A Hunt for Heroes

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Natalie in Lady Shooters, News

A friend shot this little article over to me last night and I couldn’t tear myself away from it. It’s perhaps one of the most touching accounts of a women-only hunt I’ve ever read. What can I say? We here at Girls Guide have a soft spot for the military. Particularly those wounded in battle. Get ready to be in awe of these women, whether you’re a hunter or not. Check out more from “Women & Guns” Magazine here: https://www.womenshooters.com/

Women Veterans vs. Wild Boars

By Sheila Link,
Contributing Editor

It was dark and chilly at 4 AM when we gathered for the hunt. Cheri, Kate and Kisha, in camouflage and boots, were there when I arrived. The fourth invited veteran, Marissa, came along right behind me. Marissa was not in camo. She was wearing a navy blue tee shirt, blue jeans with a long heavy silver chain looped across one hip, bare feet and flip-flops. I glanced at her painted toenails and asked, “Won’t you be cold?”

“Nope,” she replied. Her tone discouraged further solicitation. We all climbed into the vehicles waiting to take us to nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base for the wild boar hunt that had brought us together.

The four women were recovering from injuries sustained while on military duty. They had been invited to participate in this hunt planned just for them. Each was a military-trained shooter. Kate and Kisha were experienced hunters. Cheri and Marissa had never hunted but were eager for this opportunity to try a new experience. As a consultant on the project, I was there to assist where needed, take photos, and report on the adventure.

These women were not the first returning veterans invited by concerned and appreciative groups to go on a hunting or fishing trip. They were, however, the first returning servicewomen.

The idea that women would benefit from such an outing was conceived during a meeting of media professionals. Lt. Col. Lewis Deal, USMC (Ret.) had given a talk about the value of outdoor recreation to recovering veterans. Col. Deal, Director of Outdoor Programs and Support Services for the Paralyzed Veterans of America, said, “With help, these men can still enjoy traditional outdoor activities,” adding, “It has been found that hunting and fishing trips have helped restore enthusiasm and confidence in recovering servicemen, despite loss of limbs or other serious injuries.”

After his talk, Vickie Gardner of Alpen Outdoors approached Col. Deal and suggested that injured servicewomen should be given the same opportunity. She volunteered to help set up a hunt for injured servicewomen. The colonel was intrigued by the idea and said he’d get back to her.

Vickie’s title at Alpen Outdoors, the optics firm she and her husband Tim own, is “V.P. of stuff.” That means that Vickie takes care of whatever needs to be done. An energetic, enthusiastic expeditor, she is constantly searching for new challenges. Vickie had represented Alpen on an earlier wounded servicemen’s hunt and was deeply impressed by their eagerness to get back into active adventure. She was convinced women’s outdoor adventure would be equally appealing and beneficial.

“The men I was with didn’t let their injuries keep them from enjoying their hunt,” Vickie confided when she asked if I’d help with a women’s event. “I know a similar trip for women would be just as wonderful an experience for them.”

Several months after their conversation, Col. Deal contacted Vickie. He offered help and support, suggested a California wild boar hunt and recommended it be held on a military base. Permission was obtained to hold the hunt on Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB), located along California’s central coast. Guided hunts are not allowed on the base, but members of the base’s Gun Club volunteered to act as “escorts” for the hunters. Four women would be invited, experienced hunters or not, who wanted to participate.

They would need transportation, meals, accommodations and equipment. When word of the project got out, people in the firearm industry stepped right up to offer assistance. Safari Club International agreed to sponsor airfare and motel costs. Alpen added to the fund for expenses as well as providing each woman with binoculars and a riflescope. PVA’s Outdoor Recreation Heritage Fund also contributed money. The Lompoc “Life Option Vocational & Resource Center” (LOVAC) offered use of their wheelchair-accessible van for the women’s local transportation. A variety of personal equipment for the women’s hunt was sent by firearm industry manufacturers.

Weatherby provided four .308 caliber rifles. Black Hills Ammunition sent a supply of lead-free .308 cartridges. VAFB is in a designated lead-free zone for protection of California’s condors. Other manufacturers wanting to contribute to the event sent caps, vests, hunting knives, game cleaning gear, shooting sticks, shirts, rain ponchos and rifle-cleaning kits for each of the women. LL Bean sent four of their famous canvas bags to hold all the gear.

