Military Families and Veterans Initiative

9/11/12 Summit for Someone

Perhaps this past weekend you were standing at a Memorial Day parade or service and thinking to yourself that you wanted to do more. If you are a veteran or service member like me, who suffers from,time to time,  an acute guilt that I did not, could not ever do enough to honor my friends and colleagues who gave the ultimate sacrifice, we offer up an opportunity for you to continue to honor those who sacrificed and to get your local community involved. You may think it may never be enough, but every little thing counts.

Sierra Club's Mission Outdoors have partnered this year with Big City Mountaineers (BCM) on two very exciting programs. One program is training veterans and service members on basic mountaineering skills and then partnering him or her up with a young man or woman so they can mentor one another on a mountaineering expedition.

The second, is by taking BCM’s signature program, Summit for Someone, and tilting it to create a climbing team of all veterans and service members who will make a summit attempt on Mt. Shuksan in the North Cascades of Washington State on 9/11/12. While the climb itself has been underwritten, each participating veteran is required to fund raise $1,500.00 that will be put back into the first program. If you are a veteran, you can apply for the climb and get to work fund raising the $1,500 for kids here. Seven spots remain on this trip.

If you are interested in supporting the climbers through donations, you can check back on the Climbers' Page (you can just look for the Veteran's Climb) as climbers sign up and show your support through donating to the program in the name of a specific climber. But first—climbers, we need you to sign up!

We are also excited to be partnering with both Veterans Expeditions and Hound Summit Team to make this event possible!

We’ll see you on the trail!

 

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

 

Armed Forces Week Outside: Dave Coyle and Resiliency

We hope you have enjoyed Armed Forces Week and hearing from our different participants, three Iraq or Afghanistan Veterans and one Army Spouse, as well as the great news from your Department of Interior. We hope to see you on the trail soon.

Today's guest blogger:

David Coyle, Tech Sergeant, USAF, Hurlburt Field, FL

The day started out like most others; my alarm clock woke me up at 0515, I hit the snooze, rolled over and tried to grab an extra five minutes. I knew it was going to be a rough day and I better grab every bit of sleep I can. The major difference between today and most others is that today I was not heading off to work to lead my team of Air Force aircraft maintenance technicians. Today I was part of a different team; one comprised of seven prior service members, representing all branches of the US military, and one military spouse. That, and I was about 15 miles deep in the Gila Wilderness, part of a six-day expedition designed to get veterans outdoors and teach them leadership traits they can take away to be more successful in their personal lives.

I had no idea how much I would learn or how much fun I would have. Backpacking and hiking in the outdoors were new concepts for me, but I was up for the challenge.  The trip turned out to be one of the greatest leadership experiences of my life. My time outdoors taught me many things from how to walk uphill correctly to what works best as natural toilet paper (surprisingly it was rocks); however, the most important thing I took home from this expedition was learning how to overcome adversity and uncertainty while connecting it with resiliency.

Everyone will undoubtedly face adversity and uncertainty at some point in their life. Some will experience it more than others, especially those serving (or who have served) in the military. The seemingly impossible situations presented to those serving in uniform makes dealing with adversity and uncertainty so important.  Being able to bounce back after problems arise whether related to work, or one’s personal life, constitutes resiliency. Since problems do not go away by themselves, and constantly being told to “do more with less” only increases adversity and uncertainty, resiliency becomes a character trait required for each and every  service member both active and prior service.

During my expedition in the Gila, I realized how important this concept of resiliency was, not only for me, but for my team as well. After hiking for three days straight while carrying a 45 lb. pack for the first time in my life, I was a little worn out. I think the fun I was having helped me forget about the soreness, but it was nevertheless there. Imagine my surprise when our leaders for the day informed us that we were going to hike 14 miles (three of which were off the map) carrying extra water and would need to summit two mountains. Adversity was staring us in the face, but I am always up for a good challenge. As the day wore on, the sun beat down, and we conserved our water as we hiked.  We crested our first mountain and began the trek down into the saddle off the map. I wouldn’t say we were lost, but no one could be sure of our exact location.

Tired and unsure, we trudged forward; bring on the uncertainty. Just when we thought we had about enough, our instructor tripped over a downed tree and had a seizure. Everyone’s training kicked in. We secured the scene, stabilized our patient, documented the situation, set up a tent, and were preparing to send runners for help, when she popped up and said “great job guys.” It was a test! We were angry, but knew it was for our own good. At this point, we all wanted to call it a day and camp right there, but the rest of our team was ahead of us and waiting for our arrival to cook dinner and set up camp. So we did what any group of military guys would do, we pulled up our bootstraps and trudged ahead a few more miles, up a mountain, then down to the camp.

