ten years ago we had six eight thousand
horses a year being adopted out and that
number is plummeted to about twenty five
hundred a year and part of its an
awareness thing part of its people out
know horses but I found one one story
that really touched me
after the unbranded ride there was a
veteran in Afghanistan at Green Beret
who was shot in the chest and had a lot
of a lot of difficulties with PTSD maybe
a drinking problem and was pretty
depressed and just kind of down on life
he ended up getting involved their
program Bozeman called heroes and horses
where they took ray and for three weeks
I taught him horsemanship and they took
him on a packed trip and after that he
was like I’m going to do a 1,000 mile
journey along the Connell Divide to try
to kind of come to peace with some of
the things that he’d gone through and he
so there’s around lap there’s Micah Fink
on the right he’s the guy who’s had
serious horses I love that man but he
was doing this journey in about 2/3 of
the way through it some of his horses
started colic which is like a bellyache
and he thinks they got into some
invasive weeds he called me and it’s
like all distraught like I don’t know if
I’m gonna be able to finish etc etc and
I was like dude I got some ponies like
you just use my ponies under the
situation in the condition that I get to
go with you so I got to go on this
really cool trip with Ray and we went
through Yellowstone and here’s some of
the photos I got to go for around 2
weeks or so with him
but we made a short film with National
Geographic adventure on his story
I served in the US Army for 11 years I
was in 10th Special Forces Group did all
my comment plummets to Afghanistan and
diagnosed PTSD pretty bad anxiety
and for a long time eight nine months I
didn’t want to leave the house at all
[Music]
I went on a horse packing trip with an
outfit called heroes and horses last
year they take combat veterans to the
mountains and I went on that trip and
all of a sudden I found purpose and it
fundamentally changed my life I’m trying
to get to Manhattan Montana and when I
get there I’m going to donate all my
tack and all my ponies to heroes and
horses so I believe this program’s
amazing and it’s going to help a lot of
veterans a friend of mine that I worked
with in the backcountry he was also a
veteran committed suicide about a month
ago so when I heard that Ray was riding
1,000 miles from Colorado to Montana
along the Continental Divide seek
healing through horses and wilderness I
asked to come along I myself have
completed two similar long distance
rides and feel a bond with Ray it’s got
the Yellowstone yeah
that’s pretty cool it’s so freakin cool
then it hats off to that Buffalo for
standing his ground
[Music]
[Music]
I’ve been carrying this rotten real
around since Colorado they haven’t
caught one fish yet
[Music]
yeah this is stitches absurd typically
bad luck catch fish on first cast
nice kid your spot holy crap there you
area here yup
now we’re talking Yellowstone cutthroat
trout
catching up ray ice miss one I got a
nice dollars far the fastest I’ve ever
seen 50 Michigan trot that was pretty
cool
[Music]
part of the reason why I did this trip
is for my buddy Clint who just passed
away two weeks ago and I wasn’t able to
go to his funeral and I thought you know
this is perfect way to come out and
honor our friendship and the good times
I think so too
so – Clint – all the guys that took
their lives for reasons that we never
understand
[Music]
then you’ll just amazing critters they
give you lots of love and affection a
lot more than I Mehra does this is the
first time I’ve been able to come up to
ladies been laying down without him
standing up this is so cool okay I tried
in the other mule hey buddy hey buddy
these ponies
[Music]
have
[Music]
they absolutely trust me now they agree
it makes me feel really good these
parties have an amazing ability once you
gain their trust they care for you they
believe in you and they look for you for
leadership when someone’s looking for
you for leadership you can’t fail them
and that’s an amazing thing you stop
worrying about yourself
[Music]
I hadn’t learned anything new about
myself on this trip I just found things
that I had once lost it’s really easy to
get in a pattern of self defeat and I
think that’s where I was at and this
challenge made me realize that there was
nothing wrong with me
[Music]
you
Yeah right now awesome guy
after this film was made heroes and
horses has continued to expand a program
and Rea last year was one of the trip
leaders taking guys like him into the
wilderness teaching them horsemanship
and she’s kind of cool to see you know
dude that was really struggling and you
know is now giving back to people and he
also another thing about this program
this this yearõs in horses program is
in January they adopted fifteen Mustangs
yeah it’s pretty cool
I kind of nudged him that way a little
bit i was like ‘i tell you what’s up
and sit out about getting Canadian
Mustangs I was like get some American
Mustangs
so they rented galleries Mustangs they
trained them and they’re going to become
therapy versus this summer four more
guys going through the program and in
