Major (Ret.) Roy E. Emerson, originally from Vacaville, California, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1988 as an Infantryman, beginning his career with the 75th Ranger Regiment. He participated in Operation Just Cause, conducting a combat parachute assault in Panama. Over his career, he served in multiple leadership roles, including with the 18th Airborne Corps Long Range Surveillance Company at Fort Bragg, two tours with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, and as an instructor at the U.S. Army Ranger School.
After commissioning as an officer in 2005, he served as a platoon leader and executive officer with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, deploying for 15 months to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He later commanded a headquarters company with there 5th US Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood, leading security operations in Iraq during Operation New Dawn. Emerson also served with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, leading global recovery missions to repatriate fallen U.S. servicemen and the US Army Recruiting Battalion , New York City. He concluded his 31-year career as an ROTC instructor at Princeton University.
In early 2024, Emerson was inspired by Army friends who rowed across the Atlantic in World's Toughest Row’s Atlantic Challenge 2023. Their mission aligned with his own passion for supporting veterans, leading him to establish RangeOars Row Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to using ocean rowing as a platform to raise awareness for veteran mental health and suicide prevention. Through endurance challenges and community engagement, the organization aims to inspire resilience, foster camaraderie, and support initiatives that address the struggles many veterans face after service.
The team has been training monthly in Fernandina Beach, Florida to accumulate hours on their vessel AKESO and will formally launch from Monterey Bay, California on June 7th this year and row unsupported for four to six weeks to finish at Hanaleai Bay, Kauai, Hawaii. There are five other teams entered into this year's Pacific Challenge.
Monies raised by Team RangeOars Row will go to several charities close to the team’s hearts; Brother Keeper Veteran Foundation, Gary Sinise Foundation, Three Rangers Foundation and Hardrock Charlie Foundation.
Roy is married to the former Mia Martin of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and they live in Annandale, NJ. Mia is a Chef and together they operate a successful catering company in Frenchtown NJ. Their daughter Rachel is married to Stephen Lee who now lives in Huntsville, AL. Their son, Dagon is a firefighter and EMT with Quakertown Fire Company in Franklin Township. They have one Grandson, Roxas, and one Granddaughter, Clementine.
To learn more about Roy's nonprofit organization RangePars Row and their plans for this year, go to:
https://www.rangeoarsrow.org/
You can also learn more about their partners and purchase merchandise, and make a donation!
Please support this worthy
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Original music "Saturday Sway" by Brendan Talian (for all interviews before
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:20):
Roy, Hello and Welcome to The Storied Human. Today,
myguest is major retired Roy EEmerson, originally from
Vacaville, California, heenlisted in the US Army in 1988
as an infantry man, beginninghis career with 75th Ranger
Regiment, after participating inArmy operations such as
Operation just cause, where heconducted a combat parachute
(00:44):
assault in Panama, he served inmultiple leadership roles,
including with the 18th AirborneCorps, long range surveillance
company at Fort Bragg, and twotours with the 25th Infantry
Division in Hawaii and as aninstructor at the US Army Ranger
School. He commissioned as anofficer in 2005 and he served as
(01:05):
a platoon leader and executiveofficer with the 170/3 Airborne
Brigade. You can read more abouthis bio in my in the show notes
for this episode. But the reasonfor the interview was that
Emerson was inspired by armyfriends who rode across the
Atlantic in the world's toughestrose Atlantic challenge, 2023 he
(01:27):
had watched them closely as theymade their way across the
Atlantic on a on a boat that hadno motor. Their mission aligned
with his own passion forsupporting veterans, leading him
to establish range ores row,Inc, a non profit, dedicated to
using ocean rowing as a platformto raise awareness for veteran
(01:49):
mental health and suicideprevention through endurance
challenges and communityengagement, the organization
aims to inspire resilience,foster camaraderie and support
initiatives that address thestruggles many veterans face
after service. The team willformally launch from Monterey
(02:09):
Bay, California on June 7 ofthis year, and row unsupported
for four to six weeks to finishat hanalea Bay, Kauai, Hawaii.
There are five other teamsentered into this year's Pacific
challenge. Monies raised by TeamRangers row will go to several
charities close to the team'shearts, brother keeper, veteran
(02:31):
Foundation, Gary SiniseFoundation, three Rangers
foundation and hard rock,Charlie foundation. This is such
a worthy cause you can you cangive directly by going to the
website range ORS row.org andit's oars O, A R, S range oars
row, to find out more about it,you can follow some of the links
(02:52):
on that web page. And you canalso buy merchandise, which we
didn't mention during theinterview, I purchased the T
shirts are great. I purchasedsome of those, and it's just a
great way to support thiseffort, and it's really
important. And the cause, youknow, we can't we can't
overstate how important this is.
We're losing too many veteransevery day. So, so that's all
(03:16):
about Roy, And I want To say,welcome You.
(09:10):
Thank you. I'm doing well. Howare you doing? I'm
doing great. It's I've beenlooking forward to talking to
you. You have a great story,or tell or give signs of some,
in some way, that arestruggling, and those are, those
are the times that are reallyimportant that, you know, the
brothers and sisters, you know,take the time to reach out. We
(09:31):
gotta, we gotta, we gotta dobetter at connecting with those
that are struggling.
It's so important, becausethere's way too many suicides.
We can't keep going like we'regoing,
yeah, so you know the So, whatmany you know people across the
(09:52):
country hear about is that thatthat one number that keeps
making its way around 22, 222, aday. So recent studies have
actually shown that that's it'sactually almost double that you
could actually 44 plus a daythrough unreported or other
(10:16):
circumstances that just don'tmake the statistics. You know,
that's horrifying. Yeah, that'ssomething to be concerned about.
So now explain to us what youstarted doing. You heard about
this group, and you decided thatyou wanted to form your own
nonprofit.
(10:37):
So I, I started my career in thearmy in 1988 with an assignment
in a in the Special Operationscommunity with First Ranger
Battalion in Savannah, Georgia.
Fast Forward 30 plus years, someof those old Ranger friends of
mine took took on the Atlanticrace with this, this race that's
(11:01):
organized by Atlantic campaignsand the world's toughest row in
December of 2023 and it was justreally fascinating to watch them
train up for it. They wererowing for an organization out
of Mobile, Alabama, called fightor die and and a lot of times
(11:22):
people will play on the word orso, like when you look at our
name, it's when you look back atthe name range or is row, it
goes back to a saying from WorldWar Two, Rangers lead the way,
Rangers. So we threw in theWord, or, you know, we're part
(11:45):
of rangers, right? I love thatarrange, doors lead the way, or
Rangers, but that fight or die,or being spelled, O, A, R, Oh, I
love that. So a lot of teamsplay with the word, or when they
when they make up their teamnames. Now,
for those of us who aren't superfamiliar, can you tell me more
about the Atlantic race? Yep,so the Atlantic, so
(12:10):
organized ocean rowing startedmore than a couple decades ago
over a bet on a bottle ofwhiskey called Talisker whiskey.
It's made in the UK. And so theoriginal, the original organized
company that ran these races wascalled Talisker whiskey. And so
(12:33):
they formed the Talisker whiskeyAtlantic challenge, T whack. And
that race begins on an island inthe Canaries called lagomara in
San Sebastian Harbor, whichironically is the same place
that Christopher Columbus beganhis journey west to the new
(13:00):
they embark everyeach December, because they they
time these ocean races with thelowest threat of ocean storm,
whether hurricane or or tropicalstorms out in the Pacific side.