When we arrived at camp, we expected water waiting there for us, but the spring was dry. Even so, it was the perfect end to a rough day.  As we woke the next morning, and continued on, I felt a sense of accomplishment. We all, as a team, defeated adversity and uncertainty through our resiliency.  Making this connection will forever cement the concept of resiliency as a virtue in my life.

 

 "Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

Armed Forces Week Outside: Leith Edgar on the Value of Wild Places

Gila National Forest Offers Veterans Respite from Reality

By Leith Edgar, Former Army SGT, Denver, CO

Experiencing the world's first designated wilderness has always been an appealing prospect to anyone enamored with North America's Great Outdoors. However, it wasn't until the documentary Green Fire highlighted this national treasure and I fortuitously came across an opportunity to backpack the Gila National Forest with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) that I realized a pilgrimage to the mecca of conservation: the Aldo Leopold Wilderness.

Thanks to the Sierra Club and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, I had the honor and pleasure of seeing the wild lands and wild animals the great conservationist Aldo Leopold, one of the godfathers of modern conservation, tirelessly toiled to protect from anthropogenic impacts. For anyone who's yearned to escape the manmade world, the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in the Gila National Forest is your ticket to unencumbered nature.

The band of brothers (and sisters) - with whom I shared a week meandering densely-vegetated drainages, ascending the Black Range and observing the varied terrain of a national forest that stretches from the desert floor to more than 10,000-feet – were far from the typical patchouli-wearing tree-huggers you might expect to find trekking a place no visitor soon forgets. Nay, this motley group had collectively hugged more rifles than trees whilst serving their country in uniform. 

Coincidentally including members of the four branches of the military, my fellow backpackers comprised the inaugural class of veterans to complete the Sierra Club's Veteran Outdoor Leadership Course. The course was initially conceived as a means of connecting the veteran community to the natural resources they had fought to defend. The group included combat, disabled and retired veterans, both enlisted and officer alike.

The mission of the course was simple on the surface: foster leadership within a select group of veterans in hopes that the positive experiences of the group would reverberate throughout the military community to thousands of veterans who've come home from overseas conflicts. Far from token charity, the program seeks to empower its students to lead outdoor trips for friends, family and fellow veterans.

In order to bring veterans with varying degrees of outdoor experience, NOLS trained us kinesthetically, i.e. via doing. Following basic instruction, we students took the lead as trip leaders, navigators and cooks, among other camp roles. Similar to the military, from sun up to well after down, we worked together on common goals. Whereas the common goals formerly involved national defense, this mission was focused on the group's movement and well-being in the unforgiving natural environment. Instead of guns, we shot azimuths; instead of Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs), we dined on communally-cooked camp food; and instead of saluting those above our pay grade, we saluted our natural surroundings each day as we rose each morning to experience the natural wonders of wilderness.

Although modern camping - with all of the accoutrements of a big-box store - is arguably as comfortable as a suburban home, light-weight backpacking is the closest many of us may ever come to experiencing homelessness in that everything needed to survive is in your possession. Carrying your means of survival translates to carrying roughly one-quarter to one-third of your body weight – for more than eight hours in some cases. So it made sense that most nights the day's mileage usually left many of us ready for an early lights out. But one night the allure of the open sky proved stronger than the body's desire to recuperate.

That night under a cloudless, crystal-clear sky speckled with diamonds of light and peppered with occasional shooting stars was proof positive that there's peace to be attained by experiencing nature. Taking off of work, flying down to Tucson, Ariz., and spending a week with perfect strangers in the wilderness was all controlled chaos on the surface. But ultimately the leap into the uncertain delivered a piece of peace - albeit fleeting like the shooting stars, which raced across the dark tapestry of that wondrous night – but peace all the same. It's that sense of naturally-induced peace, which you cannot help but discover, in the eponymous wilderness that I believe drove Aldo Leopold to conserve the Gila National Forest so that all Americans, including those who've served in uniform, might experience it for themselves.

 

 "Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

 

Free Park Passes for Active Duty and their families

Sierra Club Praises Free National Park Pass Program for Active Duty Service Members 

The Department of Interior and Dr. Jill Biden today announced plans to offer free National Parks and Federal recreation lands passes to active duty service members and their families. Beginning on Armed Forces Day the passes will be valid on all public lands.  

In response, Michael Brune, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, issued the following statement:

“The Sierra Club applauds the Obama administration for giving service members and their families free access to our National Parks and public lands. This investment helps lower the financial barriers standing between our military heroes and the benefits of reconnecting with their family and friends on land that they have fought to protect.  

