Iraq, Afganistan, Lake Nebagamon

Forum News Service
SAM COOK

Tony Simone grew up hunting white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania, but that was a long time ago. Before he started flying for the Air Force. Before the day his chopper took enemy fire and crashed in Afghanistan. Before five of his crew members were killed and Simone came away with “a dent on the top of my head like a cereal bowl.”

How Simone came to be sitting in a deer blind near Lake Nebagamon with Jamie Vee of Iron River on a recent October evening is another story. Simone, 34, now of Joliet, Ill., was one of four veterans with Purple Hearts who were taking part in a three-day weekend of hunting and fishing courtesy of the nonprofit group Wounded Warriors in Action. The Florida-based nonprofit foundation works to put veterans who have been awarded Purple Hearts back in the field or on the water as they deal with the trauma of war. The group was founded in 2007.

Vee, 33, is an avid hunter himself. When he heard about what WWIA was doing for vets, he was quick to offer his services. Simone was hunting on Vee’s land, overlooking a pasture surrounded by oaks and maples and pines.

Not far way, on more Vee family land, Marine vet Josh Krueger of Hubertus, Wis., was sitting in another deer stand with a compound bow in his hand. Already, a couple of spike bucks, the first of several deer he would see that evening, were headed his way.

Krueger is a senior associate with WWIA who helped supervise this hunting and fishing event. He’s been involved with WWIA for three years. The group is supported entirely through donations and by volunteers.

“It’s really the American sportsmen and guys like Jamie,” Krueger had said as he changed into his hunting gear that night. “They believe in the spirit of the outdoors to bring guys together and help guys heal.”

Krueger, 36, has done plenty of healing of his own. Wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee in Iraq in 2005, he lost an eye and suffered severe trauma to his left hand.

Ask him how his eye is these days, and he quips, “Which one? The one with the American flag?”

His right eye can still see clearly through his bow sights. His left is an artificial one that bears a red, white and blue American flag against a white background.

“That’s the one I see my country with,” Krueger said.

Elsewhere in the woods near Lake Nebagamon, two other veterans with Purple Hearts were bowhunting with other local guides. Before their weekend of bowhunting, the veterans had spent a day fishing for smallmouth bass with Jeff Evans and for muskies with Dave Brown, both of Iron River.

Simone peered through the window of his blind as Vee sat beside him. At one point, a flock of wild turkeys paid them a visit.

Between hunts during the the weekend, both Simone and Krueger openly shared their stories, including the events that earned them Purple Hearts.

Simone, the son of a Marine, was a captain in the Air Force in 2010 when his helicopter went down. Already, he had served two tours in Iraq, flying search-and-rescue missions. Now he had been in Afghanistan for nearly four months. He was due to leave just a few days after his helicopter crashed.

“I was flying a Pave Hawk helicopter, similar to the Army’s Blackhawk,” Simone said. “That day, we had a crew of seven. We were in the Helmand Province, going in on a search-and-rescue for two wounded Marines. We got shot down when we were going in for the second time. We took one of them out earlier. We should have seen it coming. They were waiting for us. I think it was small-arms or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades). It hit the tail rotor. We spun like a top. We could have auto-rotated straight down but we would have come down on, or dangerously near, troops on the ground — good guys. I tried to fly it out. We spun like a top. I don’t remember smashing into the ground.”

High impact

Simone and a surviving gunner were immediately rescued by a second Pave Hawk crew. Despite the fact that Simone was wearing a helmet, the front of his head was crushed when he hit the flight panel. A quarter of Simone’s skull has been replaced by titanium mesh, he said.

The neurological damage he suffered that day still affects his speech slightly and the use of several muscle groups. He uses a cane for stability when walking. For hunting, he shoots a crossbow, and he wears a patch over one eye that’s hard to hold closed when he shoots. He has some trouble with his memory, he said. Vee assisted him to and from the blind.

“It was really an eye-opening and rewarding weekend for me — a life-changer, for sure,” Vee said. “The most rewarding thing was being able to give somebody an opportunity they don’t normally have, and showing them there’s small victories to be had, that there are always things to look forward to.”

