The Value of a Walk in the Woods
Picture with team after the evasion lane.
Recently while attending some off post training, I had an opportunity to accompany them on a day long event. Embarrassingly this is a rarity nowadays, where most of my time is spent in meetings, events, or office obligations that come with the position. The original intent wasn’t for me to walk with them. However, after the first engagement their vehicle was disabled, and they would be taking the rest of the journey on foot. As I watched them run for the wood line I remember thinking, well that looks like fun. My subconscious took over and before I knew it, I was running to catch up.
Funny 42 years old and a childish emotion took over and I found myself getting to do some Army training. A similar emotion was the reason I joined the Army and specifically took the route I did once I raised my right hand. My thought was if it looks hard, fun, or like a challenge, let’s try it and as a result I dove into the Army until I found myself in the 75th Ranger Regiment.
While conducting the lane, there was no cell service. I didn’t have any gear and really, I was just a tourist along for the ride. They had their tasks; my role was just to keep up and make sure that I didn’t slow them down by rolling an ankle in the rocky terrain. It was beautiful, amazing, and relaxing. Even when we took a few wrong valleys and had to backtrack I found myself smiling. This would mean my therapy session would continue for a little longer. Perfect!!
As we walked, I was admiring how peaceful it was to be in the middle of nowhere, nothing to worry about except the miles under my feet. Maybe I can relate with Forrest Gump and why he just started “running”. Life is more complex right now than I can honestly ever remember it being with major decisions to be made. Children looking at colleges, them learning to drive, having a business to run, and a job that is challenging every day. I’m surrounded by it, even when I take my weekly road bike rides, I am talking to Siri to make notes about thoughts, tasks, or problems that I’ve identified. In that first mile though I decided today would be different. All this could wait, today I was going to enjoy the outdoors and being with this team as they solved the problems that were in front of their face.
It was exactly what I needed, I enjoyed myself and every moment of this day. I didn’t come to any grand decisions or a strategy for some of the problems in my life. I instead just enjoyed myself and fed that emotion I talked about at the beginning of this article. I watched the joy of them figuring problems out and coming together as a team. The excitement as they found a much-needed resupply and passed out water, granola bars, and plotted their next point. Them overcoming their fears as they took the zipline at the end of the day to their final rendezvous point. While these were adults training for a real mission that will be in the future, at the same time we were kids playing Army and having fun in the woods.
In the final meeting after completing the training for the day, we did an After Action Review of the event. One of the instructors that is helping run the training event said something that I will probably remember for the rest of my life. He is a retired SGM and now works for a company that helps with these types of events. He said: “Thank you for letting us be part of this event. Our team is made up of veterans that have a lot of things we are still working through from our time in uniform. These types of events are our therapy, it helps and at the same time we get to serve again by teaching you, thank you, we needed this”.
Yes, we did, I did. Thank you for letting me be part of this therapy session. I don’t remember the last time I’ve smiled so much. There is one thing I did take away; I need to find ways to do this more. Shutting off my brain and just enjoying the moments. Moments like these are what we need to remind us of why we are alive.
~ Mike
