American Spirit

by Taya Kyle

  “It was like a veteran apocalypse,” he notes of what he observed. In combat just a few months before, many of the men he met or reconnected with had been at the top of their game, combat-ready. Now they are hiding out in their basements, mushed up on drugs, walking zombies.

  That wasn’t going to happen to him, and it didn’t. Moving on with his life, he relocated to Montana in 2013, along with his wife and children. They were still learning their way around the property when he planted some plants on a windowsill. Trying to help them reach the sunlight, every day he cleared a little more of the ground outside to improve the light.

  The plants spurt up quickly, then, just as quickly, died.

  Micah was left with the question: Had he helped them die, rather than live? Would they have been better off in the shade, struggling for light and nourishment, rather than being flooded with it?

  As he thought about it, he decided that struggle was a universal condition. But it wasn’t necessarily a negative one. It was hard, true, and surely difficult at times, but it was also life-affirming. He had struggled in the Amazon, only to return stronger and more purposeful.

  That same summer, he went backpacking and met some cowboys riding through the mountains. Talking to them, he discovered they were veterans on a six-day trip who were part of a program helping veterans overcome adjustment problems and post-traumatic stress. The trips helped them open up with each other; they also presented the individuals with struggles that refocused them on their own strengths and identities.

  “In that moment, I realized what I was doing in Montana, in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere.”

  Micah translated his own experiences in the wilderness and with horses into the outlines of a program that became Heroes and Horses.

  Launched officially in 2013, the nonprofit takes veterans through a three-phase program that first teaches them horsemanship—basic things that are necessary to ride horses in the mountains. Following that, they take a six-day pack trip through the Gallatin Mountains, a range in the Rockies that extends through Montana and Wyoming.

  Two weeks later, they return for Phase Two, which begins with more advanced skills in wilderness survival. That is followed by a hundred-mile trip through rough country in places like the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.

  What happens there?

  Aside from the physical journey—where participants take turns planning the logistics and taking on such tasks as locating camps—veterans find themselves talking about things in a way they haven’t been able to with family members or therapists. Memories, often horrific, of time on the battlefield resurface.

  One common theme—guilt. Guilt at surviving. Guilt at having to struggle to cope. Guilt at not being “OK,” whatever that means.

  Participants tend to bond with their horses as well as with one another. There is something about relating to animals that can be thoroughly therapeutic. You’re caring about another creature, responsible for them while at the same time helped by their presence and strength.

  The final phase is called Integration. The veterans are placed with outfitters and others who put them to work on ranches and whatnot, using some of the skills they’ve learned, acquiring new ones. That lasts a month; some end up taking jobs in the field or related ones, such as working as guides or packers.

  The program is still young and expanding. There are plans to buy a ranch and start raising cattle to make the program self-sustaining.

  “We’ve got some big things in the works that will push us to the next level,” promises Micah. His staff is working on analytics to show that the program can help more effectively than existing therapies. Data-driven methods and results are critical to the future, they believe, and not just at Horses and Heroes. The hope is that similar methods will be adapted elsewhere, perhaps universally.

  “And at that point, I’ll go get a job at Walmart,” jokes Micah.

  Until then, there’s a great deal of work to be done, starting with weaning people off medications and changing professional minds about its proper role. Seventy-five percent of the guys who come to the program, Micah says, are on more than three medications. And that’s too much.

  They split about two dozen guys into eight-man classes each year. To enter the program, veterans fill out an application on the group’s website, found at www.heroesandhorses.org. While there are no set requirements other than being a combat veteran in reasonable health, the group looks for people who will benefit and who understand that this isn’t a dude ranch; riding horses in the mountains and depending only on yourself and the guys around you is not an easy task. Participants are not charged; Heroes and Horses is a nonprofit and gets its money from donations and accomplishes much of its work with the help of volunteers and in-kind contributions from like-minded groups and companies.

  “The environment here—I call it a high-pressure medium—is a place where veterans rediscover meaning and purpose through struggle,” says Micah of Heroes and Horses. “Because the easy way eventually kills you.”

  While especially critical of professionals who emphasize drugs over other forms of treatment, he’s equally critical of veterans who use their disabilities—legitimate or not, physical or emotional—as an excuse not to take charge of their lives. What he calls professional veterans—vets who go from program to program more for enjoyment than for anything else—are wasting everyone’s time, including their own.

  And so are the people giving them feel-good, lip-service “help.”

  “If I take six hundred guys out to the Super Bowl, have I helped them?” he asks rhetorically. “No. That’s why our motto is ‘Heroes and Horses—This Is Not a Vacation . . .’

  “These guys have no idea who they are when they come,” Micah adds. “They only know what they’ve been told.”

  Why is he running the program?

  “We’re all born with a specific purpose,” he answers. “Mine is to help other people. I think a lot of modern life is contributing to the de-evolution of mankind. . . .