“America is home to some of the most beautiful and inspiring landscapes in the world. Our public lands offer essential opportunities for military members and all American families to bond, unwind, heal or simply enjoy.

“We’re honored to support the administration’s Joining Forces initiative and build on today’s announcement.  Through our Missions Outdoors program, the Sierra Club has helped get over 50,000 military kids outdoors, and we’re working to improve outdoor services and expand opportunities for service members, veterans, and their families.  The Sierra Club is also working with the University of Michigan to research the effects of the outdoors on veterans’ mental health.  We believe strongly in the benefits of getting outside and are pleased that the Obama administration has recognized those benefits as well.”

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Armed Forces Week Outside: Acacia Elkins and Camraderie

Today's guest blogger is Army Spouse and Cross Fit Superstar, Acacia Elkins! 

Acacia Elkins, Army Spouse, Bowie, Maryland

"It is Nature’s indifference that makes her both marvelous and fearsome. Her consistency gives me a sense of security, every time I return I see she’s faithful not to change. Yet I know it’s not for me alone that she remains a sanctuary for the human soul.”—John Muir

I spent a week in the Gila with 7 veterans and two NOLS instructors. Mostly strangers to each other, we risked spending a week in close quarters in the middle of Gila Wilderness together. I’m pretty sure this kind of thing is the premise for many reality TV shows. You know, from Lord of the Flies to Lost, put a bunch of strangers together on an Island and watch what happens. But, in this case, instead of petty drama rooted in selfishness, there was grace and understanding. We not only survived our time in the Gila, we came out more alive than ever. 

One participating veteran’s friend doubtingly inquired, “You’re going to spend a week in the wilderness with a bunch of strangers?” To which he responded, “Yeah, it’ll be fine, they’re veterans.” It’s this attitude that made each willingly risk to eat, sleep, lead, follow, and learn for a week in a completely unfamiliar environment.

It was a perfect combination, this pre-existing trust and the indifference of Nature. We spent almost every waking hour together working at the simple tasks involved in outdoor living. The best hours were on trail, I felt like with each step and breath I let go of some city worry. By the time we peaked McKnight Mountain on the third day, I felt light as air. I was thriving in the current moment, soaking in the scenery. Although sitting on top of the mountain was definitely a highlight in my year, it was a mere moment in the life of the seemingly ageless McKnight Mountain. 

For how “social” our lives are, being in constant communication with everyone through Facebook, Twitter, etc, our few days in the wilderness seemed more social than any in the city ever could be. Why do I say this? Without the constant distraction of checking into some virtual world, we were at ease to actually get to know each other. We told stories about our lives, our friends, and ourselves. I certainly laughed more in that week than I had all together in months. A day on the trail seemed so long and full because I was present in every moment. It felt great to forget what day it was. When we weren’t talking or laughing, we were met with wide-open spaces on all sides and a penetrating silence that encouraged contemplation. 

During the week in the Gila, I think we all got to know each other better than we could in a week in the city. Most of our group, when asked why they go outdoors, said, “The camaraderie.” I agree, the wide open sky and lack of distraction press us to be present to Nature and the people we are with.

 

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

 

Armed Forces Week Outside: Trevor Ivory, Beyond the Comfort Zone

Good morning Sierra Club Nation!

During Armed Forces Appreciation Week, we will be sharing a different reflection each day of one of the participants in our recent leadership training trip with the National Outdoor Leadership School, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Operation Free, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars in the Gila Wilderness. We think you'll appreciate the different points of view that these different service members all brought into, and out of the wilderness. Let us know how this matches up with your experiences in the outdoors as a service member, veteran, military family member, or just as...you.

First up is Trevor Ivory:

Trevor Ivory, USNR, Orange County, CA

As a 20 year retiree of the United States Military, US Navy specifically, I feel very lucky. Both, of the service that I completed over the past two decades and the opportunities/trust place in me by those I served with at all levels. It is that camaraderie that ties all of us together no matter where, when and for how long we all served.

This Sierra Club Wilderness Expedition was a unique experience that built on that tradition. Although I previously had very little outdoor/wilderness experience, I immediately felt at ease with my fellow veterans and our outstanding NOLS instructors.  The course provided instruction/experience in Expedition Planning, Backpacking /Camping skills, Leadership and Leave No Trace principles. Even though I was outside my comfort zone from day 1, the interactions with staff and other veterans built a confidence and sense of self and team accomplishment that I hadn’t experienced since my time on active duty.

