By Jon Cooner
When Bobby Clark returned stateside in 1974 after serving as a Seabee in Vietnam, he didn’t expect the reception he got. There was a sign in the front yard of a home just outside the gates of Naval Base San Diego: “Dogs, Cats and Sailors — Stay off the Lawn.” And later, as Clark made his way home, still in uniform, a young man asked him, “How many babies did you kill in Vietnam?” Does that make you as furious as it does me? I suspect it does. After all, if you’re reading Whitetail News, you’re probably an outdoorsman, and we hunters and fisherman take duty very seriously and have a high regard for our military men and women.www.whitetailinstitue.com.
What “Care” of our wounded warriors and disabled veterans really means:When we think about what “care” means in the context of our wounded and disabled warriors, the first things that usually come to mind are medical care and physical rehab. Certainly the first priority is to heal the body, but the mind and soul must also be healed, and the gift our nation’s wounded warriors and disabled servicemen have given us is so great that anything we can do to make their lives a little richer can have real therapeutic benefit.
Just how great such therapeutic benefit can be is evident in Mark Clay’s description of the effect the Fort Benning program has had in the life of his 94-year-old father in law, retired Army Lt. Col. Paul Liles. "Paul and I have always hunted together in the past, but he has not been able to hunt the way we did for years, and he had not shot a deer since 1991,” Clay said. “My son, Brian Clay, is an active duty nuclear engineer aboard the USS Harry S. Truman. When Brian was injured last year, the base told him about the program at Fort Benning, and I accompanied Paul and Brian there for a hunt. There we were — my 24-year-old son, my 93-year-old father-in-law, and me in the middle thinking, ‘This is just great!’ Paul took his first buck in 19 years, and it changed his entire demeanor. I know it added to his life. If you look at the pictures from the hunt, you can see it in his face.”
Clark also remembers how the Fort Benning program impacted Sgt. Michael Cumings, who had been wounded in Iraq. Cumings was able to take advantage of the Fort Benning hunting program last year while waiting for his discharge papers to come through after he was released from rehab at Fort Benning. Clark remembers watching Sgt. Cumings interact with Bill Brickner, a fellow veteran and the program’s director, and Brent Widener, Fort Benning’s Fish and Wildlife biologist. Clark’s observations of the program’s therapeutic effect mirror those of Clay.
“When I hunted at Fort Benning last year, there was another handicapped hunter there who had been wounded in Iraq and had just finished rehab,” Clark said. “The kid had to use a cane and a crutch, but he wasn’t dwelling on how severe his injuries were. Instead, he glowed because someone had taken time out of his busy schedule to help him get in a stand. The only way I can describe it was that his sense of gratitude was just unsurpassed. He just couldn’t say ‘thank you’ enough.”
Sgt. Cumings’ own comments show just how right Clark was about the program’s therapeutic benefits. “The whole year I was hurt, I kept thinking, ‘I won’t be able to hunt,’ and it brought me down — a lot! More than I can put into words,” he said. “But then I found Brent, and he put me in a stand. The program is just incredible — the time and effort put into building the food plots for soldiers, the feeling of support and saying, ‘We know you’re hurt and need help, and here it is.’ It meant the world to me that those guys did that for us. The fact they had that set aside for wounded soldiers and disabled soldiers — it helps them heal.”
There are many more examples of wounded warriors and disabled veterans who have been empowered and spiritually renewed by the Fort Benning program. Even so, the hunters are not the only ones who benefit when we thank our injured and disabled warriors in such a meaningful way. We also get something very special in return. Widener certainly has, as he explains when asked what working with the program’s hunters has meant to him.
