As it turns out, a little BBQ can cure more than just an empty stomach.
That’s exactly what wounded veteran Shane Farlin found out when trying to get back on his feet after leaving the Army. And now, he’s hoping to do the same for other soldiers with a food truck named Hogzilla.
Farlin had always wanted to be a soldier. Enlisting in the Army at the age of 17, he was later deployed to Iraq. In 2004, when returning from a supply mission in Fallujah, a bomb exploded in his face. A helicopter airlifted Farlin to treatment, saving his life, but the accident cost him one of his eyes. The injury also resulted in PTSD, and Farlin was discharged from the Army, leaving him with the need to find a new career.
He floundered for a while, spending four years interviewing for various jobs. To say that he was dispirited was an understatement — he was so low that once, he called the military suicide line.
Finally, Sonny Singh, the owner of a Michigan barbecue restaurant, Hogzilla, offered Farlin a job. The position made all the difference — lifting Farlin’s spirits and making him feel like a useful person again.
Now Farlin wants to provide jobs to other vets struggling to find work by opening up a food truck called Hogzilla Squeals on Wheels, with the hope of eventually expanding to an entire fleet of veteran-staffed food trucks (serving various types of cuisine). “I know vets make good employees,” Farlin told Kathy Jennings of Southwest Michigan’s Second Wave.
While food trucks are swarming cities from coast to coast, the trend hasn’t caught on yet in southwest Michigan’s Calhoun County, where Farlin’s vehicle would be the first full-service food truck in operation. Farlin is currently trying to raise the $50,000 he needs to get Hogzilla on the road through a Kickstarter page. So far he’s raised about $4,500.
Until Farlin’s food truck dreams are realized, he’ll continue to work in a vending trailer owned by the restaurant, forging agreements with private property owners to set up his trailer, as Battle Creek, Michigan does not yet allow food trucks on public property.
With any luck, Farlin will soon be serving up deep-fried macaroni and barbecue sandwiches and employing his fellow veterans.
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Tag: wounded veterans
Welcoming Wounded Veterans Onto the Field of Their Dreams
Doug McBrierty grew up on Cape Cod, a die-hard Red Sox fan. So when he returned from the Iraq war with a traumatic brain injury, it was a given that baseball would be part of his recovery, thanks to the Wounded Warrior Project.
Five years ago, the nonprofit gave McBrierty a $3,500 scholarship to attend the Red Sox fantasy camp in Fort Meyers, Florida. Even though he hadn’t played catch in twenty years, McBrierty felt welcome at the camp staffed with former Red Sox players.
“Ability didn’t matter,” McBrierty told Mary E. O’Leary of the New Haven Register. “They greet you with open arms. It’s like a family reunion every year,” he said. McBrierty, who is now a firefighter, struck up a friendship with Gary Allenson, a former Red Sox catcher who currently manages the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, a minor league baseball team.
Today, McBrierty attends the camp every year to help other wounded veterans play ball. “There are a lot of people there with disabilities, but they take the time to teach them,” McBrierty said. Rico Petrocelli, a former Red Sox shortstop and third baseman who helps at the camp, recalls a veteran who’d lost an arm in combat and learned to hit again, and another vet who walked with a cane, but “made a diving catch in right field.”
Now McBrierty, Petrocelli and others are working to raise money to send more veterans to baseball camp. Many former Red Sox pitched in autographed items for a silent auction that was held a couple of weeks ago in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Wounded Warrior Project funds a variety of adaptive sports experiences for injured veterans — from skiing to skydiving to scuba diving.
For those veterans who grew up dreaming of being on the baseball diamond, the chance to join the boys of summer at a fantasy camp can’t be beat.
MORE: This Amazing Nonprofit Helps Injured Vets Rebuild Their Lives
The New Target for These Soldiers? Child Predators
Undoubtedly, dedication and intelligence are two important attributes to bring to a job — and they’re certainly something that our service members possess.
A new program aims to make good use of these characteristics as it employs 14 wounded veterans as federal agents in the Human Exploitation Rescue Operative Child Rescue Corps (H.E.R.O. Child Rescue Corps), which is a part of the office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These vets will work to prevent and solve child trafficking cases.
Just last week, the program’s first graduating class participated in a child rescue retreat in Memphis, Tennessee, where they used their smarts to study techniques to catch child pornography producers and traffickers.
The H.E.R.O. Child Rescue Corps came about when the National Association to Protect Children asked Immigration and Customs officials if they could retrain wounded veterans to work as analysts tracking child predators. Private donors funded the $10 million program, which trained the former soldiers before dispatching them to field offices throughout the United States, where special agents will supervise them in investigations.