Simone has retired after five years in the Air Force. He lives with his wife and son and daughter in Joliet. He draws strength, he said, from God, his wife, his children, his parents.

“I’m in the process of accepting who I am and why I’m here,” Simone said.

In three evenings of bowhunting, Vee moved Simone’s blind twice, trying to put him where the deer were. Simone saw does and fawns but no bucks. In that area, hunters are allowed to shoot only bucks.

Lots of deer

Krueger, too, saw deer every time he hunted on land owned by Vee’s dad, Scott Vee of Brule, over the weekend. Does, fawns, small bucks, big bucks. Jamie had worked hard to put him in a good spot.

“Jamie is awesome — a good dude,” said Krueger, a robust man who shot a bear with his bow earlier this fall in Wisconsin.

Krueger works as an operations manager for a fire protection company in Menomonee Falls, Wis. He retired from the Marines after the injury that nearly took his life 10 years ago. He comes from a long line of Marines, following his dad and grandfather and great-grandfather.

“When I grew up, it was always, ‘I want to be a Marine. I want to be a Marine. I want to be a Marine,’ ” Krueger said.

He went a little “sideways” in his teens, he said.

“My dad said, ‘If you join the Marine Corps, I’ll forgive you for everything you’ve done,’ ” he said.

He signed up. He has no regrets about his choice.

“None at all,” Krueger said. “My only regret is that I couldn’t stay in longer.”

Bad day in Fallujah

One evening before a hunt near Lake Nebagamon, Krueger recalled the day the roadside bomb went off. He was manning the turret of a Humvee, up top, on a security detail patrol. His unit was charged with escorting the highest general in the Marines, Krueger said, but “the boss wasn’t along that day.”

Krueger and fellow Marines were patrolling in Fallujah, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq in the years after the U.S. invasion.

“When the bomb went off, I kind of fell into a buddy,” Krueger recalled.

He knew he had been hit.

“I just made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to freak out,” he said. “My buddy said, ‘Krueger’s dead!’ ”

Krueger respectfully disagreed.

“I couldn’t see well because there was so much blood in my eyes,” he said. “I looked at him and said, ‘I’m not dead.’ ”

Arteries on both sides of Krueger’s neck had been cut.

“He put gloves to my neck to stop the bleeding,” Krueger said. “A (medical) corpsman came up. They took me to the last vehicle in the convoy and took me to (the) base for surgery. I could tell by how fast they were moving that it wasn’t good. I died five times — they said I ‘coded’ five times. I think it was from loss of blood.

“The next thing I remember is they were loading me into a helicopter. The bird lifted off. One guy kept trying to put an airway through my nose, but I kept pulling it out. He said, ‘You don’t want that in there?’ That’s the last thing I remember. I woke up three or four days later in Bethesda, Maryland” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

He had lost his left eye. His left hand was badly mangled. Doctors spent 14 hours trying to save his hand during the first surgery, Krueger said. Several more surgeries would follow.

“They told me I’d never do pull-ups again,” Krueger said. “I love it when they tell me I can’t do something. (At a follow-up appointment) I did pull-ups in his office. The strength in the hand is good. Fine-motor skills aren’t as good — things like picking up a dime.”

But his head is in a good place.

“Attitude is 95 percent of it,” he said. “You gotta laugh at yourself.”

Krueger saw 12 to 15 deer his first evening hunting near Lake Nebagamon, he said. He saw another half-dozen the next morning. No bucks ventured close enough for a shot.

That last evening, he had a doe and fawns, two spike bucks and a couple of big bucks in the field near his stand.

“They were just toying with me,” he told Vee under a crescent moon after the hunt.

At one point, Krueger said, one of the big bucks sauntered through the field just 45 yards from his elevated stand, just out of bow range. It didn’t spook, but neither did it stop or come closer. It just kept walking until it disappeared into the woods.

Martens auctions rods for Wounded Warriors

Purple Hearts afield: Group gives wounded veterans a chance to hunt

Duluth News
Sam Cook

Tony Simone grew up hunting white-tailed deer in Pennsylvania, but that was a long time ago. Before he started flying for the Air Force. Before the day his chopper took enemy fire and crashed in Afghanistan. Before five of his crew members were killed and Simone came away with “a dent on the top of my head like a cereal bowl.”