“Serving our wounded warriors and disabled veterans through this program provides me great personal satisfaction,” Widener said. “These men and women have laid their lives on the line to protect our freedoms, which include the opportunities we as avid outdoorsmen so enthusiastically pour our hearts and souls into. Being able to provide disabled service members that same opportunity to get back to the outdoors, ease their minds and do something they otherwise may not be able to should be a focus for us all.” Clark also speaks of the same sense of personal satisfaction Widener mentioned.“When you get around some of these kids that are so terribly injured and burned, you come away a better person because they’re not asking for sympathy or a handout," Clark said. “They’re asking for help to do something they can’t do on their own. And if they could, they’d trade places with the people who helped them and pass it on.”
Sgt. Cumings’ comments show that Clark got that right, too. “Feeling the outreach of others saying, ‘We’re here to help’ meant so much to me, and it still does,” Cumings said. “I still talk about those hunts, and I was trying to get more soldiers to the program before I went home to Mississippi. There was another soldier there at Fort Benning while I was there who had never hunted — he had lost his dad young. I got him to go hunting through the program, and it really brought his world around too.”
In fact, the program had such a huge impact on Cumings that he’s currently looking for a way to set up a similar program at Camp Shelby in his home state of Mississippi.
American servicemen still stand to post around the world, always vigilant and willing to lay down their lives for the rest of us. They answered the call, and as long as freedom rings they always will. The price they pay for their devotion can be terribly high, and as they accept their injuries as the warriors they are, it humbles us to see them actually thanking us for our efforts, which seem so small in comparison. If you haven’t already thanked folks like Clark, Liles and Cumings, it’s never too late to do so and in a way that will make their lives better.
If you know of a wounded or disabled serviceman or veteran who might benefit from the Fort Benning program: In the words of Widener, “If you know one of these soldiers or retirees, pour your heart and soul into helping them get afield in the same manner you do for yourself. The giving of your time and the joy and elation you will see and feel from these hunters provides as much reward and satisfaction as harvesting any trophy animal.”
To take part in the Fort Benning program, a hunter must be an active-duty wounded warrior or a disabled veteran who would be authorized to hunt on Fort Benning under the applicable regulations, and who is physically restricted from hunting unassisted. Additional provisions may allow others to accompany a qualifying hunter on hunts. For more specific information on the requirements to hunt and anything else related to the Fort Benning program, contact Widener at (706) 544-7516.
If you would like to donate Whitetail Institute seed to the Fort Benning program:Contact the Whitetail Institute at (800) 688-3030, and please accept the thanks of everyone involved with the Fort Benning program and the Whitetail Institute. Winston Churchill once said, “There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.”
By participating in the program, you will be thanking and caring for our servicemen in a real way. You’ll be doing the right thing. (Note: I have used the term “servicemen” in this article for the sake of brevity and intend that it include all Americans, regardless of gender, who have ever served in any branch of our armed forces.)
And outdoorsmen also understand that merely recognizing a duty is meaningless unless action is taken to fulfill it. The proof lies in the results of our conservation efforts, which have filled the skies with waterfowl, returned redfish and songbirds to healthy populations and improved the quality of deer.
Guys like Clark would probably put that a little differently. They’d probably say, “You can’t just talk the talk. You’ve got to walk the walk.” America owed Clark its thanks and its care when he came home from Vietnam, but he didn’t get either. If you’re like me, you’re ashamed and angry about that. We wish we could go back in time and be standing on that dock in San Diego to thank Clark and welcome him home when he disembarked. It’s too bad we can’t turn back the clock and do the right thing. Or can we?
The Fort Benning Program: This past year, the Whitetail Institute answered the call to try and fulfill our duty to our wounded and disabled servicemen by providing Whitetail Institute field testers a way to donate Whitetail Institute seed to a hunting program for wounded and disabled veterans at Fort Benning, Ga. The program, sponsored by the Wounded Warriors Project and Paralyzed Veterans of America, provides disabled servicemen the opportunity to hunt Fort Benning’s 182,000 acres along the Chattahoochee River in Alabama and Georgia. An earlier Whitetail News article, “Hope, Renewal, Empowerment: Hunting and Wounded Warriors,” introduced Whitetail Institute field testers to the many volunteers who run the program and is still available on our Web site:
