Quite a Week for Wounded Heroes of America
25 years ago, our country was brutally attacked. It broke our collective hearts to see the pain New York City was experiencing—it was unbelievable. It took a few days before we started to feel that it was a single attack and that perhaps it was over, at least for now. But it didn’t take long to see how devastating that day truly was and how it would change America forever.
I think for my own sanity—simply for psychological reasons—I needed to be involved somehow. I was almost 50, so I couldn’t enlist in the military to fight, but I had to do something. I talked to a few friends and we decided to figure out a way to raise money for a family who lost a loved one on that fateful day. We called ourselves 9/11 Help America, and we chose golf. On November 29, 2001, we held our first tournament. We raised $10,000, giving $7,500 to the family of Michael McDonnell and $2,500 to Windows of Hope, a fund started to help the culinary workers throughout the towers.
We never intended to do anything beyond that first event. Yet, this year marks our 25th anniversary as WHOA, helping surviving spouses and the combat wounded. It would take much more than I can put to paper to describe the journey we’ve been on since 2001, but it has been quite a ride. In that time, we’ve made amazing friends who love our veterans and have shared their resources to make the lives of our combat wounded a little bit better.
There are so many wonderful nonprofits doing amazing things. We realized there was room for us in this community and began to find our way. From the very start, we saw that many people were willing to share their resources but didn’t have a way to connect with the veterans. As our numbers grew, we realized that partnering with our community was the way to go.
I watched the amazing things the VA was doing for our severely wounded. The VA could rebuild these vets—their faces, their limbs—and teach them to walk and talk again. They even built a tongue from one veteran’s arm. But there were also those who looked perfectly normal yet suffered from PTSD and TBI. Many of these vets suffered from deep depression and isolation, something the VA was not always equipped to handle. We realized there was a need to create a social environment away from the clinical setting, and we took off in that direction.
We also started to include the entire family. A friend who owned a ranch in Southern California opened their heart to host our families for horseback riding and outdoor activities. The LA County Fair has hosted as many as a hundred of our vets and their kids for an afternoon of fun. We’ve hosted baby showers, Christmas dinners, and many more activities that bring people together, growing the “extended family” of veterans that we were inadvertently creating.
At the golf tournament this year, we recognized our friends from Dive N’ Surf and Aqua Surf who teach our kids, young and old, to surf- We had the Laker Girls also Joining in the fun. These social environments are only possible because of the huge hearts of people in our community. That didn’t happen overnight; it took 25 years. This past Friday, we presented a beautiful plaque (made by one of our veterans, incidentally) to Fantastic Café, a place where young and old meet to break bread. We meet there every other Friday-
There have been so many wonderful people along the way—without them, we would not have survived these last 25 years. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.
Mike Talleda- President and Founder