How Simone came to be sitting in a deer blind near Lake Nebagamon with Jamie Vee of Iron River on a recent October evening is another story. Simone, 34, now of Joliet, Ill., was one of four veterans with Purple Hearts who were taking part in a three-day weekend of hunting and fishing courtesy of the nonprofit group Wounded Warriors in Action. The Florida-based nonprofit foundation works to put veterans who have been awarded Purple Hearts back in the field or on the water as they deal with the trauma of war. The group was founded in 2007.

Vee, 33, is an avid hunter himself. When he heard about what WWIA was doing for vets, he was quick to offer his services. Simone was hunting on Vee’s land, overlooking a pasture surrounded by oaks and maples and pines.

Not far way, on more Vee family land, Marine vet Josh Krueger of Hubertus, Wis., was sitting in another deer stand with a compound bow in his hand. Already, a couple of spike bucks, the first of several deer he would see that evening, were headed his way.

Krueger is a senior associate with WWIA who helped supervise this hunting and fishing event. He’s been involved with WWIA for three years. The group is supported entirely through donations and by volunteers.

“It’s really the American sportsmen and guys like Jamie,” Krueger had said as he changed into his hunting gear that night. “They believe in the spirit of the outdoors to bring guys together and help guys heal.”

Krueger, 36, has done plenty of healing of his own. Wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to his Humvee in Iraq in 2005, he lost an eye and suffered severe trauma to his left hand.

Ask him how his eye is these days, and he quips, “Which one? The one with the American flag?”

His right eye can still see clearly through his bow sights. His left is an artificial one that bears a red, white and blue American flag against a white background.

“That’s the one I see my country with,” Krueger said.

Elsewhere in the woods near Lake Nebagamon, two other veterans with Purple Hearts were bowhunting with other local guides. Before their weekend of bowhunting, the veterans had spent a day fishing for smallmouth bass with Jeff Evans and for muskies with Dave Brown, both of Iron River.

Simone peered through the window of his blind as Vee sat beside him. At one point, a flock of wild turkeys paid them a visit.

Between hunts during the the weekend, both Simone and Krueger openly shared their stories, including the events that earned them Purple Hearts.

Simone, the son of a Marine, was a captain in the Air Force in 2010 when his helicopter went down. Already, he had served two tours in Iraq, flying search-and-rescue missions. Now he had been in Afghanistan for nearly four months. He was due to leave just a few days after his helicopter crashed.

“I was flying a Pave Hawk helicopter, similar to the Army’s Blackhawk,” Simone said. “That day, we had a crew of seven. We were in the Helmand Province, going in on a search-and-rescue for two wounded Marines. We got shot down when we were going in for the second time. We took one of them out earlier. We should have seen it coming. They were waiting for us. I think it was small-arms or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades). It hit the tail rotor. We spun like a top. We could have auto-rotated straight down but we would have come down on, or dangerously near, troops on the ground — good guys. I tried to fly it out. We spun like a top. I don’t remember smashing into the ground.”

High impact

Simone and a surviving gunner were immediately rescued by a second Pave Hawk crew. Despite the fact that Simone was wearing a helmet, the front of his head was crushed when he hit the flight panel. A quarter of Simone’s skull has been replaced by titanium mesh, he said.

The neurological damage he suffered that day still affects his speech slightly and the use of several muscle groups. He uses a cane for stability when walking. For hunting, he shoots a crossbow, and he wears a patch over one eye that’s hard to hold closed when he shoots. He has some trouble with his memory, he said. Vee assisted him to and from the blind.

“It was really an eye-opening and rewarding weekend for me — a life-changer, for sure,” Vee said. “The most rewarding thing was being able to give somebody an opportunity they don’t normally have, and showing them there’s small victories to be had, that there are always things to look forward to.”

Simone has retired after five years in the Air Force. He lives with his wife and son and daughter in Joliet. He draws strength, he said, from God, his wife, his children, his parents.

“I’m in the process of accepting who I am and why I’m here,” Simone said.

