MAYBERRY — Five-year-old Mollie Dudley stood on the edge of a dock overlooking a pond, fishing pole in hand as she excitedly shouted for help reeling in a fish.
In the background, the crack of gunfire — handguns and long guns — echoed across the damp grass.
For those in attendance at the Mayberry Gun Club on Monday, June 25, the day was a chance to get out into nature, unwind and bond with others with shared experiences. The event, sponsored by No Warrior Left Behind, was a family fun day that included opportunities to target shoot, skeet shoot and fish. The day was for injured or ill veterans and first responders, and their families.
William Schroeder, a co-founder of No Warrior Left Behind, said the organization was created to help families deal with the adverse consequences of service. “This organization was designed to help when there was an issue or a problem or a need when others had gone on but someone was left behind and didn’t know how to ask for help or didn’t know where a resource was,” he said.
Mollie was at Monday’s event with her three brothers — Jameson, 7, Jack, 3, and Ish, 9 months — and her parents, Jimmy and Caitlyn, who live in Westminster.
Jimmy Dudley said he came to the event for the first time Monday. He and his family moved to Carroll County about a year ago, he said.
“It’s cool to have an event where, you know, a community group like this can work with vets to have a nice day out,” Dudley said.
Dudley, who served in the Army as an infantry officer from 2009 to 2016, was injured in 2011 when he was shot in the hip in Afghanistan.
Dudley said it was a nice day to be at the gun club and that the day was family focused.
“My son [Jameson] got to shoot a rifle for the first time, and that’s always nice,” Dudley said.
This type of event gets veterans and their families off of the military bases or out of medical care, said Christina Powell, executive director of No Warrior Left Behind.
A lot of people who have physical injuries, or mental and emotional struggles like traumatic brain injuries or post-traumatic stress disorder, spend a lot of time in VA hospitals or on military bases trying to get treatment, she said.
“It’s just kind of giving them a breather from all of that,” Powell added.
And it’s more than just getting to do activities like shooting and fishing, she said. It’s also a great chance for people to get out into nature and have a calm mindset, she said.
“We just allow them to not think about the day to day struggles or the day to day issues that they have going on in their lives,” she said.
Melissa Meadows, of Hampstead, is on the board of the organization, but is also a part of it as a caregiver for a wounded warrior. Her husband, Jon, has dealt with PTSD and also has a traumatic brain injury, she said.
Getting to come out to events like the family fun day, she said, and getting to shoot a gun, “makes him a happy, happy man.”
For her husband, she said, it’s a chance for him to use the skills he still has.
And while he’s visually impaired, and has double vision out of each eye, he’s still able to shoot, Meadows said. It makes him feel normal.
“You put him behind a gun — he can’t see — but it’s like a sixth sense for him,” Meadows said, later adding, “it’s nice for him to be able to come out and do it in a safe situation.”
No Warrior Left Behind has the flexibility to offer help — not at the time of immediate crisis, Schroeder said, but rather when there’s a lingering issues or unaddressed needs.
“Those tremors and aftershocks can last years,” he said.