I think all veterans suffer to some extent as they leave military service in finding their way in the next chapter of life. For me this was a significant issue, as I have struggled to find a second career path. I felt a bit like Morgan Freedman’s character, Red from the movie Shawshank Redeption. “I’m an institutional man, and not sure I can make it on the outside”. In spending time with our group of diverse and accomplished veterans, I was impressed with the success and variety of career paths that they have pursued, providing me with a sense of what is possible as I move ahead.

I take away from this experience a great appreciation for not only the outdoors (Gila Wilderness is an awesome American resource) but to the organizations that are supporting veterans to include your Sierra Club, NOLS, and the myriad of other organizations that are trying to address some of the needs of our increasing veteran population.

As far as the program goes, I believe the challenge will be to reach those that are most in need. As our group showed, we were all relatively well supported and tied into veteran services/support (i.e. IAVA &VFW). How do we get to those individuals who are not tied-in whether that is by choice or not?

 My plan for the future is multi-tracked. I want to work with Irvine Ranch Conservatory (IRC) to qualify as a volunteer trail guide (assistant Docent). This includes a Naturalist Training Class offered by local community college and IRC sponsored first aid training. This will continue to build on last week’s training and allow me to gain additional outdoor experience. I am also looking at planning and executing a 3 to 4 day backpacking trip this summer in the Cascades of Washington state. As I build experience I will be more willing and able to support possible veteran type trips.

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend" 

 

Sierra Club Proud to Be a "Got Your Six" Campaign Partner

 

The "Got Your Six" (GY6) campaign is a show of force from the American pubic to ensure that we welcome home our returning veterans - an additional one million in the next five years - as leaders and civic assets who can be key contributing members to our communities. There are six pillars to the GY6 campaign: Jobs, Education, Health, Housing, Family, and Leadership.

The Sierra Club is proud to be a strategic partner to help assist the activation partners on five of the six pillars. We will work with our partners to help identify employment opportunities in the great outdoors and clean energy fields for veterans; support continued environmental education; improve social and mental health, as well as the reintegration of families through expanding outside recreation opportunities; and ultimately through transitioning military leadership skills to the outdoors to get all of America outside.

The Sierra Club has a long history with the military, highlighted by WW2 and 10th Mountain Veteran David Brower who as a Sierra Club member helped to train the 10th Mountain, and as a decorated Veteran (won the Bronze Star) of the 10th Mountain went on to become the Sierra Club’s first executive director. We reinitiated our partnership with the military with the creation of the Military Family Outdoors program in 2006, now a part of Mission Outdoors.

We have strong qualitative evidence that time in the outdoors helps to strengthen families and mitigate the effects of post-traumatic stress. We help veterans utilitize their skills through leadership in the outdoors and through community service. Community service opportunities for veterans abound in the Sierra Club through programs like the Water Sentinels, Inner City Outings, Local Outings, and more.

 

Supporting military families and veterans is not a partisan issue. We can all do our part and at the Sierra Club we are proud of the work we have done and will continue to do to ensure our military and veteran communities and families can all get outside to experience the freedom of the land they defended.

Learn more about "Got Your Six" at their website.

Recap of Robin Hood Veteran Summit

This past Monday, the Robin Hood Foundation of New York City hosted a Veteran’s Summit aboard the USS Enterprise, moored in New York City. It was a fantastic event attended by hundreds of our Country’s most passionate advocates for veterans. The Summit featured a number of panels moderated by the likes of John Stewart from The Daily Show, Tom Brokaw (a fellow South Dakotan), Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Willy Geist, and Gayle King.

For me, the best panel was the short 15 minute discussion between Congressional Medal of Honor winner Salvatore Giunta and John Stewart. Mr. Giunta, now out of the Army, spoke about the struggle for veterans coming home to find a path they can follow, a place to fit in, and missing the camaraderie, trust, and closeness of the team most veterans had while in the service. Mr. Giunta is an incredibly humble, honorable, and well-spoken young man, you know, like most veterans. Take the time to watch this clip.

To quote from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) founder and executive director, Paul Rieckhoff, “This is a great conference, but it should have happened 10 years ago.” Paul’s right, we should have been working together at this level 10 years ago. Or even since the start of Vietnam. However, with the issue here in our lives I am thankful for Robin Hood to step up and put the summit together and move the issue in front of America 

The biggest criticism I heard from other attendees was that the panelists seemed to be preaching to the choir. Leaders of the various movements working on veteran and war fighter issues were speaking to other members of the community. The message needs to be spread to those who are ignorant of the issues: our broader public as a country. Interestingly enough, the word resiliency was only mentioned throughout the day twice that I counted, and only once was the outdoors as a place for healing and reintegration brought up.