In three evenings of bowhunting, Vee moved Simone’s blind twice, trying to put him where the deer were. Simone saw does and fawns but no bucks. In that area, hunters are allowed to shoot only bucks.

Lots of deer

Krueger, too, saw deer every time he hunted on land owned by Vee’s dad, Scott Vee of Brule, over the weekend. Does, fawns, small bucks, big bucks. Jamie had worked hard to put him in a good spot.

“Jamie is awesome — a good dude,” said Krueger, a robust man who shot a bear with his bow earlier this fall in Wisconsin.

Krueger works as an operations manager for a fire protection company in Menomonee Falls, Wis. He retired from the Marines after the injury that nearly took his life 10 years ago. He comes from a long line of Marines, following his dad and grandfather and great-grandfather.

“When I grew up, it was always, ‘I want to be a Marine. I want to be a Marine. I want to be a Marine,’ ” Krueger said.

He went a little “sideways” in his teens, he said.

“My dad said, ‘If you join the Marine Corps, I’ll forgive you for everything you’ve done,’ ” he said.

He signed up. He has no regrets about his choice.

“None at all,” Krueger said. “My only regret is that I couldn’t stay in longer.”

Bad day in Fallujah

One evening before a hunt near Lake Nebagamon, Krueger recalled the day the roadside bomb went off. He was manning the turret of a Humvee, up top, on a security detail patrol. His unit was charged with escorting the highest general in the Marines, Krueger said, but “the boss wasn’t along that day.”

Krueger and fellow Marines were patrolling in Fallujah, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq in the years after the U.S. invasion.

“When the bomb went off, I kind of fell into a buddy,” Krueger recalled.

He knew he had been hit.

“I just made a conscious decision that I wasn’t going to freak out,” he said. “My buddy said, ‘Krueger’s dead!’ ”

Krueger respectfully disagreed.

“I couldn’t see well because there was so much blood in my eyes,” he said. “I looked at him and said, ‘I’m not dead.’ ”

Arteries on both sides of Krueger’s neck had been cut.

“He put gloves to my neck to stop the bleeding,” Krueger said. “A (medical) corpsman came up. They took me to the last vehicle in the convoy and took me to (the) base for surgery. I could tell by how fast they were moving that it wasn’t good. I died five times — they said I ‘coded’ five times. I think it was from loss of blood.

“The next thing I remember is they were loading me into a helicopter. The bird lifted off. One guy kept trying to put an airway through my nose, but I kept pulling it out. He said, ‘You don’t want that in there?’ That’s the last thing I remember. I woke up three or four days later in Bethesda, Maryland” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

He had lost his left eye. His left hand was badly mangled. Doctors spent 14 hours trying to save his hand during the first surgery, Krueger said. Several more surgeries would follow.

“They told me I’d never do pull-ups again,” Krueger said. “I love it when they tell me I can’t do something. (At a follow-up appointment) I did pull-ups in his office. The strength in the hand is good. Fine-motor skills aren’t as good — things like picking up a dime.”

But his head is in a good place.

“Attitude is 95 percent of it,” he said. “You gotta laugh at yourself.”

Krueger saw 12 to 15 deer his first evening hunting near Lake Nebagamon, he said. He saw another half-dozen the next morning. No bucks ventured close enough for a shot.

That last evening, he had a doe and fawns, two spike bucks and a couple of big bucks in the field near his stand.

“They were just toying with me,” he told Vee under a crescent moon after the hunt.

At one point, Krueger said, one of the big bucks sauntered through the field just 45 yards from his elevated stand, just out of bow range. It didn’t spook, but neither did it stop or come closer. It just kept walking until it disappeared into the woods.

Heroic vet set to enjoy local hunt

DAILY PRESS
KATHARHYNN HEIDELBERG

Jake Whipkey risked his life for his country, and paid the price. In 2007, while deployed in Samarra, Iraq, the U.S. Army private took machine gun fi re and had to be evacuated back to the States. Thanks to several surgeries on his arm, the avid bowhunter was able to resume his favored sport. Thanks to many generous hands, including area dentist and hunting outfitter Dan Reardon and a nonprofit foundation, Whipkey is soon to enjoy the hunt of a lifetime on the Rocking R Ranch, beneath the solemn peak of Lone Cone, outside of Norwood.