And they the Atlantic race is a3000 mile ocean row from to the
island of Antigua to Englishharbor in Antigua, and oh my
(13:27):
gosh, that sets off somewherearound the the 11th or 12th of
December every year. And teamsaverage, the average is probably
five to six, seven weeks ittakes for a team to cross the
Atlantic Ocean. Wow, and youhave to, and it's completely
(13:48):
these the race is unsupported,meaning everything you need is
on theboat with you. I was just going
to ask you, are all theprovisions on the
boat? Everything is on the boatand that that that is calculated
by body weight. The right racerules mandate that each rower
(14:10):
brings on board 55 days of foodand and then it's it's
programmed out at 60 caloriesper kilogram of body weight. So
for somebody like me, I I weigh225 pounds. It's over 6000
calories of food that I wouldneed to consume every day. It's
(14:31):
a lot to keep allthat rowing, yeah, so can you
tell us more about the boat?
Because I want people to picturewhat we're talking about.
So the most of the boats aremade by a company in England
called ran off adventures, R, A,N, N, O, C, H, adventures. And
it is a it is these boats arespecially designed to take on
(14:54):
the challenges of the conditionsof the open ocean, so huge
swells, big storms. Is, andthey're made to accommodate solo
rowers and rowing teams up tofive people. So it just, it's a
matter of how long the boat is.
So our boat is made for three tofive rowers. It is a rant. Is a
ranch or what they call it, R 45and it is made, it is 28 almost
(15:19):
29 feet long. And then when he,when he the beam, which is the
width of a boat, from left toright side, is almost six feet.
So it's it, it almost looks likea big torpedo,
yeah, yeah, long. And too longin there, not too wide, yeah.
(15:40):
And there is a, there's a littlecabin in the front, a little
cabin say,is there a place? Okay, so you
can get out of the elements,yep.
And then our boat, they are 45and designed with three rowing
positions in it, so there'sthree sets of or locks and the
little sliding seats andeverything. And and they are,
(16:02):
they're designed to self, right?
So in a capsize, if you were tocapsize that boat in about five
to 10 seconds, it would justlike, like a bobber pop right
back up. Wow. But a lot of thatdepends on, like, if there's
somebody in the cabins when itcapsizes and it happens, you
just have to make sure thattheir their body weight, is
(16:22):
positioned to help itself,right, to help the process,
yeah. Sotrying to imagine rowing that
much like when the is there noengine at all. There
is no engine. So there are verystrict rules about the kinds of
things that we you can even haveon board that could possibly be
(16:45):
used as a sale, because thatwould be breaking the rules.
It's an integrity violation. Andso, for example, we we asked the
race coordinators if we couldbring a bunch of US flags that
we could then authenticate. Youknow, certificate authenticity.
This flag rode across thePacific Ocean. They were like,
nope, nope, nope. Because theyOh, wow, not even a flag. Not
(17:07):
even a flag. Because in thepast, some people with low
integrity got caught usingsimilar things as sales to to
cheat. So theyhave to avoid that. Yeah, they
have to avoid that.
And so everything you know,there is a there's a huge rudder
on the back, like a three footit's almost the three foot
(17:29):
rudder that sticks out of thebottom of the back. And that is,
there's three ways to steer it.
So while you're rowing, you canhand steer it. And the middle
row position has a way to hookup the hand steering lines to to
their foot bed, and then youtake a pin out, and then the
foot bed, Oh, I see. And thenyou could steer the rudder. And
then, when the conditions areright, there's an automatic
(17:51):
these pneumatic systems calledAuto Helms, and it's connected
to the rudder in the back of theboat, and you program a waypoint
in the chart plotter, and thenthat will keep you on a course
to you know that waypoint, sothat you don't have to worry
(18:11):
about steering.
You just rub that's cool. So therudder would move automatically.
Rudder wouldmove automatically based on your
GPS position and your directionof movement, you course
overground to a specific, youknow, area you know ahead of
you, 500,000 miles or whatever.
(18:32):
So how do you prepare forsomething like this? How do you
train for something like this?
There's a, it's, you know, forour team, it, it is, it has been
a challenge to train togetherbecause we're so geographically
separated. Oh yeah, I have threeteam members that live in
Tennessee. I have one teammember that lives in Texas, and
(18:54):
I'm here in New Jersey. Oh, wow.
We, we, you know, there's there.
There is a level of individualresponsibility to, you know, we
all have rowing machines athome, so get on the rower and
row as much as we can at homeduring the week, you know, or
during the times that we're nottogether, but we've been, we've
been gathering and taking theboat down to Fernandina Beach on
(19:18):
Amelia Island in North Florida,outside of Jacksonville, every
month for for nine to 10 daysand and we've been trying to get
out on the open ocean out there,there's a really great rowing
community there, from peoplethat have done this before that
we've met. And it's just that'sgood community down there is
just so welcoming. And oneparticular rower in a guy named
(19:40):
Paul Laurie who's crossed theocean twice. He's getting ready
to cross the Arctic Ocean.
Amazing dude, just the biggestheart in the world as guys like
that that they open up theirhomes to us when we come down,
and they help us fundraise. Theyhelp us with maintenance on the.
Boat, they'll just drop whateverthey're doing, you know, if we
(20:02):
need something and, and sowonderful, really lucky that we
found a place like that.
Well, it's just a brotherhood,isn't it? It really is, it
is, and it's and, let me tellyou, there are some, some kick
ass women out there doing this.
I love that there, there aresome incredible women teams.
Somewomen are like, wait a minute, I
(20:24):
can do this too. Oh yeah. Imean, every, every, everything
you know, you know, from, from,from four, four or they, you
know, in the UK, you call amother Mom, right? So four moms,
that was, I think, the name oftheir team a couple years ago,
four moms from, from the UK, orsomething like that. But they,
they crossed the Atlantic Ocean,just four moms that decided they
want to do something, you know,really, and raise money for, you
(20:47):
know, whatever their charitywas. And they began to train,
and they crossed an ocean. Youknow,
it's, I think it's so wonderful,the combination of how hard you
have to work. I mean, it'sreally something that you have
to aspire to and work for, yeah,but that you get such visibility
for a cause you really careabout. It's all worth it, yeah.
(21:09):
So how many like, how long doeseach rower have to row
like per day? Yep. So so for andtrue size will dictate that. So
obviously, somebody that'srowing solo, and many people do
that across the Atlantic, theyOh yeah, and they'll row for
(21:31):
1015, hours a day, oh my gosh,taking breaks whenever they can.
And then, you know, I don't evenknow how they do it. They throw
out the, there's a big parathere's drought. We have DRO
drugs or parachute anchors thatyou can throw out, which the big
parachute will will inflate andfill up with water, and it'll,
(21:52):
it'll slow your drift in the andso, you know, a solo rower would
have to throw out the Paraanchor every night to get some
rest, you know. And it's areally pain in the butt to pull
that thing back in. But for acrew of four, which we started
as a crew of four, most crews offour row, two hours on, two
(22:14):
hours off, two people, 24/7 soyou end up rowing 12 hours in a
24hour period. Wow, that's a lot
of rowing, yeah, yeah, everyday for, you know, four to six
weeks.
