Saturday, September 12 will be the first annual Brazos River Airboat Run for wounded and recovering veterans. The Brazos River Airboaters club (BRAB) is hosting North Texas Healing Waters (NTXHW) on a fishing trip of a life time for 10 wounded veterans.

Ten BRAB member airboats will be taking a wounded veteran and a volunteer/guide from NTXHW on a fishing expedition on the Brazos between Lake Whitney and Waco. NTXHW is a 100% volunteer organization headed by retired Gunnery Sgt Lew Duckwall. Lew was so badly injured in the middle east that he died twice on the operating table. When he was medically retired he was lost in a civilian world he hadn't lived in for twenty years. Fly fishing was his anchor, and fly fishing is what made his recovery bearable.

Lew took that personal experience and started a chapter of the national Project Healing Waters in North Texas and began taking other wounded veterans on fly fishing trips, starting out by using his own savings to pay for it. NTXHW has grown, has worked hard to get funding, and has taken over 300 wounded veterans on fly fishing trips. This Saturday is another example of the fine work that Lew and NTXHW is doing.

BRAB have generously offered their support and have put their words into action. Not only will they be transporting the veterans to great fishing spots all day, but they are feeding the veterans as well. And there are plans for next year that include having a band or two at Laguna Park and doing a fund raiser. BRAB members are putting their money where their mouths are - I respect that.

If you happen to be out on the Brazos between Whitney and Waco this Satruday and see an airboat, odds are that it is carrying an American Hero on board - give them a wave.

I'm really looking forward to being a guide for these great American Heroes!

"A 2009 study by a team of researchers drawn from the University of Southern Maine, the University of Utah, and the VA in Salt Lake City. In their study involving combat veterans found that participants had significant reductions in stress and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and improvements in sleep quality after participating in a fly-fishing retreat."

From: Fly Fishing and the Brain http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mah...shing-and-brain