It was a warm June day in the Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica; my new friend Christine Cruise had spent the last several days at our host family’s home trying to convince me to go white water rafting. I’d never done anything like that before. Yet, there I stood with several other volunteers from Habitat for Humanity on the Pacuare River. It was a hot, muggy and humid day. Those bright yellow rubber rafts was about to take me on an adventure of a lifetime...
Before I joined the Navy in June 2001, my experience in the outdoors was no more than my boyhood adventures playing in the woods, digging up worms out of the dirt, and catching grasshoppers during the hot Midwest summers. By the time I joined the Navy, I surely was a 'city' kid from Chicago, Illinois. During my time in the service, I learned to work with people from various racial, social and religious backgrounds. We were men and women working together to achieve a common goal.
I had never seen the ocean growing up and, despite its beauty, Lake Michigan can never quite compare to the majestic power of the world’s ocean. I witnessed a lunar eclipse while on the Indian Ocean on my first deployment to Kuwait during Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was the first time in many years that I stood in awe of nature’s beauty - even in the midst of modern warfare. I’ve now been lucky to sail the waters of the Pacific, the Southern and Indian Oceans, the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. On stressful days at sea out on the USS Cleveland LPD-7, I would come out to the flight deck when operations were down. I would stand at the bow of the ship and watch the dolphins swim alongside the forecastle. I saw the beauty of bioluminescence through thousands of jellysh lighting up the night sea in the Persian Gulf; it was only matched by the beauty of a clear night’s sky.
I developed a taste for travel, and wanted to see more of the world. Six months before getting out I volunteered to spend a summer in beautiful Costa Rica building homes for those less fortunate. Just one month after receiving my honorable discharge from the United States Navy, I stood on that riverbed in Costa Rica preparing to have my first white water adventure. We hit a Class 5 rapid on the last section of the river, and our raft capsized. We were all dumped into the river, and I hit my head on a rock. The cheap plastic yellow helmet saved my life that day, and I still proudly wear a scar on my left from that eventful day on the Pacuare River.
Fast forward 11 years later and now I have a new mission to accomplish, which is building the Sierra Club Military Outdoors program in the Southeast. My time in nature didn’t end after my trip in Costa Rica; back home in the Midwest I found personal redemption via sweat lodges in the woods of northern Illinois, and the backyards of Chicago. I dealt with many years of insomnia, and depression which manifested itself as early as during my first deployment. Upon entering graduate school for social work, I learned that many men and women who served in the Armed Forces suffer invisible wounds from depression, anxiety, insomnia and PTSD born in the seven seas or the deserts of Iraq or Afghanistan. I owe my life to a vet who helped me in a time of need and a good friend who brought me to the sacred space that is the sweat lodge. I now hope that my fellow veteran and military brethren can find redemption in the beauty of nature.
The goal of Sierra Club Military Outdoors is to ensure that service members, veterans and their families have the skills, exposure, knowledge and confidence to access the great outdoors. So they can enjoy the lands they once swore to protect. A University of California Berkeley long-term study (http://news. berkeley.edu/2016/05/31/awevswar/) in partnership with Sierra Club Outdoors has found that time spent outdoors in nature can positively impact the ill effects of PTSD. Many veterans experience difficulty adjusting to civilian life after leaving the service, or have trouble with invisible wounds caused by PTSD. By providing service members, veterans, and their families with quality outdoor experiences we hope to foster the development of a new generation of Sierra Club leaders. I hope my brothers and sisters in arms can equally find peace through nature just like I did.
Please stop by the Sierra Club Georgia Chapter office, or reach me at lornett.vestal@sierraclub.org or 404- 607-1262 ext. 222, especially if you are interested in leading outings within this program.
This article originally appeared in the Georgia Sierran July/August/September 2016 edition