And so it's, you know, I thinkthe number of strokes each rower
(22:34):
on on the average ocean crossingis like a million and a half
four strokes, jeez. Butit really makes you remember
that it's a big ocean, and ittakes a long time, you know,
like we don't so many people jetacross it, but, yeah, to do it
that way, it's like, amazing. Itis
(22:55):
it? Is this the stories that youone can hear from rowers about
being in the middle of the oceanand on a where there is no light
or pollute light or noisepollution, and you see the world
for what it is, in its in itsnakedness, you know, with the
(23:17):
you know, the sea life that'sout there, the stars And the you
know, and the other galaxiesthat are visible, and the
beautiful world, the awesomenessof of the planet, you know,
that's so what? That's a nicepart of it, that you're now,
yeah, and most people don't getto see that, right? And have
that feeling, andit confirms just how
(23:38):
insignificant you are in thisworld,
that you're part of this big,beautiful thing that's amazing
to me. So a couple crazyquestions come to mind. I'm
assuming you have a bathroom onthe boat? Well, we
do. It's, it's, it's a littlearchaic. It's actually, so a
(23:58):
Gatorade bottle for, you know,urinating, and a Home Depot five
gallon bucket, you know, for forfor your other business,
we're talking rustic. We'retalking rustic.
So basically, you you fill afive gallon bucket up, third way
through, a third way with water,and then you do your business,
(24:18):
and you throw it overboard.
That'sthat makes sense, yeah, so it's
a different way to live. Andwhat if someone gets sick? Do
you have a first aid kit? Or doyou have, like, what if
something happens? Wehave a, we have a very basic
first aid kit. We do, we will.
We do have? We have the means totreat minor injuries with some,
(24:45):
you know, basics, stuff, one ofone of the team members is an
EMT, so we do have that, but wethere is no for the for the for
the Atlantic race. They have asupport yacht that that follows
the fleet. Oh, there's like 40,there's like 40 boats in the
(25:08):
Atlantic, the Pacific routes.
Very new. This is only the thirdgeneration. Wow, here they've
ever done it, and so, like, lessI, I'm gonna say less than 150
people have ever done this onthe on the Pacific Ocean, wow.
And they'll, they'll say, withocean rowing in general, more
people have been in space thanhave done what we're doing. Oh,
(25:31):
my goodness. Isn't the Pacificocean a lot wider? Isn't it
bigger? Itis. It is bigger and it is. It
is more unforgiving than theAtlantic. It's colder. It's
rougher in the first 700 milescoming off the continental shelf
from California, it is extremelyrough. Like everybody keeps
teasing us, like your first 10days are going to be brutal. Get
(25:53):
ready. You're just going to becold, wet and miserable for the
first 10 days.
And wondering why you you'redoing this. What were
we thinking?
Yeah. Now that sounds reallychallenging, yeah.
And so, and then all of asudden, you know, 10, you know,
you get you break you becausethe the winds come down, the
(26:16):
winds and currents are comingdown the coast of California
from the north, and so you'regetting bashed from the
starboard side, which is theright side of the boat, yes,
constantly for the first 700miles. And then the winds will
actually change direction,coming like change direction,
and then start flowing westtowards the Hawaiian Islands. So
(26:37):
once you break through that,that thick band of weather
that's coming south, north tosouth, and then you got the
windier back after that firstweek or 10 days. Then they say
it's like, you know that the skyopens up, and then it's like
night and day, yeah, it's likenight and day. It's like the sky
opens up, the winds at yourback, your surf, you're, you're,
(27:00):
sometimes you're you're able tosurf waves with the boat that
you don't even need to put youroars in the water. You're doing
so amazing.
And so your goal, your your endpoint, is Hawaii, right?
Is Hawaii, the Hanalei Bay onthe island of Kauai. Yeah, yeah.
(27:20):
And how long will that take? Youguys? Is it about the same as
the thingsabout the same? It's, it's
actually 200 miles shorter,okay, 800 miles, but because of
the the rough conditions of thatfirst 700 miles, yeah, it takes
just as long as it does theAtlantic. And so that that that
it's kind of like in the 35 to40 day mark is kind of average,
(27:41):
yeah. And so that's what we'rekind of pushing for. The world
records 29 days,my goodness. So you're doing
this in June. You're doing thisthis year, right? This,
this June. So night we're, Ithink we're 92 days out now from
launch seven June. Yeah.
So what was the first impulsethat made you want to do this,
(28:03):
yeah, getting back to that. Sothe my Ranger friends that did
this two years ago kind ofinspired me, you know, the just,
just, it was like watching, youknow, the old saying, you're
watching a train wreck, right?
You just can't take your eyesoff. I was consumed with
watching these guys. There's anapp you can download that you
(28:23):
can watch the fleet across theocean. You know. It'll tell you
they're just like a little boat.
You can see on the ocean alongwith all the others, and you can
see position, you know, theirlatitude, longitude, position,
their speed. Little bit moreinformation about the crew. And
so I followed them every day andthen, and then, you know, if you
(28:43):
have a good social mediamanager, because we can't
directly, we can't directlyupdate social media out there.
We have to upload all of ourcontent that we take. So we'll
have a bunch of GoPros all overthe boat. We'll take pictures
and make videos and stuff likethat, of us living on the boat,
cooking and other things. And wehave to, we have a satellite, a
(29:06):
small satellite package, like asuitcase kind of thing we shoot.
It's called a began, and we, youknow, whenever we can, we'll,
we'll, we'll shoot back all ofour content to world's toughest
row, and then they will put thatinto a folder. So they'll screen
it first, because they don'twant us, you know, uploading any
(29:29):
anything that would embarrasstheir organization, right, or
us. So they screen it, kind oflike a public affairs officer
would, you know, or something.
They'll, they'll, they'll screenall the content, and then they
will approve the content thatthey approve for release.
They'll put into a folder ontheir hub that our social media
manager has access to, andthat's how the daily updates
(29:50):
will will come. Socool. I was going to ask you if
you have any contact with themainland, yep, so you could
always reach out, right? Yeah,if you needed to,
yep. So we'll have a number ofsatellite phones too. So Iridium
satellite phones that we have,one that we that we have direct
communication with the racesafety team. And then we have
(30:12):
one phone that we can put, thatwe can use to talk to our
families in France or whatever.
And then there's one phone inwhat we call the go bag. So if
we have to abandon ship in thelife raft, and we will take that
go bag, which has a bunch ofother stuff in it that would be,
you know, needed for survival,oh my gosh, a lot to think
(30:35):
about. Now this is an unusualinterview in that I already know
your wife, and I adore her, andI love the food that you guys
put out. I I should mention, youknow that full disclosure, I go
to everything that Mia and Royhave, and I I love the food, and
love Mia. She's got, she's got agreat personality. What does Mia
think of all this?
(31:00):
Mia is the I'm going to go backto last, probably May, April or
May, when I decide they go likethe Pacific race was done. My
friends had come in. You know,it took them 42 they did it. I
think they did the Atlanticcrossing in 42 days. And then I
(31:25):
was just like, gosh, I somethinginside me said, I need to, you
know, right? You know, you knowthe, let's, let's double up the
effort on, on mental healthawareness, you know, something
got to you, yeah, you know, soto speak, vessel, you know, so
wonderful. And, and I will saythis, I didn't expect it, but I
(31:48):
think Mia was the one that,like, kind of pushed me in to
say, you need to do this.
Oh my gosh, that's beautiful.
And so I bet that 100%on board, you know, with, you
know, she's like, right now,she's even, she even just
launched outside of, like, themultitude of hours she spends
with her catering company andtalking to clients and building
(32:10):
menus. She just, we're doing afundraiser on March 23 at the at
the Quakertown firehouse withher fried chicken. Everybody
loves her fried chicken. Oh,they do. And so we're going to
do a fundraiser. So she justlaunched that on social media.
