{"id":22901,"date":"2011-04-11T12:56:59","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T16:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=22901"},"modified":"2011-04-11T13:00:02","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T17:00:02","slug":"heroes-and-horses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=22901","title":{"rendered":"Heroes and Horses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

I remain convinced that one of the biggest problems for veterans when they get back from Iraq and Afghanistan is the precipitous drop in tempo.\u00a0 You go one day from patrolling or taking down a High Value target, and return to paying the bills, taking out the trash and doing laundry.\u00a0 For National Guard and Reservists, you even get separated from the guys and girls you just spent every waking moment with.<\/p>\n

I was somewhat lucky (?) in that I returned to law school the week I returned from Afghanistan.\u00a0 Granted, the excitement and camaraderie were gone, but at least I was too busy to notice.\u00a0 When the guys from COP Keating got back, one of the things that the leadership wanted for those guys was to do a rafting trip on the Colorado.\u00a0 To me it seems clear that in the absence of excitement, Joe and Jane will go and find it, often with bad results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About a year ago, Blackfive<\/a> and I were talking about this with some other folks with Soldier\u2019s Angels.\u00a0 As fortune would have it, an opportunity arose, and we\u2019ve been working on it ever since.\u00a0 Up in the Yellowstone area of Montana is a couple of adjacent horse ranches, run by the Renee Daniels-Mantle & Kail Mantle on one side, and Mark & Jean White on the other.\u00a0 It is there that Heroes and Horses will be run<\/p>\n

From their website:<\/a><\/p>\n

Montana Horses, home of Heroes and Horses, is owned and operated by Kail Mantle & Renee Daniels-Mantle, who run several hundred head of saddle horses on and around their Mantle Ranch and thousands of horses across the West. The Mantle Family has been in the horse business for over a century and their name has become synonymous with the horse business.<\/p>\n

Kail and Renee Mantle oversee and coordinate all Heroes and Horses onsite operations with the assistance of neighboring ranchers Mark and Jean White, who also coordinate and oversee all pack trips into the mountains. The Whites have been in the outfitting business for thirty years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As the program makes clear in its Mission Statement:<\/p>\n

The experience of bringing together a group of combat veterans–each dealing with the process of returning to the normalcy of everyday life after war and each looking to communicate that process with others of the same mind–is invaluable.\u00a0 No classroom, no respite, no program can provide the opportunity to accomplish a goal, learn a set of skills, and challenge the mind and body like the great outdoors.\u00a0 No companionship is as effective as that found around a campfire at 9,000 feet, with no parameters and no guided limit or canned focus.\u00a0 No sense of accomplishment compares to the first time you and your horse have climbed a mountain with the confidence of competence, then looked out over the grandeur of America–the greatest country in the world–with knowledge that is yours and available always for your enjoyment and that of your friends and family.\u00a0 This is freedom worth fighting for.\u00a0 It should be capitalized upon like the spoils of war.\u00a0 It is a reward in itself.\u00a0 It should be enjoyed by our soldiers upon their return.\u00a0 It is uniquely theirs.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next week Matt Burden (Blackfive) and I are heading out to Montana to take part in the annual Three Forks Horse drive, and to check out the ranch itself.\u00a0 Matt put up a pretty good video of it on his Facebook page that I wanted to share:
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