The hunt will be filmed by Bowsite.com’s sales manager Charlie Rehor. Bowsite’s members and others helped raise the money to pay for the Pennsylvania veteran’s trip to Rocking R, while Reardon is donating the guided hunt, hosted by Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation. “A lot of the (site) members are bowhunters and are veterans,” Rehor said Friday.

“There’s a lot of kinship to that 1 percent who do all our fighting these days. There’s an awful big need. A lot of them, through today’s modern armor, have survived, but they have physical and mental challenges they need to deal with.

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2nd Annual FLX Ducks & Bucks – Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation Hunt November 2015

Kuneytown Sportsmen’s Club and its partners will once again host combat-wounded veterans to enjoy an unparalleled hunting experience in the Finger Lakes region of New York.  We will work with the Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation Inc. (WWIA), who serve our Nation’s combat wounded Purple Heart recipients by providing world-class outdoor sporting activities as a means to recognize and honor their sacrifice, encourage independence and connections with communities, and promote healing and wellness through camaraderie and a shared passion for the outdoors.

Once again, we will host 4-6 warriors in excellent waterfront accommodations, provide them with first-class meals, and most importantly, introduce them to waterfowl hunting in and around the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge and the Cayuga Lake watershed, a world class waterfowling destination. Our guests will also enjoy cross-bow hunting for the legendary farm bucks of upstate NY.   The 4 day event kicks off on Veterans Day and culminates with a celebration dinner for the heroes, held at Kuneytown Sportsmen’s Club. Don’t miss this event. raffle tickets and banquet admissions tickets are on sale now.

Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation

Wounded Warriors frequently return home after serving our Nation different than when they left – life in general and their personal and professional lives have changed dramatically.

Listen Now
Guest: John McDaniel

LJT charity golf tournament to honor wounded warrior

Sept. 11 may mark one of the most tragic days in U.S. history, but LJT and Associates continues to flip the script in a positive way to honor U.S. service members.

Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation (WWIA) will join LJT and Associates in the 4^th Annual LJT-Wallops Island Charity Golf Tournament on Friday, Sept. 11, 2015, at The Bay Club Golf Course in Berlin MD.

This year’s tournament is expanding to 160 golfers covering both of The Bay Club’s beautiful 18-hole golf courses. It is dedicated to the 9-11 American Heroes who have sacrificed in the war against terrorism – particularly those from the Delmarva Peninsula.

In keeping with that theme, the tournament has pledged to donate $2,000 to sponsor one specially selected WWIA Purple Heart recipient to attend the event. In the previous three years, the tournament has raised $35,000 for charities, and has set a goal of $20,000 for this year alone.

Previous beneficiaries range from Community College of the Eastern Shore and Habitat for Humanity, to Life Crisis Center and YMCA of the Chesapeake, along with many others. WWIA is honored to be included this year to honor and serve a wounded warrior.

“We are excited to include WWIA in our tournament and are proud to be able to give Wounded Warriors the opportunity they so richly deserve,” said organizer Jim Mason-Foley. “LJT feels that WWIA is one of the most deserving organizations considering the honorable work they do.”

WWIA members said they enjoy participating in fundraising events because they get to interact with other veterans and a supportive community while experiencing the soothing qualities of nature. WWIA Director of Initiatives, Carolyn Crissman, will be attending this event along with a Purple Heart recipient from the area.

For more information, you can visit www.wwiaf.org.

Evers brings charity tour to Grand Lake

Grove Sun & Delaware County Journal
Christian Favalora

One professional angler has flipped his skills with a rod and reel into a booming charity for U.S. Military veterans, and he’s bringing his tour to Grand Lake this week.

Edwin Evers, a 16-year veteran of the Bassmaster Elite series, will bring the Healing Heroes in Action Tour to Grand Lake on Thursday, May 28 for the third stop of this fishing season.

Evers has paired with OPTIMA Batteries and the Wounded Warriors in Action Foundation (WWIA), a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to offering world-class outdoor sporting events to combat-wounded veterans.