Again though, it was an incredible event and should generate momentum moving forward as we continue to struggle with, learn, and succeed in welcoming home our veterans and their families, from World War 2 through to the current wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya.

For me, these were the main takeaways from the conference: 

• Issues facing the veteran and veteran family community are rarely isolated to just the veteran community, but may be concentrated there. Figuring out how to create overwhelming success in the veteran community can help us figure out how to create overwhelming success throughout all of society.
• Our society needs to help create a new sense of positive mission, purpose, and service opportunities for our returning men and women and their families of the Armed Forces. We need to do this at the community and local level, with national support.
• Veterans are not ticking time bombs; the majority of veterans do not have issues with post-traumatic stress (PTS), traumatic brain injury (TBI), or a physical injury. However, that does not mean that all veterans are not changed when they come home or will not struggle with reintegration. Additionally, just because a veteran does have PTS, TBI, or a physical injury does not mean they cannot add significant value to the community they are in—in fact, most can and will given the opportunity.
• America is responding and responding in a big way to try and support veterans. There are over 40,000 non-profits who claim to serve veterans in their mission statements, plus hundreds of thousands of more that do serve veterans. However, many with good intentions may be doing more harm than good. We need to set standards of measurable excellence and allow those who meet those standards the lion’s share of funding to better focus the mission.

 

~Stacy Bare, OIF Veteran

Military Families and Veteran Representative to the Sierra Club

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

 

Outdoor Leadership Training in the Gila

At 8:45 AM on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, seven veterans, two National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) instructors and one Army wife trod out of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in the Gila National Forest near Silver City, NM. It was the first trip of its kind, combining Sierra Club Mission Outdoors and NOLS to teach wilderness ethics, skills, and leadership to participants who heard about the trip from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), and Operation Free.

The seven day trip was made possible through the generosity of the Sierra Club Foundation and brought together an incredibly diverse group. Well, at least it looked like a diverse group. We had every branch of service minus the Coast Guard represented. Wounded warriors, a retired Navy Commander, active duty Air Force, Marine Reservist, National Guard; men and women, and a few Army veterans who represented a slice of the African American, Latino, Native American, and Caucasian experience in the United States. More than half the group had not backpacked or camped before.

And yet, it was not such a diverse group. Everyone was purple in the tradition of our Joint Missions at the Department of Defense (purple is the term used to describe missions where multiple branches are cooperating together) Soon enough, everyone would have a bit of the same colored dirt rubbed in on their clothes, knees, and even hair. Conversations began easily and were focused at first around shared military themes: deployment stories, the ones we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, our families, our hopes, our dreams, and why we each got out or stayed in.

Soon though, we discussed some of the weightier things in life: how to make blueberry pancakes in the woods, the right way to make Mexican cornbread and mole in one pot, whether or not Sasquatch would meet height and weight standards, and which kinds of sticks and stones make the best toilet pa…well you get the idea.

As we walked up to the top of McKnight Peak and looked out on America’s first designated wilderness around us, we took a moment of silence to think about those we wished could have walked with us on the trail: our families, other veterans and service members, and the fallen, through war, suicide, age, or illness. As we solemnly folded the flag back up after a group photo on the mountain peak, for a brief moment you could see the hundreds gathered round that worked daily to keep that mountain top safe and free for us to climb.

Five organizations plus our fantastic land managers at the United States Forest Service worked together to create a place where camaraderie, mission, and sense of purpose combined outside of the uniform to not only welcome our veterans home, but give them the skills to take their friends, families, and units safely outside. For those of you from an Army back ground, you can think of it as a week-long Sergeant’s Time for outdoor living.

This was not the first trip of veterans into the outdoors, nor was it the first trip that the Sierra Club put together to get our military and veteran community outside. We have nearly 50,000 members of that community that we helped to get outside directly since 2006.It was, however, the first outdoor leadership training expedition for our military and veteran community that combined so many different organizations to get the job done. It will certainly not be the last. This is the next step in our journey towards facilitating the creation of strong outdoor leaders who come from the military and veteran community. America needs you to help get outside, and the wilderness is waiting!

See you on the trail!

~Stacy Bare, OIF Veteran

Military Families and Veteran Representative to the Sierra Club

"Helping America's Military and Veteran Community experience the freedom of the land they defend"

Special thanks to Army Spouse Acacia Elkins for many of the fantastic photos above!