Dates of the event were May 26- 29 of 2010, with two actual hunting days. Accommodations were booked in nearby Lompoc. Once all the ducks were in a row, word went out that wounded servicewomen who might want to participate in a wild boar hunt should contact us. Responses were received from four women:

Kisha Makerney, a petite, blonde 25-year-old sergeant in the Oklahoma National Guard, is cool and quiet. Her demeanor is serious and she seems painfully shy, until an infectious smile lights up her lovely face. Born and raised in Ft. Towson, OK, Kisha grew up hunting with her father and grandfather.

“I knew I wanted to be a soldier,” she told me, “when I was a little tiny girl.” As soon as she could, she signed on with the National Guard and went to basic training at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. It was her first time away from home. “Basic was hard,” she smiled, “but I loved it.” She then went back home to finish high school. After graduating, she returned to Guard duty and was sent to Iraq as an E-4 Specialist, assigned to operating heavy-duty equipment. “Mostly repairing or replacing roads that had been destroyed by Iraqi bombs.”

During home leave, on inactive status, Kisha had a motorcycle accident in which she lost her left leg just below the knee. After two weeks in the Dallas convalescent hospital, she went into the Dallas VA hospital, where a prosthetic leg was made for her. After two weeks, learning to walk, she entered N.E. OK College to study Fire Safety. While there, her Guard unit was called up to go back to Iraq and Kisha, by then an E5, volunteered to go. Her new title was Correctional Officer and her assignment was instructing Iraqi soldiers in how to be Non-Commissioned Officers in their government agency. When the unit was returned to the States, Kisha was finally sent for “rehab” to Ft. Sam Houston’s Center For The Intrepid.

“The most amazing place I’ve ever been,” she describes the Center. “Soldiers go to those doctors and therapists broken-and come back whole!” Krisha is back now on active duty, stationed in OK and awaiting assignment.
Cheryl Arnold, Air Force Flight Nurse, flew in from Arkansas to participate in her first hunt ever. Tall, attractive, 46-years-old, socially adept and well spoken, Cheri joined the Air Force at age 22, “To get over a broken heart,” she says, jokingly. “Actually, I wanted to serve my country and to be a nurse.” She had learned through two years of caring for her terminally ill father, the impact of care and the importance of being able to make a difference in someone’s life.

She worked for small airlines as a flight attendant and was a Licensed Vocational Nurse and an Emergency Medical Technician before entering the military. Cheryl was attached to Travis Air Force Base for six years. She says that, while she didn’t expect to survive basic training, joining the Air Force was the best decision she ever made. “I evolved as a woman-a leader,” she continued. Cheri was a Sergeant when she left the service with an Honorable Discharge after being injured while caring for a patient, whose gurney collapsed and crushed her. She is considered an “incomplete paraplegic”-one who will be a paraplegic when/if she suffers another injury. In 2003, after a violent assault sent her to the emergency room, she filed suit, then got a Concealed Carry Permit and is an avid believer in women’s armed self defense.

After attending a meeting of the “Wounded Warriors” project, she began training in air rifle and pistol shooting and attended the Wounded Warrior’s shooting camp at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO, where she came in second in the final match.

Cheri’s back injury necessitates using a wheelchair, but she’s able to leave it for brief periods. Unhesitatingly she walked across Vandenberg’s hilly, chaparral-dotted hills in search of a boar. She was so enamored of the experience that she is determined to be a hunter. Cheri has two teen-age daughters and a husband who shoots and hunts. As soon as she returned home, she bought a big game rifle. “The noise, the recoil and power of a firearm are a rush!” she confided.

Catherine (Kate) Callahan, red-haired Air Force Flight Nurse, is from Texas by way of Montana. Kate exudes a sense of peace, of unassuming self-assurance that is somehow very comforting. She and Cheri met six months before their trip to California at the “Wounded Warriors Olympic Training Camp” in Colorado, where both were training on air rifles. Kate, 44, a life-long athlete, had played softball for the Air Force. Now, despite a back injury that requires leg braces as well as frequent dependence on a wheelchair, she competes in her wheelchair in discus throwing, shot put and javelin-throwing in the Para-Olympics.

As a girl, Kate was an Explorer Scout specializing in Space Physiology. At 17, she joined the Army National Guard. Basic training, she claims, “was a joke!” After a stint in the Guard, she joined the Air Force, learned nursing on the G.I. Bill and was commissioned after graduating from nursing school. She was then deployed to Saudi Arabia as a Flight Nurse, working in both helicopters and big fixed-wing aircraft. By now a first lieutenant, she was injured while working as a surgical nurse at a VA hospital and had to accept an Honorable Discharge from the Air Force. She and her Air Force Reserve husband have a three-year-old son, Joshua.