So she's been working her buttoff all day on that and
yesterday, on on, on thegraphics and the menu and all
kinds of stuff. So, you know, itis, it is quite it's incredible
(32:34):
to have the support, you know,of those that are closed and
then endeavored like this,because so much of our time is
taken away with me being gone alot. So you know this. So she,
she helped stand up thenonprofit back, you know, a year
(32:57):
ago, and and has been, you know,100% on board, you know, ever
since, and, and it takes avillage to do this, because the
running I, for anybody out therethat runs a nonprofit, there is
no joke. It is. It is lifeconsuming. It
(33:21):
looks hard. I've talked to, youknow, friends who, who do this
kind of work. It's not easy.
Yeah, and, and it's it, youknow, I you know, we chose a, we
chose a route that, that youknow isn't, you know, for, for
on the fundraising side. Itisn't like we went out and we,
(33:44):
we were pulling all this moneyand it's, it's, and then right
off the bat, it's going to ourcharities. This crossing this
ocean is going to cost a lot ofmoney, yeah, oh yeah, $180,000
it's going to cost us just toget
bunch of money. Yeah. So do youget pledges? I mean, how are you
going to so we,we work through, you know, we've
(34:04):
been blessed with, with with,with a number of really large
donations to get us to where weare today. Some local companies,
EVco, mechanical, WoundedWarrior Project, greifeld family
foundation and a number ofothers, given generously that
(34:26):
allowed us to buy the boat, tobuy a bunch of good equipment
that we needed to to pay the,you know, it, it's 20, it was
26,000 euros just to enter therace. And so what we kind of
started off with an aggressivegoal in mind that we want at the
end of the day. You know, wewant to raise a total of a
(34:50):
million dollars for how and so,you know, when you. Take out the
180,000 out of that, you know,we're possibly looking at, you
know, potentially, you know,$820,000 going to these, these
charities that we've chosen. Andso we're, you know, it's
(35:12):
developing an aggressive goallike that, we thought, you know,
based off of some of the, someof the names that we got
involved with, you know, some ofour charities, we thought, you
know, it would be a no brainer,but it's looking in reality,
it's a it's a heck of a lot morework than sticking some, you
(35:35):
know, big name on the side ofthe boat and thinking money is
going to just start likedropping our feet, which is
more working. Imagine, yeah, wegot to do
a lot of hustling and and, andcourting corporations and, and
(35:55):
then really figuring outthe grass, kind of like that.
You know, the grassroots rightto, you know, the individual
donations, you know, frompeople. So, you know, $5 here,
$10 here, $300 here. All that,you know, if we word out where
could, where can people give? Imean, can I put it in the show
(36:16):
notes? But I like to have peoplesay it, because some people
don't read the whole show notes,sure our website is range ORS
row.org, and that's R, A N, G,E, R O, A R, S, R O, w.so,
it's rain, georgerow.org,And there are links in there to
(36:38):
to donate and and then, youknow, you can also find, so
Rangers row, the same word, butall together, is like, that's
our Instagram. Okay, good nameand Facebook profile name. So
Rangers row on Instagram,there's like links in the bio,
(36:58):
you know, to get to our websitewhere folks can can contribute.
Good, yeah, I just, I can'timagine somebody who wouldn't
want to. I mean, we're allworried about this issue, and if
we can hear that, there's a wayto directly help people. It's a
no brainer. It's a wonderfulthing you're doing.
(37:20):
And and sometimes I think, youknow, in some of the groups I'm
in, you know, some of themilitary groups I'm in, you know
where I'll go in, and it's, Ithink a lot of people are, are
the the attention span of peopleon social media is very short.
You have to grab somebody inabout seven or eight seconds,
(37:40):
yeah, or you lose them. And so,I mean, it's, it's, it's really
challenging. And I wish therewas, I wish I can crack the
code. But in some of my militarygroups where I'll go in and kind
of, you know, kind of plug whatwe're doing, there might be 3000
members of that group, and aftera couple weeks, maybe three or
(38:03):
four will follow us. You know,it's like, how do I get to those
and again, grab their interest,not just to grab their interest
to follow us on Instagram,because we want to grow our
followers, because the biggerour followers are. But how do I
get, you know, I mean, Isometimes I imagine 3000 people
(38:26):
donate. It's amazing.
You should remind them, andsometimes I have to be reminded
to follow. I'll be readingsomething, I'll be like, This is
great, and I'll like it, but Iforget to follow
like, following like. And it'slike, good if
somebody says that, right? Andthen you gotta get over the so
(38:49):
we gotta get over the, I guessthe I, you know, these are all
army buddies, you know, whyshould I ask them for money? No,
let's like, let's ask him formoney, you know, because at the
end of the day, the money we,you know, after we've paid for
the race. You know, the theorganizations that were that
(39:09):
were raising money for oneBrother's Keeper veteran
Foundation, the guy, Chriscathers, that founded that a
Special Forces veteran whoalmost had lost everything, you
know, has had the gun in his inhis mouth a dozen times over,
you know, over the last coupleyears, is really doing some very
special stuff with veterans,trying to crack the stigma, you
(39:32):
know, on on mental Health.
And then another organizationwe're raising money for is a
very well known guys, GarySinise,
I saw that, yeah, that's great.
And he does a bunch of, he doessome really cool stuff, you
(39:52):
know, amazing. No, at thebeginning, when we still, when
we, when I, when I recruited theguys on the team, we all had.
Meeting and said, Hey, who are,who are charities going to be?
Because the one thing about thisrace, which I really like,
there's no cash prize. You don'twin anything for for winning,
right, right? You know, the onlywinners are your charities. And
(40:13):
so you have to raise money for acharity to even enter this race.
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.
But there, there's somethingthat occurs. To me that must
come up all the time, is thatwhen you're a soldier, and
you've been through whatsoldiers go through, you're a
tough guy, right? Or a woman,you're tough or tough guy,
(40:34):
there's a lot of pride, andyou're not supposed to have
these problems, right? You'renot that's a weakness, and I
would imagine that that's thatgets in their way. And so if we
can help people realize thatwe're all human, we're all going
to have these things happen. Wecan still be tough guys and
women,and it starts very early on in
somebody's career, especially inCombat Arms. You know, in combat
(40:58):
engineers, the infantry, SpecialForces, special operations. When
we were growing up as youngsoldiers in special operations,
it was, you know, you can't showweakness if you, if you, if you
have to go to sick call and gosee the PA. You know, you're,
you're looked at as weak, andso, so a lot of, a lot of
(41:23):
soldiers get into the habit ofthe old, we're just going to
suck it up and drive on.
I understand that. I mean, youdon't want to show that weak,
especially the the more eliteforces, right, like you, there's
a lot more at stake. I mean, youmade it into this.
The Army spent a lot of money onyou, yeah, doing, you know, the,
(41:45):
yeah, you know, and it's in the,you know, the Special Forces
pipeline, you know, the armyspending millions of dollars on
your training, wow, on oneperson,
you carry that weight. You know,it's not the same thing. But I
do remember my father talkingabout he was a commercial pilot,
and he talked about how nobodywanted to admit that anything
(42:05):
was wrong with them, becausethen, then they might, you know,
you know,might be grounded. You know,
it's like you forced to go totrain
counseling. A lot of it's tough.
It's tough.