  “Ultimately, I’m ashamed of a lot of guys in my community. What they’ve done is taken a free lunch—but free lunch is not free. It enslaves them.

  “I had a Marine call the office,” he says, giving an example. “He says, ‘I miss the Marine Corps, the brothers—’”

  “No problem. I’ll arrange for you to reenlist.”

  The Marine wanted no part of that.

  “What are we talking about then?” asked Micah.

  The man went quiet.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do.” Micah laid out a simple daily regime—early rising, walking or running four miles. He told the man to call him in two weeks.

  The Marine did. “I’ve never felt so great in my life.”

  Micah had him continue for another three weeks and, in the meantime, decide on three things he wanted to do with his life. When the three weeks were over, the Marine told Micah he had sold his house and enrolled in a flight paramedic school.

  Three months later, the Marine had finished school. He called back and wanted to come into the program.

  “No,” answered Micah.

  “Why not?”

  “You already did it.”

  “Can I come as a volunteer?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Did I do anything for that guy?” Micah asks rhetorically. “No. He did it himself. . . . There’s a disease. That disease is a narrative that obstacles are there to break us. They’re not.”

  He draws a parallel between taming wild mustangs and helping veterans. The horses have to be shown what they are capable of; same with people.

  “Horses are very honest creatures. They will test you in every different way.” Dealing with them, says Micah, is like looking in the mirror for many men.

  Both man and beast have to decide that they are going to be what they are capable of. They have to choose. The choices may not be easy, or at least not seem easy, but they are nonetheless choices.

  Obstacles, though, can br
ing triumph.

  “The greatest thing in life is that you went through hell,” says Micah. “Consider yourself lucky. Because you are about to become a rocket. . . . The greater the struggle, the greater the achievement.”

  High Risk, Higher Reward

  GearUp

  Literally or figuratively, getting to a place isn’t just a matter of transportation; you have to know where you’re going so you can get there.

  Sometimes it takes quite a bit of help to get the destination and a map together.

  Shaila, a sixteen-year-old in the Flint, Michigan, area, found both at GearUp Academy, a small alternative high school for kids with a variety of problems and home difficulties.

  A self-described “people person,” she’s aiming to become a registered nurse. In the meantime, she’s working fast food and attending GearUp, where she not only works on “normal” high school curriculum with the help of an online tutoring program but also attends sessions on social and coping skills and even leadership.

  “You learn to push yourself,” says Shaila, who grew up in a gang-infested neighborhood known for its crime rate and dim futures. Before she came to GearUp, she was in danger not only of flunking out of high school but simply never seeing her eighteenth birthday. “My side of town, you can’t even walk to the park. Boys get guns instead of books.”

  Shaila is one of thirty-five students at the school. The Academy is tiny not because there’s no need—it’s estimated that at least four thousand young people in the area are “high risk” and need some sort of alternative program or will not graduate. A significant number are from very poor families; most are minorities.

  GearUp is tiny because its funding is tiny. In fact, there’s barely enough money to pay for its two administrator-teacher-do-everythingers. Along with some dedicated volunteers and board members, Executive Director Winston Stoody and Chief Engagement Officer Kelly Rodgers handle a wide variety of tasks, from fund-raising to informal counseling. While they get help from other area professionals and agencies, GearUp is very much a place where the principal knows your name.

  Started with the help of a grant in the fall of 2016, GearUp Academy is an outgrowth of GearUp2Lead, a leadership program that helps inspire local young people. GearUp2Lead holds an annual conference on leadership and has developed a curriculum to help young people in trouble, hoping to buffer the bad influences of poor family situations and poor adolescent decisions. The Academy puts those two ideas to work.

  Their motto is embedded in their name: GEAR stands for “Growth Empathy Action Responsibility.” Those are the cornerstone values of the program and hopefully of the students who graduate.

  Three distinct types of students come to the Academy. About a third are kids who have gotten into trouble with the law and are “adjudicated”—essentially sentenced to go to the school and straighten themselves out. Another third are suburban kids who, for whatever reason, are not doing well in their local high school and need a different environment to succeed. The same is true of the final third, though their hometown is Flint, where the demographics and surroundings are very different.

  Those three populations aren’t necessarily a natural mix. The Academy has its work cut out for it as it works to build a team-like atmosphere from the start to get everyone to get along.

  “We share the fact that they have a very unique opportunity here,” says Winston. “This needs to be a safe place. If there’s a whole lot of drama or garbage, we’re not going to put up with it.”

  At the same time, “kids are kids.” Things happen. Flexibility and communication are probably the two most important tools the staff uses every day.

  The Academy day starts at 9:00 a.m.—significantly later than most high schools, designated because it’s a little closer to teenage sleeping rhythms, as any parent of an adolescent can tell you. There are a variety of project-oriented classes—say, time with a volunteer writing coach working on essays—then a couple of hours of online classes, where students advance at their own pace. Lunch, often combined with a talk, lecture, or other program, follows. Art classes follow. Then the kids go to jobs, study, or do more work on their project.

