A Green Beret Mission to Build Resilience

Roberta Baker – Laconia Daily Sun – July 25, 2022

BRIDGEWATER — It’s a simulated hostage rescue — and a chance to experience what it’s like to be a Green Beret, a soldier in the U.S. Army Special Forces.

A girl, bound and gagged, is tied to a chair in the woods beside a captor cradling an imitation machine gun.

Quietly, without cracking a twig, a team of 10 surrounds the pair and exchanges a volley of hand signals. With precision they split into groups. Their leader, with help from his civilian teammates, grabs the fake gun from the dozing guard and seizes the girl. The only sound is the plea of the guard not to shoot. The forest remains silent, except for rustling leaves.

None on this team are soldiers or veterans or rescue specialists. They belong to Granite Forge, a CrossFit gym in Plymouth, and they’re at a picturesque farm overlooking Newfound Lake, and their weapons are “rubber duckies” — artificial pistols and machine guns that look and feel like the real thing. It’s a dress rehearsal that none will likely experience again in their lifetimes — unless they decide to come back next year.

Thirteen teams from around New England, with roughly 130 members ranging in age from 12 to the late 70s, competed in the second annual Green Beret With A Mission Challenge on July 15. The event benefits Camp Resilience in Gilford, an organization dedicated to improving the mental health of veterans, active military and first responders through outdoor recreation and bonding with peers. It’s a heavyweight mission, accomplished though activities that veterans and civilians enjoy.

The Green Beret With A Mission course mimics a sequence of challenging situations encountered in war, including the war on terror, and in many ways resembles a scaled-down version of military training. It helps to love physical challenge, adventure or hiking, and the idea of being a Special Forces unit member for a day. It also doesn’t hurt to want to win.

“It’s a workout. It’s fun. It’s energizing. It’s good bonding,” said Mario Ray, a team member from the New Hampshire Amy National Guard, which won first place in the morning competition.

“It goes to a good cause and we all like physical fitness,” said Officer Ryan Garland of the Manchester Police Department, which sent two teams last year.

“It’s just under a three-mile course. They’re carrying ‘rubber duckies’ and sandbags” — up to 40 pounds in their backpacks. “It’s amazing that people come off that course with a smile,” Matt Dubois, executive director of Camp Resilience, a retired U.S. Navy captain and pilot.

It was also an opportunity to educate the general public.

“The idea was to have a challenging but fun event where people would have an opportunity to perform some of the missions Green Berets do in reality,” said Kurt Webber, a retired lieutenant colonel, board president and co-founder of Camp Resilience. “It’s for fun, camaraderie and a chance to share what we do with the public.”

“They can’t drop the gun or the backpack on the rope bridge” — or while walking the zig-zag log bridge surrounded by pseudo land mines, said Kim Baker, development coordinator for Camp Resilience and an emergency medical technician at Highland Mountain Bike Park in Northfield. In the end, “It’s not about winning. It’s about having fun.”

The course was part of a three-day challenge organized by Swim with a Mission, which featured Navy Seals competing in swim meets in Newfound Lake. Former Green Berets from as far away as Texas and Tennessee came to lead participants through the Green Beret With A Mission land course that involved crossing rope and log bridges, lugging water jugs, carrying ammunition boxes, performing emergency first aid, hurling fake grenades into makeshift enemy bunkers and transporting wounded soldiers on litters over bumpy, winding terrain.

A production crew from “Small Town, Big Deal,” a weekly television show across the country, came to film the event for a Veterans Day special airing in November. “I’m amazed at the degree to which someone can will themselves to complete an insurmountable task,” said the camera operator, Tony Hope.

“We’re always up for raising money for veterans,” said Chelsea Boyd of Plymouth, a member of Granite Forge CrossFit.

“There’s no guarantee we’re going to succeed. It doesn’t matter,” said another team member, as they watched their teammate, Ethan Fuller of Derry, shimmy across a rope bridge strung between trees over a ditch intended to resemble as an imaginary river.

“This is how the Army would approach,” said Eric Furey, a retired Green Beret “walker” accompanying the team.