So, so you we get very good atcompartmentalizing our field,
yeah, yeah, and holding thingsin and when, in reality we it
(42:26):
should be the opposite, yeah.
Should be about what's going onalive.
None of us want to lose any moreveterans. So I'm so proud of you
and what you do, and I'm soready to spread the word, and
I'm so glad you came on today.
Now is my pleasure. Lynne, I hadfun, and it's, you know, I love
every opportunity I get to toshare it and and to tell the
(42:48):
story. And, you know the why?
You know, it's soimportant, a blessing. So there
is a website that I belong to,like a group, that matches
podcast guests with with podcasthosts. And you might want to try
that. I'll, I'll share that withyou when I sure, when I when I
stop the interview, but yeah,you want to get the word out and
(43:10):
maybe be speaking to a few morepodcasts.
Yeah, I've got, I've actuallygot DVR radio lined up when we
get back. That's great,our local radio station. Yeah,
the more we can get the wordout, the better. So thank you,
Roy. Anything else that we needto know before we go?
(43:30):
Hit that website now, www, dotrange ORS row.org, and give $5
$100 a million dollars. You knowwhat they will it's
going to help some better. Iknow people will. People just
need a way to help. They need toknow what to do. Need to Know
All right, thank you so much. Nothank you. Lynne.
Roy, Hello and Welcome to The Storied Human. Today,
myguest is major retired Roy EEmerson, originally from
Vacaville, California, heenlisted in the US Army in 1988
as an infantry man, beginninghis career with 75th Ranger
Regiment, after participating inArmy operations such as
Operation just cause, where heconducted a combat parachute
(00:44):
assault in Panama, he served inmultiple leadership roles,
including with the 18th AirborneCorps, long range surveillance
company at Fort Bragg, and twotours with the 25th Infantry
Division in Hawaii and as aninstructor at the US Army Ranger
School. He commissioned as anofficer in 2005 and he served as
(01:05):
a platoon leader and executiveofficer with the 170/3 Airborne
Brigade. You can read more abouthis bio in my in the show notes
for this episode. But the reasonfor the interview was that
Emerson was inspired by armyfriends who rode across the
Atlantic in the world's toughestrose Atlantic challenge, 2023 he
(01:27):
had watched them closely as theymade their way across the
Atlantic on a on a boat that hadno motor. Their mission aligned
with his own passion forsupporting veterans, leading him
to establish range ores row,Inc, a non profit, dedicated to
using ocean rowing as a platformto raise awareness for veteran
(01:49):
mental health and suicideprevention through endurance
challenges and communityengagement, the organization
aims to inspire resilience,foster camaraderie and support
initiatives that address thestruggles many veterans face
after service. The team willformally launch from Monterey
(02:09):
Bay, California on June 7 ofthis year, and row unsupported
for four to six weeks to finishat hanalea Bay, Kauai, Hawaii.
There are five other teamsentered into this year's Pacific
challenge. Monies raised by TeamRangers row will go to several
charities close to the team'shearts, brother keeper, veteran
(02:31):
Foundation, Gary SiniseFoundation, three Rangers
foundation and hard rock,Charlie foundation. This is such
a worthy cause you can you cangive directly by going to the
website range ORS row.org andit's oars O, A R, S range oars
row, to find out more about it,you can follow some of the links
(02:52):
on that web page. And you canalso buy merchandise, which we
didn't mention during theinterview, I purchased the T
shirts are great. I purchasedsome of those, and it's just a
great way to support thiseffort, and it's really
important. And the cause, youknow, we can't we can't
overstate how important this is.
We're losing too many veteransevery day. So, so that's all
(03:16):
about Roy, And I want To say,welcome You.
(09:10):
Thank you. I'm doing well. Howare you doing? I'm
doing great. It's I've beenlooking forward to talking to
you. You have a great story,or tell or give signs of some,
in some way, that arestruggling, and those are, those
are the times that are reallyimportant that, you know, the
brothers and sisters, you know,take the time to reach out. We
(09:31):
gotta, we gotta, we gotta dobetter at connecting with those
that are struggling.
It's so important, becausethere's way too many suicides.
We can't keep going like we'regoing,
yeah, so you know the So, whatmany you know people across the
(09:52):
country hear about is that thatthat one number that keeps
making its way around 22, 222, aday. So recent studies have
actually shown that that's it'sactually almost double that you
could actually 44 plus a daythrough unreported or other
(10:16):
circumstances that just don'tmake the statistics. You know,
that's horrifying. Yeah, that'ssomething to be concerned about.
So now explain to us what youstarted doing. You heard about
this group, and you decided thatyou wanted to form your own
nonprofit.
(10:37):
So I, I started my career in thearmy in 1988 with an assignment
in a in the Special Operationscommunity with First Ranger
Battalion in Savannah, Georgia.
Fast Forward 30 plus years, someof those old Ranger friends of
mine took took on the Atlanticrace with this, this race that's
(11:01):
organized by Atlantic campaignsand the world's toughest row in
December of 2023 and it was justreally fascinating to watch them
train up for it. They wererowing for an organization out
of Mobile, Alabama, called fightor die and and a lot of times
(11:22):
people will play on the word orso, like when you look at our
name, it's when you look back atthe name range or is row, it
goes back to a saying from WorldWar Two, Rangers lead the way,
Rangers. So we threw in theWord, or, you know, we're part
(11:45):
of rangers, right? I love thatarrange, doors lead the way, or
Rangers, but that fight or die,or being spelled, O, A, R, Oh, I
love that. So a lot of teamsplay with the word, or when they
when they make up their teamnames. Now,
for those of us who aren't superfamiliar, can you tell me more
about the Atlantic race? Yep,so the Atlantic, so
(12:10):
organized ocean rowing startedmore than a couple decades ago
over a bet on a bottle ofwhiskey called Talisker whiskey.
It's made in the UK. And so theoriginal, the original organized
company that ran these races wascalled Talisker whiskey. And so
(12:33):
they formed the Talisker whiskeyAtlantic challenge, T whack. And
that race begins on an island inthe Canaries called lagomara in
San Sebastian Harbor, whichironically is the same place
that Christopher Columbus beganhis journey west to the new
(13:00):
they embark everyeach December, because they they
time these ocean races with thelowest threat of ocean storm,
whether hurricane or or tropicalstorms out in the Pacific side.
And they the Atlantic race is a3000 mile ocean row from to the
island of Antigua to Englishharbor in Antigua, and oh my
(13:27):
gosh, that sets off somewherearound the the 11th or 12th of
December every year. And teamsaverage, the average is probably
five to six, seven weeks ittakes for a team to cross the
Atlantic Ocean. Wow, and youhave to, and it's completely
(13:48):
these the race is unsupported,meaning everything you need is
on theboat with you. I was just going
to ask you, are all theprovisions on the
boat? Everything is on the boatand that that that is calculated
by body weight. The right racerules mandate that each rower
(14:10):
brings on board 55 days of foodand and then it's it's
programmed out at 60 caloriesper kilogram of body weight. So
for somebody like me, I I weigh225 pounds. It's over 6000
calories of food that I wouldneed to consume every day. It's
(14:31):
a lot to keep allthat rowing, yeah, so can you
tell us more about the boat?
Because I want people to picturewhat we're talking about.
So the most of the boats aremade by a company in England
called ran off adventures, R, A,N, N, O, C, H, adventures. And
it is a it is these boats arespecially designed to take on
(14:54):
the challenges of the conditionsof the open ocean, so huge
swells, big storms. Is, andthey're made to accommodate solo
rowers and rowing teams up tofive people. So it just, it's a
matter of how long the boat is.