order to complete their training we’re
actually gonna do a 500 mile ride
through New Mexico in Arizona just to
prepare the horses and I’m going to get
to go on part of that which I’m really
excited about I don’t know if you guys
noticed or not but I kind of like to
ride horses in the mountains but but it
is it’s really cool raised stories is
one that I’ve heard from quite a few
people you know people that are in a bad
place in life or they don’t have a lot
of direction they don’t really know
where to go and they kind of seek solace
or they seek purpose and an adventure
and an escape by you know going into
into nature going into the wild and
just stepping into some woods and going
and finding a place to think about and
um you know I changed Ray’s life that
has completely changed my life
and I believe that you know ensuring
that public lands have a place into the
future you know it isn’t just like
crucial for biodiversity for a lot of
stuff for a lot of the indigenous
species in North America but I mean for
our society as well I think I think
having a place where the average Joe can
go on to regulate and to think and
escape and you know it’s part of what
makes us human so you know there’s
there’s three points that that I really
wanted to send you guys home with they
made me drill it down to three but one
of those is is is public land you know
you know there are people that
legitimately want to sell it and that is
such a bad idea I mean it is one of the
one of the greatest things that the
United States has ever done is set aside
lands for future generations
there’s so many people that enjoy and
appreciate those and it changes their
lives and give them purpose and I just
think it’s crazy that you would ever
want to sell something like that and
then the second one is you know we have
all these public lands and what do we
what do we want to do with it you know
it’s a big question people fight tooth
and nail to keep them but they’re like
well what is good Land Management how do
we define what good Land Management is
and there’s a lot of big environmental
and ecological time-bombs you know in
the American West and on the world as a
whole in in my opinion I feel like the
longer you wait and you procrastinate to
tackle these issues you know head-on you
know just the bigger the bigger they’re
going to be
and in the third one
anyone that I really want you guys to go
home with is you all need to adopt a
burro especially you sister you have
note you have no choice so that’s the
end of my talk thank you guys so much
for coming
[Applause]
[Music]
horses a year being adopted out and that
number is plummeted to about twenty five
hundred a year and part of its an
awareness thing part of its people out
know horses but I found one one story
that really touched me
after the unbranded ride there was a
veteran in Afghanistan at Green Beret
who was shot in the chest and had a lot
of a lot of difficulties with PTSD maybe
a drinking problem and was pretty
depressed and just kind of down on life
he ended up getting involved their
program Bozeman called heroes and horses
where they took ray and for three weeks
I taught him horsemanship and they took
him on a packed trip and after that he
was like I’m going to do a 1,000 mile
journey along the Connell Divide to try
to kind of come to peace with some of
the things that he’d gone through and he
so there’s around lap there’s Micah Fink
on the right he’s the guy who’s had
serious horses I love that man but he
was doing this journey in about 2/3 of
the way through it some of his horses
started colic which is like a bellyache
and he thinks they got into some
invasive weeds he called me and it’s
like all distraught like I don’t know if
I’m gonna be able to finish etc etc and
I was like dude I got some ponies like
you just use my ponies under the
situation in the condition that I get to
go with you so I got to go on this
really cool trip with Ray and we went
through Yellowstone and here’s some of
the photos I got to go for around 2
weeks or so with him
but we made a short film with National
Geographic adventure on his story
I served in the US Army for 11 years I
was in 10th Special Forces Group did all
my comment plummets to Afghanistan and
diagnosed PTSD pretty bad anxiety
and for a long time eight nine months I
didn’t want to leave the house at all
[Music]
I went on a horse packing trip with an
outfit called heroes and horses last
year they take combat veterans to the
mountains and I went on that trip and
all of a sudden I found purpose and it
fundamentally changed my life I’m trying
to get to Manhattan Montana and when I
get there I’m going to donate all my
tack and all my ponies to heroes and
horses so I believe this program’s
amazing and it’s going to help a lot of
veterans a friend of mine that I worked
with in the backcountry he was also a
veteran committed suicide about a month
ago so when I heard that Ray was riding
1,000 miles from Colorado to Montana
along the Continental Divide seek
healing through horses and wilderness I
asked to come along I myself have
completed two similar long distance
rides and feel a bond with Ray it’s got
the Yellowstone yeah
