for Purple 116 00:09:02,647 --> 00:09:02,907 Hearts. 117 00:09:02,907 --> 00:09:06,419 The only difference is the activities might be a little different. 118 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:09,881 And then we do retreats for couples. 119 00:09:09,881 --> 00:09:10,682 Same thing. 120 00:09:10,682 --> 00:09:18,916 It mirrors, but we do more, we do some outdoor activities, but we do a lot of 121 00:09:18,916 --> 00:09:22,168 marriage, not counseling, but discussion. 122 00:09:23,248 --> 00:09:27,551 And there's a huge divorce rate in this country. 123 00:09:27,651 --> 00:09:30,433 There's a huge divorce rate within the military. 124 00:09:30,433 --> 00:09:37,978 And as you get guys wounded with post -traumatic stress, TBIs and all those kind 125 00:09:37,978 --> 00:09:43,002 of things, it makes marriages struggle. 126 00:09:43,002 --> 00:09:44,883 And just like the Purple Heart. 127 00:09:46,218 --> 00:09:51,733 the spouses, they got to deal with PTSD even though it isn't their PTSD. 128 00:09:52,154 --> 00:09:55,618 They don't have to deal with the TBI, but they got to deal with their husband's TBI 129 00:09:55,618 --> 00:09:58,020 or wife's TBI or spouse's TBI. 130 00:09:58,261 --> 00:11:13,491 Because there are female, we do have female Purple Hearts. 131 00:11:13,895 --> 00:11:18,563 And Mike, all of this work requires funding. 132 00:11:18,705 --> 00:11:21,611 So one of the things that you're doing is a gala. 133 00:11:21,611 --> 00:11:23,493 And keep me honest here, it's once a 134 00:11:23,860 --> 00:11:24,613 It's one seer. 135 00:11:24,613 --> 00:11:26,916 Diamonds 136 00:11:26,916 --> 00:11:31,239 that they can be quite fun, but tell me what happens in these gala's, like what is 137 00:11:31,239 --> 00:11:33,194 the activities and stuff? 138 00:11:33,506 --> 00:11:36,727 it's really kind of different, each one. 139 00:11:36,767 --> 00:11:43,911 Diamonds and Dog Tags, and that name was coined by the wife of one of our Purple 140 00:11:43,911 --> 00:11:44,772 Hearts. 141 00:11:46,193 --> 00:11:51,306 But we've always done it either in Jackson, Mississippi, because we're 142 00:11:51,306 --> 00:11:56,919 founded in Vicksburg, Mississippi, or in Denver, where we have a fairly decent 143 00:11:56,919 --> 00:11:57,879 presence. 144 00:11:59,788 --> 00:12:04,281 And this year we're doing it in Poughkeepsie, New York, up in the Hudson 145 00:12:04,281 --> 00:12:07,412 Valley, just north of New York City. 146 00:12:07,413 --> 00:12:09,914 But yeah, always a little different. 147 00:12:10,475 --> 00:12:12,696 You know, for example, 148 00:12:13,216 --> 00:12:18,859 This one in New York, she's got a game planned in the middle. 149 00:12:19,039 --> 00:12:23,801 We're doing, and I don't understand the game, so I'm not gonna explain it. 150 00:12:23,921 --> 00:12:25,582 We're doing a whiskey pool. 151 00:12:25,582 --> 00:12:28,783 Again, I don't understand the game, so I'm not gonna explain it. 152 00:12:29,143 --> 00:12:31,025 But we got some great entertainment. 153 00:12:31,025 --> 00:12:37,438 We got a great guest speaker, a great emcee coming, some pretty well -known 154 00:12:37,438 --> 00:12:38,312 people. 155 00:12:38,312 --> 00:12:41,653 at least in the military circles. 156 00:12:42,654 --> 00:12:47,376 last year in Jackson, we did it at a country club. 157 00:12:48,057 --> 00:12:56,692 And we had a news broadcaster on the national news that came as our guest 158 00:12:56,692 --> 00:13:00,963 speaker a couple of years ago in Denver. 159 00:13:01,536 --> 00:13:04,440 That one was a little different because it wasn't a sit down thing. 160 00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:09,028 There was chairs where people could sit down, but it was more of a long cocktail 161 00:13:09,028 --> 00:13:11,430 hour and we had a comedian. 162 00:13:11,752 --> 00:13:14,535 So yeah, they're fun and they're different. 163 00:13:16,114 --> 00:13:19,426 What I've heard is, because I've heard all the Rotarians who have been to this, that 164 00:13:19,426 --> 00:13:25,501 it's a lot of fun and it's tremendously valuable to help the program continue to 165 00:13:25,501 --> 00:13:26,671 provide the value that they do. 166 00:13:26,671 --> 00:13:34,464 do people, I'm assuming locally come, but do people fly over for this? 167 00:13:34,464 --> 00:14:08,884 You know, every year we have a few. 168 00:14:08,884 --> 00:14:13,038 If you've never been, it's right around West Point, if you've never been up that 169 00:14:13,038 --> 00:14:18,905 Hudson Valley, if you're in the Hudson Valley, you realize that you are not in 170 00:14:18,905 --> 00:14:19,646 New York City. 171 00:14:19,646 --> 00:14:24,772 It's just an absolutely, it's a gorgeous part of the country, but you you're not in 172 00:14:24,772 --> 00:14:26,954 suburbia either, so it's pretty 173 00:14:27,466 --> 00:14:29,873 enough. 