“In 2013, when we presented the idea to top officials at Homeland Security, they said ‘Yes.'” Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children told Jonathan A. Capriel of The Commercial Appeal. “It was the fastest any of us have ever seen the federal government move.”
Justin Gaertner, who lost both his legs to an IED (improved explosive device) during his third deployment to Afghanistan in 2010, is newly enlisted in the H.E.R.O. Child Rescue Corps. During the training period, he said, “I spent three months in New York assisting in 30 operations which led to 80 arrests of child pornographers. We rescued about eight children from the hands of sexual predators.”
Homeland Security special agent Kevin Power, who mentored the H.E.R.O. interns, told Capriel, “Their military discipline makes them really good for this work. Computer forensics is meticulous and methodical. These guys don’t cut corners, and they don’t question the ordered process you have to go through every time.”
As for Gaertner, not only does the new job allow him use his skills, but also, he has a new career in which his disability doesn’t matter. “The opportunity to put people behind bars who hurt children, is a big reason why I choose to do this,” Gaertner said. “I have an eight-year-old sister who I want to protect.”
We’re sure that Gaertner’s young sibling is just one of the many things motivating him each and every day.
MORE: This Amazing Nonprofit Helps Wounded Vets Rebuild Their Lives
Heroes of the Gridiron Lend a Hand to a Battlefield Hero
Justin Adamson, center for the University of Notre dame’s famed Fighting Irish football team, doesn’t just work hard on the field. Like many other college students whose finances are tight, he holds an outside job — working at Whole Foods Market, demonstrating salad dressings.
While dolling out tasty dressings to shoppers one day at a store in Ohio, Howard Goldberg stopped by Adamson’s table. Goldberg works for the nonprofit Purple Heart Homes, which purchases and renovates affordable homes for veterans.
Goldberg must also be a smooth talker, because by the end of their salad dressing exchange, Adamson had agreed to help renovate a home for an injured veteran. Not only that, but he said he’d bring along some of his teammates to provide additional manpower. Adamson told Andrew Cass of the News-Herald that he and Goldberg “talk[ed] for about an hour just going on about what this project means to a lot of people and what it can do in the community.”
Adamson took the idea to his coaches, who in turn, presented it to the team. Thirty football players jumped at the chance to volunteer, but only 12 players were able to be transported to the project. On April 25, the dozen helped demolish a kitchen and renovate the basement of the Ohio home of Leo Robinson, a wounded Marine Corps vet. (The house had been purchased by Purple Heart Homes.)
Once the renovation is complete, Robinson will pay 50 percent of the mortgage’s value, as part of the nonprofit’s mission to give vets a “hand up, not a hand out.”
Sophomore wide receiver Dajuhn Graham said, “I love doing things like this. My dad, that’s what he does for a living, he builds houses, and I actually do things like this so it’s nothing new to me.”
Homeowner Robinson told Cass that seeing all the football players pitch in to fix up his house “feels great. When we get back after going through everything we go through, it’s like you think people don’t care anymore, that society’s dead…But there are still people who care and want to help the community out.”
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As Part of the Healing Process, This UFC Fighter Leads Veterans into the Wilderness
It goes without saying that mixed martial artist and kick boxer Stephen Thompson is tough. After all, he’s defeated all the opponents he has faced in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
But Thompson knows who the really tough people are: The brave men and women who serve in the military. Which is why he began volunteering with A HERO (America’s Heroes Enjoying Recreation Outdoors), which provides wounded veterans with mentorship and camaraderie through outdoor activities. He also works to raise awareness about the disturbingly high rate of veterans committing suicide.
“Hanging out with these guys, they are true heroes,” Thompson told Fox Sports. “You see the UFC fighters and they are fighting on TV and these kids or teenagers thinking that we are the heroes, but we are not. These guys are the heroes. They’re out there doing things and putting their lives on the line for us. Being out there and listening to their stories, sometimes it breaks your heart, but it makes you realize the risks these guys take and they are out there doing it.”
As part of A HERO, Thompson and his manager recently accompanied a group of wounded veterans on a wilderness and hunting expedition in South Africa. A show about the trip will be broadcast on the Sportsman Chanel in July.
“When I first met some of these guys they kept to themselves,” Thompson said. “Some of them came straight from the hospital after physical therapy, and at first we were there for a week and we were hanging out and they were kind of to themselves. By the end of the trip we shared some stories, and that’s what we were there for to give them somebody to talk to and experience this, and now I feel like we’ll be life long friends. I still talk to these guys today.”