Chris McPhee of Harker Heights, Florida, a former Green Beret who also served in the 82nd Army Airborne, led a group of 12- to 16-year-olds and two fathers — including one retired Green Beret. “I think this is hilarious right here. This team is kicking butt. They’re crushing it,” said McPhee.

“Running between stations was my favorite,” said Ian Spencer, 12, a member of Team Operation Detachment Alpha from Keene, a group of young runners, wrestlers and CrossFit enthusiasts. “I think it’s a very fun and energizing opportunity for kids.”

“I’m getting good exercise and testing my limits,” said Silas Runez, 16, from Team ODA in Keene.

“It brings back old times,” said Devin Plaskiewicz, the retired Green Beret dad. “I figured I’d give them a challenge so they can work hard and see their limits.”

Over 80 volunteers pitched in to hold the event, including members of Gilford Rotary and 25 friends or affiliates of Ladd Farm, where the event occurred. “We host a lot of veterans programs and this is an opportunity to give back,” said Brenda Ladd.

Dan Fielding, a Green Beret who used to live in Gilford, designed this experiential fundraising event with Webber. “This is my way to still serve and help my fellow vets. It’s for passion, brotherhood, veterans sharing and caring, and making a difference,” he said.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, over 900,000 military service veterans live in New England, and New Hampshire has more veterans per capita than any other state. Support for veterans is strong.

Webber said that he expects the event will have raised about $70,000 when the proceeds are tallied in coming weeks. Green Beret With A Mission will donate 95 cents of every dollar raised to support veterans causes including Camp Resilience and the Green Beret Foundation, said Baker. This year’s sponsors include The Patriot Fund, Grappone Auto, Sig Sauer, and ArborTech in Gilford, who together contributed about $50,000. Team members were encouraged to sign up individual sponsors. Dan McCue of Team Wallace from Massachusetts raised $5,000.

Ongoing importance of Camp Resilience’s work

Camp Resilience’s programming includes monthly coffee get-togethers for veterans, weekend retreats for victims of military sexual violence and their families, bonding retreats for wounded warrior families, dedicated weekends for active-duty police, fire fighters and EMTs, as well as equine therapy for veterans and military service members who battle mental health challenges as a result of their experiences on the front lines of trauma. There are follow up social media groups for the participants, and some groups stay active online for years.

“We want to create that sense of community and follow it through,” said Baker. “We help people rediscover their resiliency. Sometimes it gets buried under experiences, positive and negative. Developing that community of people that speak your same language is critical. Peer to peer counseling is such a fundamental piece,” she said. “It’s building and supporting that community around you. If I’ve lost a pediatric patient, I can’t sleep. I need to speak with someone who’s had that experience.”

The healing and sharing creative retreats for military sexual trauma victims have been especially poignant and revealing, Baker said. One participant said, “I heard my best friend get raped in the next tent over. We couldn’t stop it. We don’t know how to deal with this. We ignored her and ostracized her.” The guilt the women carried because they did nothing was enormous, Baker said.  Creativets, a song writing team from Nashville, helped this participant write a song to send to the victim. “It was my way of apologizing for something I should have done 10 years ago,” she said.

“When people talk about signs and symptoms, it’s the symptoms we can’t see. That’s what we fix,” said Baker. “It’s not just fun and games. These are true mental health breaks.”

Two recent alumni at a first responder retreat said they had been planning suicide and had a plan in place. “There’s no one for us to talk to,” they told Baker. “They see horrible things that happen to children. We want to believe first responders are so stoic. They have so much empathy, not a lack of empathy. There’s no one we can talk to when we lose someone we’re trying to revive.”

At one of the last coffee gatherings for veterans at Beans & Greens in Gilford, one veteran explained that he had been put on medication that made him spacey. “I came today because you don’t judge me,” he said.

In the aftermath of COVID, veterans across the county emerged from a dearth of interaction, and Camp Resilience’s value became immediate and profoundly felt. “COVID was hard,” said retired Green Beret Furey. “The last thing you want to do is put a veteran closed in in a house.”

“We’re therapeutic, not therapy,” Baker said. “It’s that reintegration piece, and it’s community building.”