So in my professional life, I work for one of those great companies that supports taking time off to "give back" for charity events. Additionally, I was invited to be a fourth in a foursome for a day at the beautiful Hyatt Farms Sporting Clays in North Carolina.
Seriously, if you ever have an opportunity to go to Hyatt Farms, go! It is absolutely stunning, very well run, and truly a phenomenal experience.
Let’s get back to this amazing charity event. The goal was to raise money and awareness for the Green Beret Foundation. Now, like most red-blooded American men my age I grew with a great respect for Green Beret's. As a young child my first introduction to this elite class of special forces warrior was a drifter who looking for any other survivors from his company:
Seriously, though, Green Berets are America’s premier special operations force. The tip of the spear in the United States’ fight against diverse enemies worldwide, and I do mean WORLDWIDE!
Green Berets are volunteers from the US Army who go through a rigorous selection process with less than a sixteen percent (< 16%) pass rate. If a volunteer candidate is successful, they go through a minimum of a two year training program to begin their process becoming experts in unconventional warfare, counterterrorism, foreign internal defense, reconnaissance, direct action, hostage rescue, and other strategic missions. A direct quote from the foundation's website:
"As the threat environment has grown globally since 9/11, the Green Berets continue to be called upon to meet the challenge. Currently, Green Berets are deployed in over 50 countries securing America’s strategic interests. The heavy deployment rotations come at a price: Green Berets continually sustain the highest casualty rate in the Special Operations community. Undaunted, they remain the most capable and effective fighting force that the world has ever seen."
The Green Beret Foundation supports these amazing fighting men and women! Yes, that's right there are now officially women who have volunteered, passed and are kicking butt and taking names are Green Beret's! The foundation supports the members of the elite fighting force while in service and during their difficult transition back into civilian life. Helping in areas where the VA might fall down (for example). The foundation doesn't stop there. The foundation extends their support to help the families of the soldiers serving in the special forces.
One of the amazing women who works for the foundation (referred to as a Steel Magnolia) told her personal story, which I won't lie brought tears to my eyes... But she also knew the personal story of so many families that she worked with, the names of family members, the children, the pets, what those kids did for fun and how those kids were growing up. She was beyond amazing.
When her husband drove over an explosive device in Afghanistan in 2013, the foundation went above and beyond for her and her husband's entire family, getting them passports and arranging travel to get them all to Germany to be with him in the hospital. She had never even heard of the Green Beret Foundation before that. Now she works for them too, to help other families and soldiers.
Also working for the foundation, and at the event was retired United States Army Lieutenant General Kenneth E. Tovo. This man has an obvious passion for the Green Berets serving in the special forces, and to hear the pride in his voice and the emotion conveyed when describing the help the foundation is able to provide was truly touching. Let me also say, this man is truly one certified bad-ass! I will come back to General Tovo in a little bit, but let me say: it was a true honor to meet this man.
Back to The Event
Let's get back to the event, shall we...
October 2020.. A confusing time in the US to say the least; and a time where there is a lot of people not getting along with one-another. Well, not here! This event was so enjoyable & counter to the narrative being spun in mainstream media. It was filled with people of every race, background, and political viewpoint.. We all got along wonderfully, voluntarily kept our distances where appropriate, wore masks where required - and frankly - just acted like happy & normal adults!!
It started off with an exhibition of sky diving. Retired Green Beret’s were scheduled to parachute down with American flags, landing out in the beautiful field, like you see below.
However, this was another first for me! Unfortunately, on of these retired heroes had a malfunction with his primary chute, where it got tangled around his foot. His secondary chute deployed, but he still could not get his foot untangled from his primary chute!
I was filming the entire thing with my iPhone, because I love sky diving, and you can hear us as we realize things are going bad & hoping he’s going to be ok.
Here’s the video. I need to edit it & zoom in for you. When I do, I’ll update this blog.
The medics had to cut him down from a tree near the soy bean field, brought him to the hospital with suspected broken leg, concussion & broken ribs. Miracle of miracles at the end of the event, we got an update that he was ok with only some bruised ribs!!! Simply amazing!
Running the Sporting Clay Course
After we all recovered from our near heart attack from witnessing what could have been a tragic accident of an American hero, we still proceeded to run the course.
My team started at stand #11, and due to the Coronavirus, we had to run each stand ourselves. Now, as much as I shoot, clay pidgins is not my forte. It’s just not. I figured out it had been 26 years since I last shot at a Sporting Clay event! 26 years! So I was thrilled to be able to shoot this wonderful Franchi over-under, which I must say handled like an absolute dream!
At one of the stands, we got to shoot a Maxim AR-15 Short Barreled Rifle (SBR), with a nice little red-dot on it. Now this was right up my ally. While this was only my second time shooting sporting clays in nearly 3 decades, shooting at AR500 steel targets with .556 caliber brass is definitely my skill set! Let's just say I didn't miss any points at this station :)
One of the most fun stations, aside from the AR-15 (of course) was the flurry station. This was setup at the 5-stand line-up, with General Tovo. They launched 40 clay pidgins at us from all different directions, and we had to work as a team; reloading our shotguns... knocking as many of the clay targets out of the sky as we could; with General Tovo performing cleanup for any we left in the air.
The average was in the low 20's out of 40. My team scored 18. I guess I we didn't do too awful! Overall on the course, our team came in 6 points away from us being able to take home one of these amazing trophies for the amateurs' (aka: Joe's)..
Well, that's a wrap...
To wrap this all up... If you ever have a chance to shoot at Hyatt Farms, do it! More importantly, if you would like to support the wonderful people at the Green Beret Foundation, please do that, by donating to them here: https://greenberetfoundation.org/donate/
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