Our warriors deserve a place to rest and refit. Help us find them a forever home.
“Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven…. Build, therefore, your own world.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
My parents paid around $25,000 for their first home. It was built in 1959 and they purchased it in the 70’s. It was remodeled to add more space after we moved out. It originally had a carport in front (just beyond where the car is parked in the above photo). It had 3 bedrooms and 1 small bathroom that we all shared. It had jalousie windows that could be cranked open to let in a breeze or cranked shut to keep out the mosquito fog sprayed regularly by a city pest control truck. The house had a kerosene heater that my sister and I loved to cuddle up close to (despite warnings from our mom) in the winter and I loved the smell of kerosene.
Some of the home’s best features were the prickly pear cactuses that formed a border on one side of the front yard with a fence forming a border on the other side. It made for an exciting yard to play touch football in as no one wanted to make a diving catch into the cactus tines of the end zone, but many kids did. There was a green water hose on the front of the house (right where the one is in the photo) that was perfect for quenching your thirst on hot Florida afternoons. It was also convenient for setting up a homemade slip and slide, which my parents did using Visqueen and dish soap. The backyard had a tire swing that made you feel like you could fly, especially when wearing the Superman costume my mom stitched for me. The backyard was fenced in, which allowed us to have dogs from as early as I can remember.
The house was only a couple of blocks away from our elementary school and middle school. My sister and I frequently walked there and back home with friends. We could also walk or ride bikes to Gresham’s drug store, the Knights of Columbus pool, and the “pick-a-flick” Blockbuster video knock-off. We knew our neighbors and we all looked out for each other. Halloween had a personal element to it. You knew which house was going to have the full-sized candy bars and which ones were going to give you a toothbrush or pocket change. When my mom had to work late as a nurse, we would stay at our next-door neighbor’s house until she came home. We would ride bikes up and down the street for hours and hang out at friends’ homes until my stepdad would whistle for us to come home. Some of my best memories were made at this small house, in this neighborhood. It was like something out of Stranger Things, but real.
This made me think about, “what makes a house a home?” “What gives an otherwise nondescript place significance?” What makes a patch of dirt sacred ground?” It has little to do with the size or the material worth of the man-made structures or even where the land is located. There are places in nature that are more spiritual than any church, mosque, or synagogue. How, then, was this modest home my Mecca? A few things have surfaced to me through the wisdom of time. The first is what you do there — your rituals, routines, and the substance of your activities — can make a place special. We reunited with our mom everyday there. We had nightly family dinners there. We had birthday parties in our backyard. We buried family pets there. I made believe I was Han Solo saving Luke Skywalker with my Millennium Falcon there. I learned to play catch with my Stepdad there.
The second thing that makes a place special is the sweat equity you put into it, together. My mom used to say, “you can be poor, but there is no excuse for being dirty. Soap is cheap and you can afford to keep things clean.” We did family chores every day, and we woke up early on Saturday mornings to do yard work together. If the house needed something, my parents were the ones to fix it and to fix it up. There was something satisfying about completing projects together on our home. We painted, gardened, landscaped, and fixed anything that needed fixing. You give a place its significance by how you honor it, and you make a house a home by making it so.
The last thing and perhaps the most important to make a place sacred is the comfort and safety it gives you. We all need a home base. A place where we can completely let down our guard. A place where we know we are unconditionally loved and absolutely accepted. After a hard day or an exciting adventure, it was always comforting to know I could come home to the familiar sights and smells of our home, the greetings of our pets, the hugs of our parents, and the soft place to land of my bed. When I skinned my knee on my neighbor’s concrete driveway when I tried to jump my BMX bike on his skateboard halfpipe, all I wanted was to go home. The symbols and things you put in your home speak to its welcoming nature. Are there photos of happy times being had and warm art adorning the walls? Is there a table for family dinners that is not centered on a television, but on each other? Is there music that invites family dance parties?
When we send our warriors off to war and our servicemembers off to serve, they often come home feeling somewhat homeless. Reintegration is hard. Coming back from a transformative journey is difficult to do when the world back home seems so detached and far off from what you experienced. Everyone needs a place and a space where they can get re-grounded, feel radically accepted, and come out with a sense of renewal. This idea is what attracted me to the veteran non-profit Patrol Base Abbate — “a place for those who served.” The idea of a patrol base is exactly that — it is a safe place “inside friendly lines” where our warriors can rest and refit in order to deploy back to their local communities with a renewed sense of purpose.
Currently, we have a temporary patrol base in Big Sky Country Montana. It is spectacular. Through the generosity of a family there, we have been able to host our annual retreats on their beautiful property. Ultimately, we would like to establish a permanent patrol base — a forever home for all U.S. veterans who served and all those in the future who will serve. Founder Thomas Schueman likes to say, “We want a place where veterans of all time can say ‘this belongs to me.’” We want to create a sacred place where generations of warriors will hold their return to base retreats and talk about those who came before them and convened in the same spots. Just like a military patrol base, we want to continuously improve our position and put our own sweat equity into the land. Every retreat will build something new or improve upon something there before they depart — leaving everything better than how they found it. Lastly, we will make this a safe space for veterans to come to where they know they will be accepted, loved, and understood by their fellow tribe members.
If you or someone you know owns a property in the wilderness, a ranch, or a farm that they would like to donate all or part of to help give our warriors a forever home, then please let me know. We intentionally are looking for an austere environment with natural beauty to get us outside and on the move. Ideally, we would like a place that is also accessible by an airport (no more than two hours driving) to keep our costs low, so we can make it available to more veterans and expand our programs. Each year, we run several programs that bring service members and veterans with similar interests together. Our shooters, fishers, hunters, lifters, fighters, authors, artists, and more return to base to gather in squad sized elements led by subject matter experts in these respective fields. Your donation could help put those who swore an oath to defend your rights, and who were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, back in community with each other. We know this renewed sense of purpose and connectedness is great for promoting mental wellness and the best preventative medicine against veteran suicide. Will you please help us find our warriors the forever home they deserve?