“Bassmasters has shown so much interest in this event,” Evers said. “They came up to me and said they want to stream it live for everyone to watch.”

Healing Heroes in Action Tour gifts a military veteran with a day on the lake fishing alongside Evers.

WWIA pays for an entire day of fishing with the Elite pro, including a $100 Bass Pro gift card, War Eagle baits, an outfitted tackle bag and several other items.

Together, Evers and his veteran partner fish against another team of fishing enthusiasts who bid for an opportunity to compete in the one-day event.

“All the money goes directly into the Wounded Warriors in Action,” Evers said. “All that money goes straight to them, those guys in return for their top donation, they get a Lowrance deck finder, tackle bags, Wylie X gift packages and two $200 gift cards.”

The auction is hosted on Evers’ Facebook page and it serves as a fundraiser for WWIA.

In addition to being the two-man team to fish against an Elite pro and his veteran partner, the winners of this auction will also receive a $2,000 value prize pack and a chance for their friends to watch them live online.

Bassmasters will have a camera in each boat and stream the footage exclusively on its website.

The last time Evers went out on this tour, on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville, he and his partner veteran cleaned the lake out.

“We caught 52 fish that day, it was unbelievable,” Evers said. “I get messages all the time, people thanking me for doing this and asking how they can be a part of it.”

Evers’ response is tell fellow anglers to simply take someone fishing. He gets calls from sponsors but redirects them to WWIA, saying his goal is not to make a personal profit, but to further the efforts of the organization.

Evers coordinates the trips along with his schedule on the Elite series. When he travels to a lake to begin practicing for a tournament, he scouts a location for the next event, and then arranges for the prize packages and the boats to take the fishermen out.

This week, Evers, a native of Talala, will fish with Air Force veteran Mark Broda from Indiana, launching from Grove’s Wolf Creek Park on Thursday morning.

Broda served two tours in the Middle East before 9/11, serving as a survival equipment specialist. He was injured during an attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and is a lifetime member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.

“I’ve stayed in touch with the last guy I got to fish with, we talk all the time,” Evers said. “I just get so many people who say they want to fish with me or fish against me all the time, well this is a pretty good way to take care of that.”

This season on the Elite tour, Evers sits in the top-30 on the angler rankings despite a rough start. He has eight all-time wins on the tour and has qualified for the Bassmaster Classic 13 times.

Local Waste Hauler Sponsors Wounded Veterans For Memorial Fishing Tournament

ALEXANDRIANEWS

Local, family owned and operated waste and recycling hauler, American Disposal Services, has  sponsored the Annual Dave Harris Memorial Billfish Tournament again this year, by helping combat wounded Purple Heart veterans to attend the event.

Formerly known as the “Cinco de Mayo Billfish Tournament”; the Harris family changed the name in 2008 after they lost their brother, Dave Harris, to melanoma and renamed the tournament to honor his memory.

Last year, tournament organizers partnered with Wounded Warriors in Action, a national non-profit organization dedicated to serving our Nation’s combat wounded Purple Heart recipients by providing world-class outdoor sporting activities as a means to recognize and honor their sacrifice and encourage independence.

American Disposal’s sponsorship included full accommodations of the trip and tournament for one of the eight veterans attending.

One of the founders of American’s GreenStream® program, as well as one of the tournament’s organizers, Mark O’Brien, has attended the event every year for the past 12 years and describes the tournament as inspiring.

“It’s really a privilege to sponsor this event.” O’Brien said. “To be able to share it with these guys is really what makes us all look forward to it every year. The fact that we can help make it possible for them to attend-not only to thank them for their service, but just to be able to hang out with them-that’s what makes it such a great experience.”

American Disposal has plans to continue sponsoring the Dave Harris Memorial Billfish Tournament in future years and remains committed to supporting veterans and the men and women of America’s military.

SouthSide Muskie Hawks

SouthSide Muskie Hawks

The March meeting of the SouthSide Muskie Hawks was called to order by President John Daley at approximately 7PM.  The first items on the adgenda for the evening were the announcements and the fishing reports.  Announcements included the Winnecomme trip, the Lac Vieux Desert trip to sunrise Lodge the mini-fundraiser and the April Swap Meet.

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