In tiny Quitman Georgia, an hour or so north of the Florida border, a former special forces soldier and rodeo circuit rider is bucking the recovery establishment.
Mike Randall is using “equine therapy” to help combat veterans overcome traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.
Randall is wearing a sweaty T-shirt in the punishing heat when he greets a visitor. His short-cropped hair is gray. He speaks with a soothing drawl as he piles into a beat up pickup for a tour of the ranch.
“Sarge is my horse. You’ve got Stormy, Phil, Baby girl, Pepe, Buddy, Danny Boy.”
Veterans’ court judges steer troublemakers to the seven-year-old Hopes and Dreams ranch. It has a positive relationship with the VA. But Randall’s strongest credentials are his horse sense and combat experience. He’s not a licensed therapist.
“It don’t take that. It takes an understanding of war, and an understanding of what they went through, so that you can help fix them. If I could get a license, I’d get a license. But I’m 67 years old. I ain’t going back to school. “
Whenever one of Hopes and Dreams’ 12 to 14 beds opens up, it fills. All clients have seen combat. They can’t use drugs or drink. Some stay more than six months. Nobody pays.
Randall says ex-soldiers are emotionally broken when they walk through the doors. They suffer the hallmarks of PTSD -- suicidal thoughts, flashbacks and uncontrollable rage.
“It’s like this guy called me the other day. He held his friend as he died in his arms. A lot of them get the guilt complex. My friends died and I didn’t. And they got to carry on, trying to carry all this stuff and they can’t do it. Your minds’ not made to do and see all that stuff.”
Randall counsels the roughest clients himself. Residents get group and individual counseling. A professional drug therapist visits regularly. A pastor comes on Wednesdays.
But Randall says it’s bonding with, caring for and riding quarter horses that works best. He says horses are smart and have their own personalities. They nuzzle. They know your moods. They don’t judge.
Fifty-six-year-old Jeff Bondy, a combat veteran and staff member, describes it this way.
“I’ve got two of my own horses out there. They’re my buddies. You know, they can sense when somebody’s not feeling up to par. They can feel it. It’s like a big dog that weighs 12 hundred pounds.”
It did the trick for 29-year-old Army Specialist Anthony Perkins. Flashbacks, drinking and drugs, sleeplessness and loss of appetite cost him his job. A suicide attempt landed him in a conventional treatment center. It didn’t take. He ties it back to March 15th, 2010, when his unit was clearing a road of Improvised Explosive Devices in Afghanistan.
“We was doing a route, we come up on an IED. We was doing our job and then all of a sudden we come in contact. The firefight lasted about an hour. We tried to move out of the kill zone and then two of our gun trucks, including myself, got hit by an IED.”
Perkins arrived at Hopes and Dreams four months ago afraid to talk to strangers and what he calls “trust issues.” He plans to enter a police academy at the end of September.
Randall’s operation runs on a shoestring. The building was donated. He burns a thousand dollars worth of gas each month driving soldiers to distant VA hospitals. Annual hay bills run $10,000.
“You know, we’re level, but we can’t get the extra stuff we need. We need a zero-turn mower, we need some more farm implements, our vehicles, we need more vehicles, our vehicles are falling apart. We make do. Day by day, whatever the good lord decides.”
He says most of the costs are covered by donations from neighbors and local businesses. A third comes from annual fundraisers at area plantations. They’re held every year on Kentucky Derby day.
