Ray Sasser

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Rosalinda Babin of Round Rock has spent six years helping her son, Alan Babin Jr., overcome gunshot wounds suffered during an 82nd Airborne Division battle in the Middle East.

When they attended a Heroes on the Water event, Rosalinda was moved by the poignant image of empty wheelchairs lining the launch site, abandoned in favor of kayaks.

"Looking out at the lake, there was no way to differentiate between the able bodied and the disabled heroes – a huge therapeutic moment for the parent of a wounded warrior," Babin said.

Heroes on the Water (HOW) is a Texas-based volunteer organization that takes wounded veterans on kayak fishing trips. In their sleek, low profile boats, kayakers feel a part of nature. A pleasant interlude in quiet surroundings sometimes results in a therapeutic breakthrough, an unexpected bonus for veterans and for the HOW volunteers.

At a June fishing trip near Farmersville, about 45 miles northeast of Dallas, Marine veterans Robert Aiken and Roger Preston listened to a brief orientation from HOW's national coordinator, Jim Dolan, before launching into a 10-acre private lake.

HOW schedules as many outings as possible on private waters. There's a safety aspect of not sharing the water with power boats, and game fish are generally easier to catch on private lakes.

Though they had the run of 10 acres, Aiken and Preston fished side by side. It's a pattern Dolan has witnessed repeatedly.

Aiken, who's starting a nationwide U.S. Marine Corps Chamber of Commerce, said that having an organized activity involving other veterans is a good transitional activity for men and women reconnecting with society.

"During service, and particularly on deployment, military personnel operate as a team," he said. "Transition is reverse culture shock. Most veterans groups focus their attention inward or to the past. HOW focuses on an activity, and most young warriors would rather do something other than swapping war stories around a bar. With HOW, we're swapping stories across a pond, without the hangover."

HOW was formed in 2007 and has served about 130 veterans. HOW went national in June, with events in Georgia, Virginia and Washington state, said Dolan, a commercial airline pilot who lives in Allen. The Air Force veteran got involved in kayaking through his love of coastal fishing.

"Fishing from a power boat is like driving a car through Yellowstone National Park," he said. "Fishing from a kayak is like riding a bike through Yellowstone. The kayak experience is much more personal."

Military doctors are reluctant to discuss recovering veterans, but HOW volunteers have been told that kayak fishing may have the same impact on wounded warriors suffering traumatic brain injury as horseback riding has on autistic children.

"I will never forget one of the kids we took fishing on the coast," Dolan said. "He was totally lost in whatever had happened to him in the Middle East and, when he responded to our questions, his responses usually consisted of one word.

"The first fish that he caught resulted in a big grin. Forty-eight hours and several fish later, he was looking us in the eye and speaking in three- or four-word sentences. We didn't cure that kid, but we put a crack in the shell where he was able to see something other than his own problems."

Heather Gardner is a recreational therapist at the Center for the Intrepid at Brooke Army Medical Center. Her specialty is adaptive sports with ties to the U.S. Paralympics. Gardner defines recreational therapy as a way of distracting one's mind from the toll the body may be taking on and diverting it to something that is pleasing to the mind, body, soul, or a combination of those aspects.

Gardner is not surprised at therapeutic breakthroughs related to kayak fishing. She has led several groups on HOW outings. The first involved wounded warriors who were missing both legs above the knees. The majority of those participants said they wanted to fish but not kayak. A few wanted to kayak but not fish.

Within 20 minutes, with no encouragement from anyone, said Gardner, every one of them was in a kayak with a fishing rod in their hands. How does Gardner assess the therapeutic value of that experience?

"I'm sure it was different for each participant," she said. "Getting away from the hospital and a daily routine can be therapeutic. Putting them in a boat where they are the sole controller can be therapeutic. Doing an activity that is not physically challenging and entirely in their control can be therapeutic.

"The HOW program is absolutely wonderful," Gardner said. "Their hard work and dedication to our warriors is truly inspirational and does not go unnoticed."

A $50,000 Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grant, the cost of a single high-end bass boat, enabled HOW to buy 40 kayaks, paddles, life jackets and other necessary fishing gear. Volunteers for HOW events mostly come from TexasKayakFishermen.com, an online forum with 12,000 members, about 2,000 of them very active.

Dolan said HOW needs access to more private lakes in all Texas regions, as veterans are spread throughout the state. Some landowners have gone beyond merely granting access to their lakes. They host the events, providing food for everyone who shows up. Most outings are small, with 10 or fewer veterans.

Dolan said the initial purpose of HOW was to give as many veterans as possible a chance to enjoy kayak fishing, but it has grown into a much bigger project, not that he minds.

"The biggest compliment I can get is to have one of these guys call me up and say, 'Hey Jim, let's go fishing.' I've come to realize that they're helping me a lot more than I'm helping them. If they can overcome the problems they have, it makes my problems seem nonexistent by comparison."