Taking care of our own
Via WFB
Hamilton is a small town many Texans know by heart. It’s an hour west of Waco, two south of Dallas, two east of Abilene, and two and a half north of San Antonio. You can only enter the town center from four points, each bearing six-foot tall signs, shaped like tombstones, that read: “Welcome to Hamilton Pop. 3,095 What a Hometown Should Be.”
I went there to attend the First Annual Chris Kyle Memorial Roping at the Circle T Ranch.
Even in death Kyle continues to save lives.
He spent years in the most dangerous parts of Iraq, ensuring that his comrades returned home to their loved ones. And if they returned home to their loved ones broken—missing limbs, burned beyond recognition, wracked with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—he supplied them with workout equipment, mental escape, and a confidante’s ear.
The deadliest Navy SEAL in history, the sniper with 160 confirmed kills, the man Iraqi insurgents dubbed the Devil of Ramadi, was known to weep and hug as he ferried broken souls to therapeutic hunts. Last weekend, one year after a disturbed Marine murdered him during a rehabilitative session, hundreds gathered to continue Kyle’s work.
“In my heart if I’m not a SEAL, I’m a cowboy,” Kyle wrote in his best-selling memoir, American Sniper. So his family organized a rodeo to raise money for Base Camp 40, a charity that provides struggling veterans a day in the Colorado wilderness and plenty of 5 point bucks to hunt.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars post was nearly empty when I arrived in town. A Navy veteran goaded a Vietnam Army draftee to play some pool before spotting the odd face in the room: mine. He had only heard of the rodeo recently, but wasn’t surprised that the Kyle family had selected Texas for the fundraiser.