So our boat is made for three tofive rowers. It is a rant. Is a
ranch or what they call it, R 45and it is made, it is 28 almost
(15:19):
29 feet long. And then when he,when he the beam, which is the
width of a boat, from left toright side, is almost six feet.
So it's it, it almost looks likea big torpedo,
yeah, yeah, long. And too longin there, not too wide, yeah.
(15:40):
And there is a, there's a littlecabin in the front, a little
cabin say,is there a place? Okay, so you
can get out of the elements,yep.
And then our boat, they are 45and designed with three rowing
positions in it, so there'sthree sets of or locks and the
little sliding seats andeverything. And and they are,
(16:02):
they're designed to self, right?
So in a capsize, if you were tocapsize that boat in about five
to 10 seconds, it would justlike, like a bobber pop right
back up. Wow. But a lot of thatdepends on, like, if there's
somebody in the cabins when itcapsizes and it happens, you
just have to make sure thattheir their body weight, is
(16:22):
positioned to help itself,right, to help the process,
yeah. Sotrying to imagine rowing that
much like when the is there noengine at all. There
is no engine. So there are verystrict rules about the kinds of
things that we you can even haveon board that could possibly be
(16:45):
used as a sale, because thatwould be breaking the rules.
It's an integrity violation. Andso, for example, we we asked the
race coordinators if we couldbring a bunch of US flags that
we could then authenticate. Youknow, certificate authenticity.
This flag rode across thePacific Ocean. They were like,
nope, nope, nope. Because theyOh, wow, not even a flag. Not
(17:07):
even a flag. Because in thepast, some people with low
integrity got caught usingsimilar things as sales to to
cheat. So theyhave to avoid that. Yeah, they
have to avoid that.
And so everything you know,there is a there's a huge rudder
on the back, like a three footit's almost the three foot
(17:29):
rudder that sticks out of thebottom of the back. And that is,
there's three ways to steer it.
So while you're rowing, you canhand steer it. And the middle
row position has a way to hookup the hand steering lines to to
their foot bed, and then youtake a pin out, and then the
foot bed, Oh, I see. And thenyou could steer the rudder. And
then, when the conditions areright, there's an automatic
(17:51):
these pneumatic systems calledAuto Helms, and it's connected
to the rudder in the back of theboat, and you program a waypoint
in the chart plotter, and thenthat will keep you on a course
to you know that waypoint, sothat you don't have to worry
(18:11):
about steering.
You just rub that's cool. So therudder would move automatically.
Rudder wouldmove automatically based on your
GPS position and your directionof movement, you course
overground to a specific, youknow, area you know ahead of
you, 500,000 miles or whatever.
(18:32):
So how do you prepare forsomething like this? How do you
train for something like this?
There's a, it's, you know, forour team, it, it is, it has been
a challenge to train togetherbecause we're so geographically
separated. Oh yeah, I have threeteam members that live in
Tennessee. I have one teammember that lives in Texas, and
(18:54):
I'm here in New Jersey. Oh, wow.
We, we, you know, there's there.
There is a level of individualresponsibility to, you know, we
all have rowing machines athome, so get on the rower and
row as much as we can at homeduring the week, you know, or
during the times that we're nottogether, but we've been, we've
been gathering and taking theboat down to Fernandina Beach on
(19:18):
Amelia Island in North Florida,outside of Jacksonville, every
month for for nine to 10 daysand and we've been trying to get
out on the open ocean out there,there's a really great rowing
community there, from peoplethat have done this before that
we've met. And it's just that'sgood community down there is
just so welcoming. And oneparticular rower in a guy named
(19:40):
Paul Laurie who's crossed theocean twice. He's getting ready
to cross the Arctic Ocean.
Amazing dude, just the biggestheart in the world as guys like
that that they open up theirhomes to us when we come down,
and they help us fundraise. Theyhelp us with maintenance on the.
Boat, they'll just drop whateverthey're doing, you know, if we
(20:02):
need something and, and sowonderful, really lucky that we
found a place like that.
Well, it's just a brotherhood,isn't it? It really is, it
is, and it's and, let me tellyou, there are some, some kick
ass women out there doing this.
I love that there, there aresome incredible women teams.
Somewomen are like, wait a minute, I
(20:24):
can do this too. Oh yeah. Imean, every, every, everything
you know, you know, from, from,from four, four or they, you
know, in the UK, you call amother Mom, right? So four moms,
that was, I think, the name oftheir team a couple years ago,
four moms from, from the UK, orsomething like that. But they,
they crossed the Atlantic Ocean,just four moms that decided they
want to do something, you know,really, and raise money for, you
(20:47):
know, whatever their charitywas. And they began to train,
and they crossed an ocean. Youknow,
it's, I think it's so wonderful,the combination of how hard you
have to work. I mean, it'sreally something that you have
to aspire to and work for, yeah,but that you get such visibility
for a cause you really careabout. It's all worth it, yeah.
(21:09):
So how many like, how long doeseach rower have to row
like per day? Yep. So so for andtrue size will dictate that. So
obviously, somebody that'srowing solo, and many people do
that across the Atlantic, theyOh yeah, and they'll row for
(21:31):
1015, hours a day, oh my gosh,taking breaks whenever they can.
And then, you know, I don't evenknow how they do it. They throw
out the, there's a big parathere's drought. We have DRO
drugs or parachute anchors thatyou can throw out, which the big
parachute will will inflate andfill up with water, and it'll,
(21:52):
it'll slow your drift in the andso, you know, a solo rower would
have to throw out the Paraanchor every night to get some
rest, you know. And it's areally pain in the butt to pull
that thing back in. But for acrew of four, which we started
as a crew of four, most crews offour row, two hours on, two
(22:14):
hours off, two people, 24/7 soyou end up rowing 12 hours in a
24hour period. Wow, that's a lot
of rowing, yeah, yeah, everyday for, you know, four to six
weeks.
And so it's, you know, I thinkthe number of strokes each rower
(22:34):
on on the average ocean crossingis like a million and a half
four strokes, jeez. Butit really makes you remember
that it's a big ocean, and ittakes a long time, you know,
like we don't so many people jetacross it, but, yeah, to do it
that way, it's like, amazing. Itis
(22:55):
it? Is this the stories that youone can hear from rowers about
being in the middle of the oceanand on a where there is no light
or pollute light or noisepollution, and you see the world
for what it is, in its in itsnakedness, you know, with the
(23:17):
you know, the sea life that'sout there, the stars And the you
know, and the other galaxiesthat are visible, and the
beautiful world, the awesomenessof of the planet, you know,
that's so what? That's a nicepart of it, that you're now,
yeah, and most people don't getto see that, right? And have
that feeling, andit confirms just how
(23:38):
insignificant you are in thisworld,
that you're part of this big,beautiful thing that's amazing
to me. So a couple crazyquestions come to mind. I'm
assuming you have a bathroom onthe boat? Well, we
do. It's, it's, it's a littlearchaic. It's actually, so a
(23:58):
Gatorade bottle for, you know,urinating, and a Home Depot five
gallon bucket, you know, for forfor your other business,
we're talking rustic. We'retalking rustic.
So basically, you you fill afive gallon bucket up, third way
through, a third way with water,and then you do your business,
(24:18):
and you throw it overboard.