Kate is a nurse by nature as well as by training. Her very presence is calming. Alert as a casino card dealer to everyone nearby, she’s instantly aware of anyone’s discomfort and ready to offer unobtrusive assistance. During the first morning hunt she said to me, “Your eyes are hurting, aren’t they?” as she removed her sunglasses and handed them to me. I refused to take her glasses. She pulled an extra from her pack and insisted that I wear them. Kate had some hunting experience and has Sharpshooter awards from both the Army National Guard and the Air Force. More hunting is now on her busy “to do” list.

Marissa Strock, a 23-year-old Army veteran, said she joined the Army because, “I’d been doing bad things-my family didn’t trust me any more and I knew I had to get my life together.” Only 62 days after completing basic training and a course in Advanced Infantry Training, Marissa was sent to Iraq. Sixteen days after arriving in Iraq, the young E4 was severely wounded when the Humvee in which she was riding hit a mine. Two soldiers with her were killed. Marissa, unconscious, was flown to Germany, then to Walter Reed Hospital. She remained in a coma for three weeks. In addition to head, chest and abdominal injuries, she lost both legs below the knee. Almost six feet tall, Marissa does not use a wheelchair but walks, instead, on her two prosthetics.

Marissa said she loved shooting but had never hunted before accepting our invitation. A city girl, she never dreamed she would even consider hunting, but thought it might be challenging. She ignored the recommendation that service boots and camouflage, or any similar clothing would be fine for the hunt and brought her usual “casual wear”. What I thought were “bare feet in flip-flops” were, instead, her prosthetics. She said later, “I don’t need boots and I don’t have to worry about snakes!” I suspected that Marissa considered the “hunting” to be a minor diversion rather than the focal point of her trip to California. As it turned out, however, she became an intense, determined hunter. When she saw her first wild boar she exclaimed, “He’s beautiful!” Later she described the trip as, “A blast” and intends to go hunting again. Marissa also wants to help set up similar trips for other injured women veterans. Meanwhile, she plans to go to college and study psychology.

California’s central coast region is beautiful, with pounding surf along the western boundary. The terrain is mostly hilly, with some deep arroyos and a few fairly high ridges. Grasses of several types-mostly ragweed and wild oats- share the ground with chaparral, live oak trees and cactus. Weather during the hunt was typical of late May. We had clear, sunny days and moonlit night skies, with temperatures in the 50-70-degree range and lots of wind. Actually, it was just about ideal for a wild boar hunt.

Vickie and I were eager to meet the servicewomen but we were also concerned that the rigors of the hunt might be too strenuous, perhaps even impossible, for them.

“The women in wheelchairs,” I mused, mostly to allay Vickie’s worry, “will probably be placed in the back of pickup trucks, from which they can glass for pigs and even shoot” Little did I reckon with the veterans who came to hunt!

On that first morning, I accompanied Cheri and Kate. They got out of their wheelchairs unassisted and into the rear seat of escort Alan Crowder’s roomy 4WD pickup, and set their rifles between their legs. I was assigned the “shotgun” seat, asked to “help look for boar,” and we took off. Cheri told us that she and Kisha had arrived in Lompoc a day early and Alan and Steve Reisbeck, the other Gun Club escort, had taken them hunting. Kisha had killed a small boar. Cheri missed a shot at a really big one.

“I was stunned,” she recounted, “I had a good rest, the animal was standing broadside and my shot let off well-I couldn’t believe I had missed!” Later that day they discovered that the rifle’s scope mount was loose. A good sport, Cheri accepted the incident without complaint, glad it hadn’t been due to poor shooting.

As Alan drove along the base’s rough back country roads, we saw only one boar a long way off. Several times Alan stopped to suggest a short trek to natural scrub “blinds” he had used in the past. Unhesitatingly, Cheri and Kate climbed down, shouldered their rifles, and followed Alan on foot, but to no avail.

At 11 o’clock we headed to the Gun Club, where Alan joined his wife and a few volunteers who were busily preparing a wild game lunch. The meal, which included Alan’s special Pulled Pork made with wild boar meat, and grilled locally caught salmon, was spectacularly good. There was time afterward for a bit of rest, too, before going out on the evening hunt.

Instead of going back out with Cheri and Kate, I accompanied Marissa. She was not as mobile as the other women, so a tent blind had been set up for her in an open field. The Base Game Warden, Lauren Daniels, took us to it in her roomy, rugged Gator ATV.

Lauren drove right up to the blind, handed me three folding stools and said, “You get set up. I’ll park this over in the trees, and be right back.”

I took the stools, walked over and un-zipped the curved door on the 6′ tall, dome-shaped tent. “This is great,” I said, forgetting that Marissa was completely inexperienced. “We’ll have 360-degree vision out of this blind!” I put the stools inside, off to one side.

