With that, we loaded up the plane for the short flight back to San Antonio. Everyone was a little disappointed that Jim didn't get his dream animal, but what Jim doesn't know is that his adventure is not over. Cody told me, "We are going to be friends with Jim for life, and while this particular trip is over, as far as we are concerned our mission to have Jim shoot his dream animal isn't. We won't stop until we accomplish that mission." Who knows what these guys have up their sleeves now?
Are trips like this making a difference in the lives of our military members and their families? Jim's family certainly thinks so. In fact, they haven't seen him this happy in years. It's amazing that something as simple as a hunting trip can make such a big difference in a person's life. "The military does a great job of giving our warriors the tools to physically rehab, but it's up to us as a community to make sure we are providing them the tools to mentally rehab," Brad Strittmatter said. And that's exactly what groups like Hunts for Heroes and Veteran Outdoors are doing.
The Details
Hunts for Heroes (
www.huntsforheroes.com) is a nonprofit organization that provides hunting and outdoor related activities to men and women wounded on the field of battle while helping to protect the world from terrorism. The organization works tirelessly and selflessly to make sure that every wounded veteran with desires to go hunting or fishing gets that opportunity.
Oryx are large antelope-like animals from Africa. They have incredible horns like a unicorn; except they have two of them. They get up to nearly 500 pounds. They were hunted for their four-foot horns and are now considered extinct in the wild. They are legal to hunt in Texas.
A global captive breeding program was initiated in the 1960s. In 1996, there were at least 1,250 captive animals held in zoos and parks around the world with a further 2,145 on ranches in Texas. Wild game ranches in Texas and New Mexico breed oryx for hunting and helping to preserve the animal.