That'sthat makes sense, yeah, so it's
a different way to live. Andwhat if someone gets sick? Do
you have a first aid kit? Or doyou have, like, what if
something happens? Wehave a, we have a very basic
first aid kit. We do, we will.
We do have? We have the means totreat minor injuries with some,
(24:45):
you know, basics, stuff, one ofone of the team members is an
EMT, so we do have that, but wethere is no for the for the for
the Atlantic race. They have asupport yacht that that follows
the fleet. Oh, there's like 40,there's like 40 boats in the
(25:08):
Atlantic, the Pacific routes.
Very new. This is only the thirdgeneration. Wow, here they've
ever done it, and so, like, lessI, I'm gonna say less than 150
people have ever done this onthe on the Pacific Ocean, wow.
And they'll, they'll say, withocean rowing in general, more
people have been in space thanhave done what we're doing. Oh,
(25:31):
my goodness. Isn't the Pacificocean a lot wider? Isn't it
bigger? Itis. It is bigger and it is. It
is more unforgiving than theAtlantic. It's colder. It's
rougher in the first 700 milescoming off the continental shelf
from California, it is extremelyrough. Like everybody keeps
teasing us, like your first 10days are going to be brutal. Get
(25:53):
ready. You're just going to becold, wet and miserable for the
first 10 days.
And wondering why you you'redoing this. What were
we thinking?
Yeah. Now that sounds reallychallenging, yeah.
And so, and then all of asudden, you know, 10, you know,
you get you break you becausethe the winds come down, the
(26:16):
winds and currents are comingdown the coast of California
from the north, and so you'regetting bashed from the
starboard side, which is theright side of the boat, yes,
constantly for the first 700miles. And then the winds will
actually change direction,coming like change direction,
and then start flowing westtowards the Hawaiian Islands. So
(26:37):
once you break through that,that thick band of weather
that's coming south, north tosouth, and then you got the
windier back after that firstweek or 10 days. Then they say
it's like, you know that the skyopens up, and then it's like
night and day, yeah, it's likenight and day. It's like the sky
opens up, the winds at yourback, your surf, you're, you're,
(27:00):
sometimes you're you're able tosurf waves with the boat that
you don't even need to put youroars in the water. You're doing
so amazing.
And so your goal, your your endpoint, is Hawaii, right?
Is Hawaii, the Hanalei Bay onthe island of Kauai. Yeah, yeah.
(27:20):
And how long will that take? Youguys? Is it about the same as
the thingsabout the same? It's, it's
actually 200 miles shorter,okay, 800 miles, but because of
the the rough conditions of thatfirst 700 miles, yeah, it takes
just as long as it does theAtlantic. And so that that that
it's kind of like in the 35 to40 day mark is kind of average,
(27:41):
yeah. And so that's what we'rekind of pushing for. The world
records 29 days,my goodness. So you're doing
this in June. You're doing thisthis year, right? This,
this June. So night we're, Ithink we're 92 days out now from
launch seven June. Yeah.
So what was the first impulsethat made you want to do this,
(28:03):
yeah, getting back to that. Sothe my Ranger friends that did
this two years ago kind ofinspired me, you know, the just,
just, it was like watching, youknow, the old saying, you're
watching a train wreck, right?
You just can't take your eyesoff. I was consumed with
watching these guys. There's anapp you can download that you
(28:23):
can watch the fleet across theocean. You know. It'll tell you
they're just like a little boat.
You can see on the ocean alongwith all the others, and you can
see position, you know, theirlatitude, longitude, position,
their speed. Little bit moreinformation about the crew. And
so I followed them every day andthen, and then, you know, if you
(28:43):
have a good social mediamanager, because we can't
directly, we can't directlyupdate social media out there.
We have to upload all of ourcontent that we take. So we'll
have a bunch of GoPros all overthe boat. We'll take pictures
and make videos and stuff likethat, of us living on the boat,
cooking and other things. And wehave to, we have a satellite, a
(29:06):
small satellite package, like asuitcase kind of thing we shoot.
It's called a began, and we, youknow, whenever we can, we'll,
we'll, we'll shoot back all ofour content to world's toughest
row, and then they will put thatinto a folder. So they'll screen
it first, because they don'twant us, you know, uploading any
(29:29):
anything that would embarrasstheir organization, right, or
us. So they screen it, kind oflike a public affairs officer
would, you know, or something.
They'll, they'll, they'll screenall the content, and then they
will approve the content thatthey approve for release.
They'll put into a folder ontheir hub that our social media
manager has access to, andthat's how the daily updates
(29:50):
will will come. Socool. I was going to ask you if
you have any contact with themainland, yep, so you could
always reach out, right? Yeah,if you needed to,
yep. So we'll have a number ofsatellite phones too. So Iridium
satellite phones that we have,one that we that we have direct
communication with the racesafety team. And then we have
(30:12):
one phone that we can put, thatwe can use to talk to our
families in France or whatever.
And then there's one phone inwhat we call the go bag. So if
we have to abandon ship in thelife raft, and we will take that
go bag, which has a bunch ofother stuff in it that would be,
you know, needed for survival,oh my gosh, a lot to think
(30:35):
about. Now this is an unusualinterview in that I already know
your wife, and I adore her, andI love the food that you guys
put out. I I should mention, youknow that full disclosure, I go
to everything that Mia and Royhave, and I I love the food, and
love Mia. She's got, she's got agreat personality. What does Mia
think of all this?
(31:00):
Mia is the I'm going to go backto last, probably May, April or
May, when I decide they go likethe Pacific race was done. My
friends had come in. You know,it took them 42 they did it. I
think they did the Atlanticcrossing in 42 days. And then I
(31:25):
was just like, gosh, I somethinginside me said, I need to, you
know, right? You know, you knowthe, let's, let's double up the
effort on, on mental healthawareness, you know, something
got to you, yeah, you know, soto speak, vessel, you know, so
wonderful. And, and I will saythis, I didn't expect it, but I
(31:48):
think Mia was the one that,like, kind of pushed me in to
say, you need to do this.
Oh my gosh, that's beautiful.
And so I bet that 100%on board, you know, with, you
know, she's like, right now,she's even, she even just
launched outside of, like, themultitude of hours she spends
with her catering company andtalking to clients and building
(32:10):
menus. She just, we're doing afundraiser on March 23 at the at
the Quakertown firehouse withher fried chicken. Everybody
loves her fried chicken. Oh,they do. And so we're going to
do a fundraiser. So she justlaunched that on social media.
So she's been working her buttoff all day on that and
yesterday, on on, on thegraphics and the menu and all
kinds of stuff. So, you know, itis, it is quite it's incredible
(32:34):
to have the support, you know,of those that are closed and
then endeavored like this,because so much of our time is
taken away with me being gone alot. So you know this. So she,
she helped stand up thenonprofit back, you know, a year
(32:57):
ago, and and has been, you know,100% on board, you know, ever
since, and, and it takes avillage to do this, because the
running I, for anybody out therethat runs a nonprofit, there is
no joke. It is. It is lifeconsuming. It
(33:21):
looks hard. I've talked to, youknow, friends who, who do this
kind of work. It's not easy.