174 00:14:29,873 --> 00:14:31,495 give us the details 175 00:14:36,650 --> 00:14:42,324 Well, you know, the event is August 10th in Poughkeepsie, New York. 176 00:14:42,425 --> 00:14:49,681 The best place to go for details, to buy tickets, to sponsor, to donate, whatever 177 00:14:49,681 --> 00:15:00,830 you want to do, is to go to www .warriorbonfireprogram .org slash DDT, 178 00:15:00,830 --> 00:15:03,421 Diamonds and Dog Bags, DDT. 179 00:15:04,463 --> 00:15:06,164 And everything's on there. 180 00:15:07,872 --> 00:15:12,463 I'll give a recommendation to also sign up for the newsletter. 181 00:15:12,703 --> 00:15:16,524 I've been on this newsletter for years, ever since I was involved with the Rotary 182 00:15:16,524 --> 00:15:36,570 Military Committee. 183 00:15:36,570 --> 00:15:37,442 and it has 184 00:15:37,442 --> 00:15:38,603 content. 185 00:15:49,999 --> 00:15:53,150 Mike, first of all, thank you for your service, not only in the military, but 186 00:15:53,150 --> 00:15:58,583 also putting together, I think, this tremendously valuable program. 187 00:15:58,583 --> 00:16:01,804 Let me ask you one last question. 188 00:16:01,804 --> 00:16:06,316 If you had to, beyond coming to the gala, obviously, but if you had to say one thing 189 00:16:06,316 --> 00:16:13,209 that you can advise us, know, civilians, to that we can do a little differently to 190 00:16:13,209 --> 00:16:16,470 help or support or better understand 191 00:16:16,997 --> 00:16:18,328 our veteran community. 192 00:16:18,328 --> 00:16:19,451 What would that 193 00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:27,798 Well, think, you know, obviously there's always monetary donations, they're always 194 00:16:27,798 --> 00:16:29,709 appreciated and always needed. 195 00:16:31,232 --> 00:16:35,755 But we have a wide variety of volunteers. 196 00:16:35,956 --> 00:16:39,788 And really when I talk to people about when, you know, if you called me up and 197 00:16:39,788 --> 00:16:41,039 said, hey, I want to volunteer. 198 00:16:41,039 --> 00:16:42,359 What do want me to do? 199 00:16:42,359 --> 00:16:46,591 I'm going to, I'm going to talk to you a while and then I'm going to say, you go 200 00:16:46,591 --> 00:16:48,382 think about what you want to do. 201 00:16:48,382 --> 00:16:52,825 I'll give you some examples of what people are doing, but you go think about it 202 00:16:52,825 --> 00:16:56,886 because the worst thing you can do is have a volunteer give him something he wants to 203 00:16:56,886 --> 00:16:58,447 do and he doesn't want to do it. 204 00:16:58,447 --> 00:17:00,040 He's going to walk away. 205 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:03,911 And then you got to measure that you got to you also got to measure the person's 206 00:17:03,911 --> 00:17:04,621 time. 207 00:17:04,621 --> 00:17:07,502 If I don't give you enough to do, you're going to walk away. 208 00:17:07,502 --> 00:17:09,763 If I give you too much, you're going to walk away. 209 00:17:09,763 --> 00:17:12,784 So so it's really got to get buy in from the volunteer. 210 00:17:12,784 --> 00:17:14,184 You don't just assign. 211 00:17:14,184 --> 00:17:16,905 But we got volunteers doing all sorts of stuff. 212 00:17:17,605 --> 00:17:26,528 You know, my my son does our bookkeeping, my his buddy does our website. 213 00:17:26,704 --> 00:17:35,339 We've got a group here in Colorado that that It's just an amazing what they do But 214 00:17:35,339 --> 00:17:39,441 they take the guy take our groups ice fishing, you know So there's just all 215 00:17:39,441 --> 00:17:45,134 sorts of different things big small and different where we call every one of our 216 00:17:45,855 --> 00:17:48,336 Purple hearts once a quarter. 217 00:17:48,416 --> 00:17:55,200 We have volunteers We started with with with the Rotary Club, but now we've added 218 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:55,920 to 219 00:17:56,716 --> 00:18:00,622 because we need more, but so there's all sorts of stuff you can do. 220 00:18:00,622 --> 00:18:02,975 You can donate in kind. 221 00:18:02,975 --> 00:18:06,240 Hey, I got a lake house. 222 00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:11,728 If you guys want to use it for a bonfire, I'll let you do it. 223 00:18:11,728 --> 00:18:13,260 All sorts of things. 224 00:18:15,571 --> 00:18:17,913 Mike, again, thank you so much. 225 00:18:17,913 --> 00:18:35,895 I deeply appreciate the work and the work of your whole team, Thank you so much for 226 00:18:35,895 --> 00:18:36,316 your time today. 227 00:18:36,316 --> 00:18:37,366 I appreciate 228 00:18:37,408 --> 00:18:41,383 Thank you, Ari, and it's always wonderful to talk about the Warrior Bonfire.