“I can’t get into that,” Marissa said, staring at the camouflage-cloth dome.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I can’t bend over far enough…” she said, as she bent down, peering through the doorway. Cautiously she lifted one foot-her flip-flop shod foot-tentatively thrusting it inside. Then she took a breath and forced herself into the blind. I held down the bottom edge of the doorway so she could get her other foot inside. She stood up.

“We’ll never get all three of us in here!” she warned, shaking her head.

“Sure we will,” I assured her, unfolding the stools, “this is a big blind.”

I put the stools in a row, indicating that the one in the middle was for her. She moved it back, toward the door.

“You’ll need to be closer to that side,” I said, pointing, “facing the longest stretch of field and looking into the wind.” Marissa looked skeptical, but moved the stool forward and lowered herself onto the canvas seat. I handed her the rifle and suggested that she point the barrel out through the long 5″ deep window that went completely around the perimeter to give us a full-circle view. She put it to her shoulder and looked through the scope.

“So okay, if he comes over here, I can shoot him-but what if he comes,” she jerked her thumb over her right shoulder, “over there?”

“If a boar comes anywhere around us,” I explained, “we’ll very quickly and very quietly move the stools and help you get into position facing your target.”

“Humph!” Marissa breathed softly, as she again looked through her scope.

“Why not load your rifle now?” I suggested and Marissa dug into her little pack and pulled out the packet of four rounds she had been given. While she was doing that, I got out my binoculars to search the edges of the field.

Marissa was having a hard time trying to press the cartridges into the rifle’s top-load integral magazine. I offered to help but she said she’d manage. After several minutes, however, she handed me the rifle.

“Here,” proffering the cartridges, “see if you can get it.”

I had as little success as she and pulled out my tiny flashlight. The cartridges Marissa had been given were .300 Winchesters, not the .308s the Weatherby required! We both groaned-and at that moment, a really big boar stepped out from the woods on our right, and was strolling across the field, right in front of us, about 200 yards away, snacking as he went!

As we watched helplessly, Lauren returned and the boar retraced his steps to disappear, unhurried, back into the woods.

Lauren sat down on Marissa’s right. We told her what had happened and she said, “Hey! I’ve got some .308s in the Gator. I’ll go get ‘em.”

It was after 7PM but legal to hunt until 30 minutes after sunset, which would take place at about 8:17 that evening. Marissa loaded her rifle with Lauren’s .308s.

“There’s a chance you’ll see another one before it’s time to quit,” I said, wanting to console Marissa.

“I don’t want another one” she replied, “I want him. I want ‘Winston’!”

“Winston?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s beautiful. His name is Winston. He has silver spots. I love him. He’s the one I want.”

Here was a girl who had never before hunted, surely never before had even seen a wild boar. But she had decided instantly on a specific trophy and she thought him beautiful-a wild boar beautiful?”

Marissa sat quietly, waiting and watching until dark but Winston didn’t return. It was late when we got to bed that night. And early when the wake-up call came at 3:30 next morning.

No one was successful on the second morning’s hunt. Kate and Cheri saw several small boars, which they opted not to take. Marissa was driven along the base’s back country ridges, glassing for boars, but without seeing anything. Kisha, given permission to take a second boar, went scouting with Alan. She said she didn’t want to shoot another one, even if she had a chance, “Until the other girls get theirs.”

We spent midday at Ampelos Winery. The veterans had been invited for lunch and to tour California’s only green winery-operated completely by environmentally friendly methods, from growing the grapes to bottling the wines. Ampelos was a revelation to all of us. We heard about the selection of wood for the casks and how various fruit additions are used to create different bouquets. Tasting the wines was a real treat. After the visit and a short rest, we returned to the Base to continue the hunt.

During that rest period, however, Marissa went to a local store and bought camo pants and a pair of boots. Now that she had seen Winston she was taking this hunting business seriously.

Marissa and I returned to the same blind. Our escort, though, because Lauren had sprained her ankle that day, was Steve Reisbeck. As we got into Steve’s pickup, he handed Marissa a camo sweatshirt and said, “Here, it’s going to be cool tonight.” She pulled it on over her camisole top.

We got settled into the blind as before, except that Steve had brought a shooting stick for Marissa and had made certain that rifle and ammo were a match. The evening was pleasant-warm but with a slight breeze. We saw a few deer, some off to our left about 400 yards away and later, four in the opposite direction, but much closer. As we watched them, Steve touched me with an elbow. “Look there, behind the deer-way over by the tree line,” he whispered. I raised my binoculars to look over his shoulder. A large dark boar was slowly heading our way. Steve alerted Marisa and we began rotating the seats, to put Marissa in a good shooting position. She never said a word, but moved where Steve indicated.

