Turning the corner on trauma: Downrange Warriors helps veterans and first responders

With everything to lose if discovered, an intelligent and well-kempt man spoke softly in a dark corner of a Cody coffee shop of his past. He kept his back to the wall, his eyes shifting, aware of every customer coming through the door.

As he told his story calmly, the tension of the situations — from work undercover among some of the most dangerous gang members in the country to international drug interdiction — were enough to turn a parent’s hair gray. And no matter how much the man thought he could handle the job, his choices negatively affected him and his family. 

It wasn’t until after his retirement that he sought help. Luckily there was an organization in Cody prepared to handle the emotional strain on soldiers and first responders.

Anonymity

His name is Dave, but his last name was never offered due to risks to him and his family. Dave has had a long history of law enforcement employment — 11 years of which were spent undercover entrenched in a motorcycle gang. He played the part of a man on the run, willing to commit murder for a paycheck in the underground world of drugs, guns and paranoia.

“In undercover work, there’s a lot of temptations there. I mean, it’s fast cars, money, girls, bikers and strip joints,” he said of his more than a decade of living a lie for a paycheck. 

He pushed to make hand-to-hand buys of drugs, firearms, stolen vehicles, whatever was being sold at the time, he said.

“The most difficult part of it is the irregular hours and the assumed identity. Even though you’re trained for it, after a while, it’s very easy to let that become who you are, and very easy to lose track of reality,” he said. “Probably the most stressful thing for me was the irregular hours and being away from my family. Sure, you feel like you’re doing the right thing, and you want to do the right thing. My family was very supportive. We had a child at that time. She grew up with her dad being gone. So the toll that, at the time, I didn’t realize the extent of cost to them. I will always be forever grateful for their support.” 

He wasn’t able to change his disguise for the most part. A wild beard was part of the disguise for years, giving him the look of a desperate man. Yet, in reality he has a master’s degree in law enforcement administration and a love for Jesus — not exactly what you’d expect if you saw him walking toward you after dark.

Now he is a handsome older man, like a grandfatherly sort who may have worked in the insurance industry all his life. His wife is glad to have the love of her life finally at home. The only other time she has had this much time with him was when he was recovering from a broken neck after a meth lab raid.

Her faith

“It was in God’s hands to take care of him,” said his wife Ben — It’s a family name.

Dave enjoyed the work and put several dangerous criminals behind bars for decades. He worries about payback, not only for him, but for his family, as well.

For the most part he kept his story to himself. At least until he met a group of military and first responder veterans offering a course for those who have seen the worst side of humanity.
Downrange Warriors is a Cody nonprofit organization serving veterans and first responders with a mix of intimate knowledge of what it takes to make a career out of seeing people on their worst day and a goal of saving lives.

The organization’s mission is to prevent suicide by those coping with the adversities of post-traumatic stress of war and law enforcement that wound the heart, mind and soul. They advertise trauma healing through a variety of methods, including outdoor activities, interventions, ongoing weekly meetings, dog therapy, horse therapy and honest communication and transparency.

Ben told Dave after they began a 12-week course with Downrange Warriors, “I still don’t understand how we’ve been married 40 some years and you can walk into a room of complete strangers one time and you’re telling them stuff you didn’t tell me in 40 years?”

Being surrounded by other couples suffering from the same issues — trauma that was ignored and could have cost their relationships — made Dave realize the toll he and his family had paid. His love for his family helped him understand the immediate need to change.

A kinder sheriff

When Todd Bray, one of the founders of Downrange Warriors, approached newly elected Park County Sheriff Darrell Steward asking if he could find a couple deputies to attend their Reboot program, the stigma of seeking help resulted in the sheriff coming up empty handed.

“They’re very reluctant to get involved with it. There’s just a stigma to this whole thing that, you know, we got to be the tough guys,” Steward said as he spoke to an audience attending a graduation ceremony earlier this month.

Supervisors had never been invited to the program before. The leaders thought it may stop others from sharing their story. But after 38 years of working day and night chasing bad guys, Steward thought he might be a good candidate for the program.

“I’ve been through hundreds of traumatic events, you know, cases where there’s bad, bad stuff going on,” he said.

He thought the next traumatic event was going to be telling his wife Lynn that he had signed her up for a 12-week counseling course without discussing it with her first. To his surprise, she was all for the commitment.

Through the counseling, Steward said it opened his eyes to the fact that he had become too involved with his law enforcement family and not enough with his own family. He would come home from work, change clothes and immediately head to his shop -- the sheriff’s fortress of solitude. Meanwhile, his wife and children were feeling neglected.

“Lynn was thinking, ‘Hey, what am I, garbage here?’” he realized after going through the coursework. 

The couples involved in the class opened up about their experiences and feelings. Through communication exercises, realizing you’re not the only one that’ll feel this way and finally hearing the truth, Lynn and Darrell began to understand the stress and anger was killing their relationship. Once they began to see eye to eye, they started acting like they were in a high school romance.

Lynn’s friends would comment, “You guys are like you’re dating again. You’re just sparkly.” 
The kids would call to schedule a visit, but the renewed love affair had changed Darrell and Lynn. They would spontaneously take road trips together.

“We’d just go do whatever — go look at dinosaur tracks, which is what I like. So not everything was gun oriented,” Lynn said. “Downrange Warriors saved our whole relationship. I mean, we were existing, but nothing like it is now. It is amazing.”

The graduation

Eight couples and a single mom graduated from the program that night — including Darrell and Lynn. However, this wasn’t their first time through the class. Reboot is a nationally accredited course designed for military and first responders, with sessions held once a week for three hours over a 12-week period. The course aims to improve communication between military/first responder spouses and reduce stress levels.

The Stewards have taken and graduated from the course three times at this point.

“On Tuesday nights it’s like we were dreading coming, but then you didn’t want to leave. The friendships you made with these people — because they’ve been where you’ve been — are just amazing. I just had no idea, you know, I thought we were the only ones,” she said.

Steward didn’t hide his participation in the program. He couldn’t hide the fact due to the changes his employees were seeing -- a kinder side of the top lawman.

“It’s not, not something I hide in the department. I mean, I figure if I’m open about it, the rest of the department might do it,” Darrell said.

Future classes

Bray, who has seen it all and experienced similar issues in his own life, said the free Reboot program is one of the most popular features of the nonprofit. Its success hinges on volunteers willing to assist in the free coursework, mentoring, interventions and other programs at Downrange Warriors. Classes for veterans and first responders are taught separately. The next class for soldiers starts in January.

The secret of the organizers and staff in their seven years of work is their familiarity with the feelings soldiers and first responders deal with on a daily basis. Dave and Ben now help mentor those going through the program and are closer than ever, thanks to the instructors and their faith. They have found ways to find peace when needed, and much of their healing has happened in the great outdoors.

“We go fishing. Anything outdoors is where he finds his peace. Me, too,” Ben said. They have never given up and have now celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary — now closer than they’ve ever been. They credit the organization and their faith for much of their transformation. It comes down to having instructors and mentors who understand what they have gone through. Bray said his passion is to save those who think suicide is the only answer to their problems.

“No one teaches in this organization without having looked death in the eye or put another human back together again,” Bray said. “You are not alone.”

For more information on Downrange Warriors or to donate, go to downrangewarriors.org.