that’s pretty cool it’s so freakin cool
then it hats off to that Buffalo for
standing his ground
[Music]
[Music]
I’ve been carrying this rotten real
around since Colorado they haven’t
caught one fish yet
[Music]
yeah this is stitches absurd typically
bad luck catch fish on first cast
nice kid your spot holy crap there you
area here yup
now we’re talking Yellowstone cutthroat
trout
catching up ray ice miss one I got a
nice dollars far the fastest I’ve ever
seen 50 Michigan trot that was pretty
cool
[Music]
part of the reason why I did this trip
is for my buddy Clint who just passed
away two weeks ago and I wasn’t able to
go to his funeral and I thought you know
this is perfect way to come out and
honor our friendship and the good times
I think so too
so – Clint – all the guys that took
their lives for reasons that we never
understand
[Music]
then you’ll just amazing critters they
give you lots of love and affection a
lot more than I Mehra does this is the
first time I’ve been able to come up to
ladies been laying down without him
standing up this is so cool okay I tried
in the other mule hey buddy hey buddy
these ponies
[Music]
have
[Music]
they absolutely trust me now they agree
it makes me feel really good these
parties have an amazing ability once you
gain their trust they care for you they
believe in you and they look for you for
leadership when someone’s looking for
you for leadership you can’t fail them
and that’s an amazing thing you stop
worrying about yourself
[Music]
I hadn’t learned anything new about
myself on this trip I just found things
that I had once lost it’s really easy to
get in a pattern of self defeat and I
think that’s where I was at and this
challenge made me realize that there was
nothing wrong with me
[Music]
you
Yeah right now awesome guy
after this film was made heroes and
horses has continued to expand a program
and Rea last year was one of the trip
leaders taking guys like him into the
wilderness teaching them horsemanship
and she’s kind of cool to see you know
dude that was really struggling and you
know is now giving back to people and he
also another thing about this program
this this yearõs in horses program is
in January they adopted fifteen Mustangs
yeah it’s pretty cool
I kind of nudged him that way a little
bit i was like ‘i tell you what’s up
and sit out about getting Canadian
Mustangs I was like get some American
Mustangs
so they rented galleries Mustangs they
trained them and they’re going to become
therapy versus this summer four more
guys going through the program and in
order to complete their training we’re
actually gonna do a 500 mile ride
through New Mexico in Arizona just to
prepare the horses and I’m going to get
to go on part of that which I’m really
excited about I don’t know if you guys
noticed or not but I kind of like to
ride horses in the mountains but but it
is it’s really cool raised stories is
one that I’ve heard from quite a few
people you know people that are in a bad
place in life or they don’t have a lot
of direction they don’t really know
where to go and they kind of seek solace
or they seek purpose and an adventure
and an escape by you know going into
into nature going into the wild and
just stepping into some woods and going
and finding a place to think about and
um you know I changed Ray’s life that
has completely changed my life
and I believe that you know ensuring
that public lands have a place into the
future you know it isn’t just like
crucial for biodiversity for a lot of
stuff for a lot of the indigenous
species in North America but I mean for
our society as well I think I think
having a place where the average Joe can
go on to regulate and to think and
escape and you know it’s part of what
makes us human so you know there’s
there’s three points that that I really
wanted to send you guys home with they
made me drill it down to three but one
of those is is is public land you know
you know there are people that
legitimately want to sell it and that is
such a bad idea I mean it is one of the
one of the greatest things that the
United States has ever done is set aside
lands for future generations
there’s so many people that enjoy and
appreciate those and it changes their
lives and give them purpose and I just
think it’s crazy that you would ever
want to sell something like that and
then the second one is you know we have
all these public lands and what do we
what do we want to do with it you know
it’s a big question people fight tooth
and nail to keep them but they’re like
well what is good Land Management how do
we define what good Land Management is
and there’s a lot of big environmental
and ecological time-bombs you know in
the American West and on the world as a
whole in in my opinion I feel like the
longer you wait and you procrastinate to
tackle these issues you know head-on you
know just the bigger the bigger they’re
going to be
and in the third one
anyone that I really want you guys to go
home with is you all need to adopt a
burro especially you sister you have
note you have no choice so that’s the
end of my talk thank you guys so much
for coming
[Applause]
[Music]
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