Thompson plans to continue to volunteer with A HERO and embark on another hunting expedition next year. “It’s one of these things where I get to give back to these guys, who have put their lives on the line to enable me, you and everybody what we’re able to do. Our freedom. It’s just a way of giving back.”
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Savvy Mechanics Help Disabled Veterans Hit the Open Road
Nine surgeries. A knee replacement. Thyroid cancer.
Justin Madore’s doctors said he should forget about riding his beloved motorcycles ever again, after the Kalamazoo soldier was badly injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. His artificial knee would make him topple. He had lost stability.
He sold his bike.
But a Michigan nonprofit had a different idea.
Madore’s buddy, retired Army Sgt. Brad VandenBerg, couldn’t accept that verdict.
VandenBerg started the nonprofit Two Wheels for Warriors in 2012 with the goal of raising funds to create specially designed motorcycles for injured veterans.
After fundraising for two years, VandenBerg worked with Dirty Boyz Motorcycles in Plainwell, Mich., to take a $6,000 “salvage bike” and redesign it for Madore.
The design accommodates his injuries, and includes a sidecar for his service dog Cody, a Labrador retriever and poodle mix that helps him cope with PTSD. The sidecar also stabilizes the bike.
Two Wheels for Warriors is also working with Bob Body, who lost a leg in Iraq. Soon he should be out on the open road just like Madore, who is feeling better about everything now that he has a custom motorcycle.
The new ride “is helping my PTSD tremendously because it’s so relaxing,” Madore says. “When I had a stressful day I’d just hop on the bike and go for a ride and now I can do that again.”
“I got Cody on the side, I look down and he had a smile on his face,” Madore says. “I’m back on a bike again, couldn’t be happier.”
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These Navy Veterans Are Making an Epic Pilgrimage to Raise Money for Wounded Soldiers
When Austin Shirley of Plano, Texas completed his service with the Navy, he felt at loose ends, unsure about his plan for future and how to reintegrate into civilian life. So he decided to take a year to dedicate himself to helping fellow veterans. He sold all of his possessions, stocked up on gear at REI, and began to walk across the country with his dog Archer to raise money for Wounded Wear, a nonprofit that increases awareness about injured veterans and provides them with clothing adapted to their physical needs, or shirts that just lets passersby know that the wearer was injured while serving the country.
(NationSwell profiled the nonprofit’s founder, Jason Redman, earlier this year.)
Shirley began his journey, which he calls the Chasing the Sun campaign, last October in Jacksonville, Florida. Along the way, he called his friend and fellow Navy vet, Bryan Cochran. Redman told Ryan Van Velzer of AZCentral that Cochran told his friend, “Times are tough. I lost my job and I’m in a veteran’s shelter right now.” So Shirley invited him to join his mission, and they’ve been walking together since Shreveport, Louisiana. The vets’ goal? To raise $50,000 for Wounded Wear. By the time they arrived in Phoenix on April 25, they’d raised about $30,000.
Redman told Van Velzer that the two walkers have been sleeping in a tent along their journey. “Ninety percent of the time they find a spot off the road and they sleep in the tent and they’ll stop at small stores along the way and gather food. Also along the way they meet a lot of amazing, interesting people who offer to buy them food and say, ‘Hey, you can sleep here tonight.’ The generosity of the American people is a pretty amazing thing.”
You can follow the vets’ progress on Facebook, and show some of your own American generosity by donating to their campaign through Crowdrise.
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Cheer On These Inspiring Wounded Navy SEALs as They Reach for the Sky
Leave it to former Navy SEALs to decide that the best way to get their lives back on track following a series of health crises is to scale Africa’s highest peak: Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Twenty-six year old Will Cannon, of Houston, Texas, is one such climber. Cannon was a sergeant in the Army serving in Afghanistan when he lost his right leg (and his best friend) in an explosion. Unfortunately, his bad luck didn’t end there. After leaving the Army, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and underwent radiation.
During the cancer treatments, Cannon’s spirits sank. But now that he’s in remission, he’s hoping to rejuvenate himself and others by joining a team of wounded veterans who plan to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Cannon will be on hand to help two Navy SEALs who lost both of their legs in service — Bo Reichenbach and Dan Cnossen — complete the difficult ascent. (Cnossen, a Topeka, Kansas native, recently competed at the Paralympics in Sochi, Russia in Nordic skiing.)
Cannon told Roberta MacGinnis of the Houston Chronicle that it’s especially difficult for a Navy SEAL to cope with physical disability. “We are, in our minds, 10 feet tall and bullet proof. We are men. So whenever one of us gets hurt — loses his legs for instance — and we come home, you know, and what do we do? What are we supposed to do? At one point I was leading men into battle, and now I can’t even walk.”