  Afternoon jobs range from the trades—working in auto shops, for example—to fast food. The projects have a similar range and seriousness: among them was one called Project Citizen, which ended up with a student presenting information on curfews to the city council.

  Both Winston and Kelly are devoted to their students, but they come at it from different backgrounds and résumés. Winston has a master’s degree in education and extensive teaching experience; he’s coached and acted as a mentor. He also started and later sold a meal delivery service and worked as a trader at the Chicago Board of Trade.

  Kelly, a Flint native, worked in the automotive industry and was a board member of GearUp when, in 2016, she decided that helping young people was her true calling. So she quit a well-paying job at Nissan to become a volunteer mentor before being promoted to her present position.

  Both take an entrepreneur approach to the school. Or, to put it another way, they “do whatever it takes” to make school work. They pass that attitude on to the kids, encouraging them to seek out opportunities and, if they have the temperament, aim to mold their own enterprises in the future.

  Community organizations have pitched in in various and occasionally unusual ways. A twelve-week course on financial literacy was taught by an employee of a local credit union. The school is partnered with a nearby school district and Peckham Youth Services, which provides vocational programing for the students.

  But teaching on a tight budget is not a thing of magic. Besides the everyday dilemmas involved with educating kids others have given up on, GearUp Academy is faced with the difficult task of raising money to fund its operation. Just keeping the lights on is a struggle.

  When we were talking with them, they were looking for new quarters. The space they were using was due to be leased; after lessons, Winston was beating the proverbial bushes for a new place to call home. They have their eye on an old firehouse; to make it work, they need to raise money to buy and renovate it.

  It’s a daunting task, but they have plans, including a GoFundMe campaign.

  Building and finances aside, one of the biggest challenges is finding businesses willing to employ young people, especially ones who have had trouble with authorities.

  Successes come one at a time. Some are “big”—the week we spoke, a student had just graduated the Academy’s career readiness program and started work at an eyewear firm. Others may seem “small” to outsiders: Shaila had her first real birthday party, with a cake and everything, the week before.

  Flint has been in the news most recently because of a severe water crisis brought on by lead leaching from pipes in the old system. But even problems as severe as that have to be put into perspective. A dark sense of humor may help; as one volunteer remarked, “Before that we were known for our crime rate.”

  Hopefully, the next news cycle involving the city will be all about the success of groups like GearUp and its students fostering an economic and cultural boom.

  Three

  To Help Others

  Being Different

  Jim has two friends we’ll call Clark and Jake who often come by on summer evenings to hang out. Both are “different” in the sense that they have disabilities: Clark’s is developmental, Jake’s is physical. They’re brothers, but their personalities are very different—Clark is a practical joker and always seems to be laughing at something, or just about to; Jake is far more serious. Neither, though, fits the stereotype of a “special” person. They’re individuals, and that’s all. Jake can be a bit cranky, but he is an important member of his church, often helping usher and whatnot on Sundays. He’s an aficionado of classic cars from the 1950s and ’60s. Clark erects the best Christmas displays in the neighborhood—in his opinion—and has a way with dogs and other pets. He’s also the family’s—and occasionally the neighbors’—prime gr
ass cutter and the first to volunteer to help clear out a nearby senior citizen’s driveway after a snowfall.

  The point isn’t anything special—excuse the pun. Both young men are just like everyone else despite their disabilities. True, they have and still require additional care and certainly expense because of the mixture of attributes that God gave them at birth. And no sugar coating—they haven’t been given any “special” attributes to compensate for the ones that make them obviously different from others. But each in his own way is a part of the community, making his own contribution to the family and the community.

  Some disabilities we’re born with. Others occur after birth through accidents or genetics. But in many cases, those disabilities don’t mean that the person isn’t doing a lot for others.

  What about those of us who don’t have disabilities holding us back?

  What are we doing? How are we contributing to the community? Where is our American Spirit shining through? Can we do more?

  The next few people may provide some examples.

  Getting Past Barriers

  Jesse Saperstein

  People come up against barriers at all different points in their lives. In Jesse Saperstein’s case, they were there from the very beginning of his life—though neither he nor his family understood that.

  Jesse has Asperger’s syndrome, a cluster of disorders on the autism spectrum. The medical explanations of the condition can get very technical, and in fact, we’re still learning a lot about autism and its manifestations, but to summarize in layman’s terms, the condition basically affects a person’s ability to deal with social situations. A person with Asperger’s, as it is commonly known, tends to seem “a little off” when meeting people for the first time. He or she may appear extremely standoffish or otherwise not interactive when talking. They may become obsessive with trivial information and seem unusually focused on particular subjects. Motor skills—functions performed using their body—are often clunky. In general, they don’t seem to quite fit in—they may be intelligent, even superior, but they are square pegs in round holes.