Yeah, and, and it's it, youknow, I you know, we chose a, we
chose a route that, that youknow isn't, you know, for, for
on the fundraising side. Itisn't like we went out and we,
(33:44):
we were pulling all this moneyand it's, it's, and then right
off the bat, it's going to ourcharities. This crossing this
ocean is going to cost a lot ofmoney, yeah, oh yeah, $180,000
it's going to cost us just toget
bunch of money. Yeah. So do youget pledges? I mean, how are you
going to so we,we work through, you know, we've
(34:04):
been blessed with, with with,with a number of really large
donations to get us to where weare today. Some local companies,
EVco, mechanical, WoundedWarrior Project, greifeld family
foundation and a number ofothers, given generously that
(34:26):
allowed us to buy the boat, tobuy a bunch of good equipment
that we needed to to pay the,you know, it, it's 20, it was
26,000 euros just to enter therace. And so what we kind of
started off with an aggressivegoal in mind that we want at the
end of the day. You know, wewant to raise a total of a
(34:50):
million dollars for how and so,you know, when you. Take out the
180,000 out of that, you know,we're possibly looking at, you
know, potentially, you know,$820,000 going to these, these
charities that we've chosen. Andso we're, you know, it's
(35:12):
developing an aggressive goallike that, we thought, you know,
based off of some of the, someof the names that we got
involved with, you know, some ofour charities, we thought, you
know, it would be a no brainer,but it's looking in reality,
it's a it's a heck of a lot morework than sticking some, you
(35:35):
know, big name on the side ofthe boat and thinking money is
going to just start likedropping our feet, which is
more working. Imagine, yeah, wegot to do
a lot of hustling and and, andcourting corporations and, and
(35:55):
then really figuring outthe grass, kind of like that.
You know, the grassroots rightto, you know, the individual
donations, you know, frompeople. So, you know, $5 here,
$10 here, $300 here. All that,you know, if we word out where
could, where can people give? Imean, can I put it in the show
(36:16):
notes? But I like to have peoplesay it, because some people
don't read the whole show notes,sure our website is range ORS
row.org, and that's R, A N, G,E, R O, A R, S, R O, w.so,
it's rain, georgerow.org,And there are links in there to
(36:38):
to donate and and then, youknow, you can also find, so
Rangers row, the same word, butall together, is like, that's
our Instagram. Okay, good nameand Facebook profile name. So
Rangers row on Instagram,there's like links in the bio,
(36:58):
you know, to get to our websitewhere folks can can contribute.
Good, yeah, I just, I can'timagine somebody who wouldn't
want to. I mean, we're allworried about this issue, and if
we can hear that, there's a wayto directly help people. It's a
no brainer. It's a wonderfulthing you're doing.
(37:20):
And and sometimes I think, youknow, in some of the groups I'm
in, you know, some of themilitary groups I'm in, you know
where I'll go in, and it's, Ithink a lot of people are, are
the the attention span of peopleon social media is very short.
You have to grab somebody inabout seven or eight seconds,
(37:40):
yeah, or you lose them. And so,I mean, it's, it's, it's really
challenging. And I wish therewas, I wish I can crack the
code. But in some of my militarygroups where I'll go in and kind
of, you know, kind of plug whatwe're doing, there might be 3000
members of that group, and aftera couple weeks, maybe three or
(38:03):
four will follow us. You know,it's like, how do I get to those
and again, grab their interest,not just to grab their interest
to follow us on Instagram,because we want to grow our
followers, because the biggerour followers are. But how do I
get, you know, I mean, Isometimes I imagine 3000 people
(38:26):
donate. It's amazing.
You should remind them, andsometimes I have to be reminded
to follow. I'll be readingsomething, I'll be like, This is
great, and I'll like it, but Iforget to follow
like, following like. And it'slike, good if
somebody says that, right? Andthen you gotta get over the so
(38:49):
we gotta get over the, I guessthe I, you know, these are all
army buddies, you know, whyshould I ask them for money? No,
let's like, let's ask him formoney, you know, because at the
end of the day, the money we,you know, after we've paid for
the race. You know, the theorganizations that were that
(39:09):
were raising money for oneBrother's Keeper veteran
Foundation, the guy, Chriscathers, that founded that a
Special Forces veteran whoalmost had lost everything, you
know, has had the gun in his inhis mouth a dozen times over,
you know, over the last coupleyears, is really doing some very
special stuff with veterans,trying to crack the stigma, you
(39:32):
know, on on mental Health.
And then another organizationwe're raising money for is a
very well known guys, GarySinise,
I saw that, yeah, that's great.
And he does a bunch of, he doessome really cool stuff, you
(39:52):
know, amazing. No, at thebeginning, when we still, when
we, when I, when I recruited theguys on the team, we all had.
Meeting and said, Hey, who are,who are charities going to be?
Because the one thing about thisrace, which I really like,
there's no cash prize. You don'twin anything for for winning,
right, right? You know, the onlywinners are your charities. And
(40:13):
so you have to raise money for acharity to even enter this race.
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic.
But there, there's somethingthat occurs. To me that must
come up all the time, is thatwhen you're a soldier, and
you've been through whatsoldiers go through, you're a
tough guy, right? Or a woman,you're tough or tough guy,
(40:34):
there's a lot of pride, andyou're not supposed to have
these problems, right? You'renot that's a weakness, and I
would imagine that that's thatgets in their way. And so if we
can help people realize thatwe're all human, we're all going
to have these things happen. Wecan still be tough guys and
women,and it starts very early on in
somebody's career, especially inCombat Arms. You know, in combat
(40:58):
engineers, the infantry, SpecialForces, special operations. When
we were growing up as youngsoldiers in special operations,
it was, you know, you can't showweakness if you, if you, if you
have to go to sick call and gosee the PA. You know, you're,
you're looked at as weak, andso, so a lot of, a lot of
(41:23):
soldiers get into the habit ofthe old, we're just going to
suck it up and drive on.
I understand that. I mean, youdon't want to show that weak,
especially the the more eliteforces, right, like you, there's
a lot more at stake. I mean, youmade it into this.
The Army spent a lot of money onyou, yeah, doing, you know, the,
(41:45):
yeah, you know, and it's in the,you know, the Special Forces
pipeline, you know, the armyspending millions of dollars on
your training, wow, on oneperson,
you carry that weight. You know,it's not the same thing. But I
do remember my father talkingabout he was a commercial pilot,
and he talked about how nobodywanted to admit that anything
(42:05):
was wrong with them, becausethen, then they might, you know,
you know,might be grounded. You know,
it's like you forced to go totrain
counseling. A lot of it's tough.
It's tough.
So, so you we get very good atcompartmentalizing our field,
yeah, yeah, and holding thingsin and when, in reality we it
(42:26):
should be the opposite, yeah.
Should be about what's going onalive.
None of us want to lose any moreveterans. So I'm so proud of you
and what you do, and I'm soready to spread the word, and
I'm so glad you came on today.
Now is my pleasure. Lynne, I hadfun, and it's, you know, I love
every opportunity I get to toshare it and and to tell the
(42:48):
story. And, you know the why?
You know, it's soimportant, a blessing. So there
is a website that I belong to,like a group, that matches
podcast guests with with podcasthosts. And you might want to try
that. I'll, I'll share that withyou when I sure, when I when I
stop the interview, but yeah,you want to get the word out and
(43:10):
maybe be speaking to a few morepodcasts.
Yeah, I've got, I've actuallygot DVR radio lined up when we
get back. That's great,our local radio station. Yeah,
the more we can get the wordout, the better. So thank you,
Roy. Anything else that we needto know before we go?
(43:30):
Hit that website now, www, dotrange ORS row.org, and give $5
$100 a million dollars. You knowwhat they will it's
going to help some better. Iknow people will. People just
need a way to help. They need toknow what to do. Need to Know
All right, thank you so much. Nothank you. Lynne.
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