The mountain climbing expedition is part of the Phoenix Patriot Foundation’s mission to bring together small groups of veterans to foster the military bond they miss when their service is over. Jared Ogden, a former Navy SEAL, founded the nonprofit and asked Cannon to join the expedition. The foundation has raised over $15,000 toward its goal of $50,000 to fund the expedition.
Reichenbach and Cnossen will use robotic prosthetics during the week-long climb, which is scheduled for this summer. Reichenbach told MacGinnis, “I’m proving to myself that I’m still capable of doing things that most people can’t do, even though I’m missing both legs from above my knees.”
Which just goes to show that even after injury, Navy SEALS are tougher than most of us will ever be.
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Meet the People Who Want to Make Their Hometown the Most Vet-Friendly in America
Montrose is a pretty little town with 19,000 citizens, nestled in the mountains of southern Colorado, where people come to raft along the Uncompahgre River and enjoy the outdoor beauty.
But Melanie Kline thinks she can make Montrose even better by becoming the most vet-friendly town in America. Kline is the founder of Welcome Home Montrose, a nonprofit that strives to make veterans feel valued and cared for in all aspects of their lives.
One of the nonprofit’s initiatives is the Dream Job program, through which wounded veterans live in Montrose for six months for an internship with a “dream job” and are provided free housing. The first participants included former Marines Joshua Heck, who wants to work in horticulture and Edward J. Lyons III, who wants to be a high school teacher. Buckhorn Gardens and the Montrose School District mentored them in their chosen fields, while citizen of Montrose sponsored their housing. Heck stayed on after his internship, and works in a plant nursery.
So far 560 veterans have registered for services through Montrose’s Warrior Resource Center, which provides them with information about adaptive sports, applying for benefits, suicide prevention, higher education, job training and placement, financial assistance, counseling, social activities, wellness and alternative healing resources and more.
“This place is a lifesaver,” Army National Guard Spec. Tim Kenney, who suffers from PTSD, told Nancy Lofholm of the Denver Post. “It’s just a safe place to go. I drop in pretty often.” The center serves veterans from every war and conflict, from World War II to Afghanistan. Last summer, Welcome Home Montrose sponsored 20 veterans to visit for its Mission No Barriers week, during which volunteers kept vets busy with outdoor activities and community potlucks.
The entire town is involved in this mission, including the 33 businesses who’ve joined a veteran discount program, a military widow who stops by the Warrior Resource Center with baked goods every week, and an anonymous donor who pays for Executive Director Emily Smith’s salary and benefits. So far, the center mostly serves veterans who were already living in Montrose, but one day Kline hopes the town’s welcoming attitude will attract veterans from across the country to move there. Representatives of sixty communities have asked Welcome Home Montrose for information about how they can adapt this program for their own towns. Meanwhile, the residents of Montrose are making veterans feel more welcome than ever.
The people of Montrose “have the appreciation and the heart for what these veterans have done,” Smith says. “They just didn’t know before what to do for them.”
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These Blind Vets Train to Climb North America’s Highest Mountain
Scaling mountains can invigorate the spirit. But is the same true if you can’t see the view from the peaks you’re climbing?
Two inspiring climbers training to summit Alaska’s Denali are demonstrating that sight is not a barrier when it comes to mountain climbing.
During their service with the Army in Iraq, Scott Smiley lost his vision to a car bomb and a grenade blinded Marty Bailey. In March, the two met with climbing guide Eric Alexander in Summit County, Colorado, where they climbed Quandary and Lincoln peaks to train at high altitude and mentally prepare for their planned May ascent of Denali, North America’s highest peak. If they succeed, they will become the first blind people to conquer its challenging West Rib.
Alexander is a capable guide for the vets: He’s summited mountains across the world, and guided his friend Erik Weihenmayer toward becoming the first blind person to summit Mt. Everest in 2001.
Smiley, who continued his military service after his injury as a teacher at West Point and Gonzaga, told Melanie Wong of Vail Daily that he can still perceive the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. “I still think it’s one of the most beautiful things,” he said. “The air is fresh, pure and clean. I live in Spokane, Washington, and you don’t get those senses hitting you all the time. There’s the beauty of seeing things, but those pictures go to my mind and it puts a smile on my face.”
It will take practice and courage for the vets to learn how to find steady footing with their ice-climbing crampons and to keep their ice axes and ropes from tangling as they climb. Bailey and Smiley are chronicling their journey and accepting donations to help with training costs on their website Blind Strength. “This climb is drawing awareness,” Smiley said. “It’s about doing things that I enjoy and being an example on others not to give up on life and push through hard times.”
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