By Chris Frost
EAGLE TIMES NEWS EDITOR
Forty Navy Seals and 300 swimmers will be diving into a New Hampshire Lake next week to support veterans.
The fifth annual Swim With A Mission will take place July 15 at Newfound Lake in Wellington State Park in Bristol. It will feature 40 Navy Seals, approximately 300 swimmers and around 100 volunteers.
Co-Founder Philip Taub founded Swim With A Mission, SWAM, with his wife Julie in 2016 to help veterans.
“We team up with a group of Navy Seals and put on a bunch of fun, unique events that raise money,” he said. “We donate the money we raise to worthy Veteran service organizations.”
“They have to tell us what they are doing and how many Veterans they are servicing,” he said. “When they apply, there are more than 40. We get this unique perspective and it’s like a jigsaw puzzle.”
Taub says when you put the puzzle together, you can see gaps.
“There have been years where we had a heavy emphasis on reducing homelessness among Veterans, but in other years, mental health is more of an issue,” he said.
Since 2016, SWAM has raised more than $8.5 million.
“In 2022, our focus was on reducing Veteran suicides.”
The organization has also funded recreational retreats, where veterans get out of isolation and gather with other veterans.
“We spent money on programs we know help with mental health, like service dogs, art therapy and mental health counseling for people with traumatic brain injuries, PTS [post-traumatic stress], and PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder].”
He said the number of Veteran suicides is rising in New Hampshire.
“There is a stigma around mental health issues, not just for veterans, but for society,” he said. “Veterans being with other veterans breaks down the stigma — especially veterans who have been on their journey already.” “Too many Veterans feel the loss of teammates and a sense of purpose, something bigger than themselves,” he said. “They end up at home self-medicating. Sometimes it’s through alcohol or, maybe, it’s drugs.”
A retreat might take place on a farm and include equine therapy.
“There is something about horses and being on a farm, a beautiful place with other veterans that gets them out of their isolation and removes the stigma.”
Service organizations and the Veterans Administration can work together for better collaboration, Taub said.
“There is no site to find services so, through word-of-mouth, they find a service,” he said. “Maybe there is a dog, but they are not ready for a dog. Maybe they need an equine immersion program, but they don’t know about it.”
Taub said SWAM is working to make it so veterans know of and are offered more options.
“Now, instead of hearing you’re not ready for this, you call this group that does an equine immersion program, or this group does art therapy,” he said.
Raising awareness of what other groups are offering is key to SWAM’s annual summits; the most recent was two weeks ago.
“Swim With A Mission is getting all the Veteran service organizations, the V.A. and the state together for three straight years and it’s never happened before,” he said.
Most groups didn’t know each other, and the V.A. didn’t know the volunteer groups, he said.
“Now they walk into a room and recognize each other and they’re calling each other,”
You don’t have to be a veteran to help a veteran, Taub said.
“We can always use more volunteers.”
Taub, himself, never served in the armed forces.
“All the veterans I knew were in good shape,” he said. “In 2016, I worked with one of the candidates running for President, Jeb Bush, and he asked me to go to VFW halls and American Legions.”
He said he met “way too many veterans” struggling with issues.
“Whether it was the Vietnam era or the War on Terror, I was shocked at how many veterans in New Hampshire are not getting the help they need,” he said. “I told my wife ‘We’ve got to sink our teeth into this problem.’”
The more involved they became the more they comprehended the magnitude of the problem. “We started with a swim at Newfound Lake, which is why we called it Swim With A Mission, and tried to raise $25,000 to help the veterans in the North Country,” he said.
“We raised $450,000 the first time out, and when we put that money to work, we needed to raise more money.”
He said since 9/11, 94 New Hampshire soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines have died in service in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
“In that same amount of time, 800 have come home safely and taken their own lives,” Taub said. “Because we have 94 Gold Star Families since 9/11, and we’ve 800 suicides, we need to make sure we never forget who sacrificed all and address the suicide issue and everything else going on in our community. Those numbers are unacceptable.”
Taub couldn’t describe the feeling he and his wife experience when a veteran benefits from Swim With A Mission’s fundraisers.
“We meet people who come up to us on a regular basis and say ‘you don’t know me, but I served in this arena. You guys paid for this service dog and this service dog saved my life.’ Or, ‘because of you, I now realize I’m an artist and you helped me with my PTSD.’ Or, ‘I went through an equine immersion program and I didn’t realize how much help I needed. I would have killed myself.’ We hear these stories, and it makes us more resolute. We need to do more. We’ve met some of the greatest people in the world who are Veterans or have a heart for Veterans. It has changed our lives.”
For more info or to volunteer, visit SWAM.org.
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