“Which shoulder do you shoot off?” he asked.

“Either one,” she whispered. Steve blinked. “I’m ambidextrous,” she added.

When the boar got about 200 yards from us he stopped, pivoted, about as well as a fat porky can pivot, and turning sharply to his right, headed for the thick woods into which Winston had disappeared the night before. Marissa had the rifle at her shoulder and was staring intently through the ‘scope.

“Are you on him?” Steve asked softly. “Do you feel steady?”

“Yeah,” Marissa breathed.

“Hold steady, then, and take him,” Steve said.

BOOM! I heard the shot and instantly the “Thwack!” of a bullet hitting.

“Good girl!” Steve said, loudly.

Marissa was laughing and yelling, “I got him! It’s Winston! I know him!”

How she managed to get out of the blind and across the uneven field to the downed boar, I will never understand, but she did. She reached him almost as quickly as Steve did. She looked at her prize, she petted him, pulled his ears gently and insisted, “I recognized him-see the silver spots?” She pointed to grey splotches on the charcoal-grey body. And by George, she was right-I do believe it was the same boar we’d seen the previous night. Marissa had Winston!

As I began taking photos, Steve asked Marissa if she could sit on the ground behind Winston. “We can get better pictures,” he explained.

“Well, if I take off my legs I can get down,” she replied, “But I’ll need help getting up.”

“Don’t worry-I’ll get you back up!” he promised. And with that, she pulled off both her prosthetic legs and posed behind Winston.

The previously taciturn Marissa was laughing and chattering like a schoolgirl and never stopped even after Steve managed to load the 260-pound boar in the back of his truck. We rendezvoused with the others near the main gate. Cheri and Kate had not seen anything. But Kisha, knowing it was the final day, made another excellent shot on another boar, also smaller than Marissa’s. The meat from all three animals was donated to “Hunters For The Hungry.” Alan and Steve promised to butcher the three boars-Kisha’s two and Marissa’s, and deliver the meat to the local distributor.

Everyone was euphoric. The escorts hugged each woman, congratulated her on her sportsmanship and wished her well. Vickie and I had tears glistening in our eyes. And the women? They were hugging one another, hugging Andy and Steve, thanking them for all their kind help, laughing, promising to keep in touch, hugging and thanking Vickie. Each also announced that she was going to “Be a hunter” from now on! They agreed that what they most enjoyed was, “Being outdoors and the camaraderie.”

Kisha is back home, awaiting orders from her Guard Unit even as she prepares for a local hunt. Cheri, whose husband owns “a bunch of guns” has already purchased a 25.06 “of her own” and contacted a hunting outfitter. Kate, who had just gotten into hunting, has put her new Alpen scope on her .300 rifle, said she learned a lot from hunting with Alan and Steve and is ready for the Texas deer season. Marissa has plans to begin college but she has been “bitten by the bug.” She is having Winston’s skull prepared for a European-style mount and wants to “come back for the next one!”

This hunt was finished but there will be others. It has now been established that traditional American sports are a wonderful way for injured veterans-female as well as male-to bolster their confidence and zest for life.

Contributors to the Women’s Boar Hunt

Safari Club International sci.org	Alpen Outdoors Alpenoutdoor.com	Outdoor Recreation Heritage Fund pva.org	Alaska Knife Company 903-786-7366
L.L.Bean llbean.com	Birchwood-Casey birchwoodcasey.com	Black Hills Ammunition black-hills.com	Browning browning.com
Bushnell bushnell.com	Hunter’s Specialties hunterspec.com	Leupold & Stevens leupold.com	Lompoc cityoflompoc.com
Otis otisgun.com	Prois proishunting.com	Weatherby weatherby.com	Women & Guns womenandguns.com

In addition, Vandenberg Air Force Base granted hunting permission to the women and members of the Base Gun Club escort service, transportation, a wild game luncheon and field care of game taken.

Ampelos Winery provided a luncheon, tour and gift bottles of wine (ampeloscellars.com).

Anyone can help sponsor these hunting or fishing trips by contributing to the PVA/Outdoor Recreation Heritage Fund, One Massachussetts Ave., NW, Suite 880, Dept. WG, Washington, DC 20001, pva.org.

Tags: air force, air rifles, california coast, gun club, heroes, hunting, hunting knifes, marissa strock, military base, vandenberg air force base, vickie gardner, wild boar