[ambient seashore sounds.

Ambient music fades in] (Michelle) There is just something very special about the Chesapeake Bay.

I feel so connected to life and to myself and to God here.

My name is Michael Wood.

James Patrick McGinnis the second.

Bo Darlington.

Meghan Bryant.

[ambient music] (Michael) I am sergeant, United States Marine Corps.

(James) Retired from the Army as a major.

(Meghan) I'm a lieutenant colonel in the Army reserves.

(Bo) I was a airborne infantryma with the 82nd airborne.

(Michael) I was deployed in Afghanistan in 2009 as part of a heavy helicopter squadron, where we participated in the largest helo borne raid since Vietnam.

(James) I was a Delta 18 Delta, which was a medic.

(Meghan) I was flying King Air airplanes and doing what's called an ISR mission, which is intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance.

(Bo) When I was in Afghanistan, my mission was to fight terrorism and protect people under my watch.

(James) A marine unit had just gotten hit.

And, I mean, they were bringing in amputees, bilateral lower extremity amputees.

Just one right after the other.

And that's that's a lot to take in.

(Michael And the most difficult mission that we would fly were angel flights, where we would go into an area where a marine or soldier was killed in battle.

It actually start the journey of that troop coming home.

It was kind of traumatic for me, where we would have the body of a fallen comrade laying in the helicopter where that is our sole cargo.

That was our sole mission was to escort that body home.

The trauma of doing those angel flights manifested itself into nightmares.

It was challenging because tha could have been any one of us.

It could have been one of my best friends.

That could have been me.

(Bo) While I was serving i Afghanistan, I got hit by an RPG which is a rocket propelled grenade.

I felt an explosion.

And then another one.

And, the first one that hit was, RPG went into the engine block and blew up.

Second one entered the cab.

When the first one went off I seen that the gunner was down.

He was over the other dismount.

And so I went to undo m seatbelt to jump up in the gun, to start returning fire.

And when I did, that, actually kind of pushed him out of the way a little bit.

So when the, second round came through, it actually went through my, my arm instead of him, which is a great thing.

That's when I looked over and noticed that, I seen the artery was spraying and I didn't really see any of my arm there.

So I let them know I'm like, hey, guys, I just lost my arm back here.

I'm bleeding out.

I need some help.

I was doing everything I could to keep myself calm because I didn't want to start panicking, freaking out.

I didn't want to go into shock because that very well coul have been the end of it for me.

So I the way I was looking at it was I'm still breathing.

I can live without an arm.

Everybody else is breathing.

It's let's just keep breathing.

My boys definitely saved my life.

My brothers, they brought me home.

(Michael) Once I left the Marin Corps, I didn't have my aircrew.

I didn't have my gun crew.

I didn't have my my fire team anymore.

And I had the sense of loneliness.

I didn't have these people that I could rely on.

[ambient music] I separated myself from society.

I became a recluse.

I stayed in my house, really didn't want to do anything.

It took family and friends to say, hey, you've been sailin for over 25 years at the time.

You need to get back out and start doing it.

You need to find yourself a hobby.

(James) When I approached retirement, I reflected back on that and I thought, okay, I'm I'm prepared for this.

You're not.

You're not.

I don't care how well you do prepare.

You're not.

You're out.

Right.

You're no longer in the club.

And, your sense of identity gets challenged.

Leaving the military is, that transition is difficult.

(Meghan When I returned from deployment while my friends were there to welcome you back, I just couldn't connect.

And I can't quit put my finger on why I felt like while I was gone, they had just moved on without me.

I personally found it to be one of the bigger challenges in my military career.

(Geoffrey) It can be very jolting to go from sitting in downtown Baghdad to stateside in Atlanta in 72 hours and just mentally switching from a combat environment with, you know, life or death decisions that can happen in a split second to sort of the lawful society and the relative safety that we enjoy here in the US is almost incomprehensible.

So all that leads to sort of a reintegration syndrome, where you're coming back and you're learning to adjust, and that can take time and that can lead to difficulties both at home, at work and in the community.

(James) When you start feeling like you're alone, when you start to feel like you're the only one in the game, that's when that's when the demons.

That's when the memories.

That's when the that's when that stuff.

Can can take hold.

(Geoffrey) You often can feel misunderstood by the world around you.

And the world suddenly seems far more unsaf than it did before you deployed.

And that's a very lonely place to be.

And that's where we start seeing things like, you know, veteran suicide occur, substance use and things like that.

(Sawsan) It's very difficult for family and friends and society to understand what you've experienced.

You tend to isolate yourself, withdraw from society.

What it takes is a very strong community to surround you, to bring you out into the world again.

(Michael) So now, as a civilian, I was alone and afraid.

I needed to find that structure again.

I happened to luck out, and I got on board a sailboat with a whole bunch of retired naval aviators and Marine Corps aviators.

Once I got on that boat and started racing with them and started expressing my my fears and my frustrations of being a civilian, they kind of had a talk with m and said, you have your family, you have your crew.

It's not an air crew anymore.

It's a sailboat crew.

I ended up learning that sailing saved my life, and if it worked for me, it' got to work for other veterans.

(James) Mike approached me about starting a veteran sailing program, and he called me up and said, hey, I got an idea.

(Michael) So you can actuall use the rules to your advantage.

And that's how the idea of Valhalla Sailing Project came to me.

You still can't chart (Michael) what we ended up doing was working through the idea that we were going to teach veterans from the absolute foundations of sailing, get them integrated into race crews, and then these race crews became their new family.

(Meghan) A lot of this came here seeking that bond that we left behind in the military.

(James) My very first sailboat race ever, we rounded the first windward mark and when I look back behind me, I saw keels out of the water and I thought, oh my God what have I gotten myself into?

But at the end of that three day regatta, I was hooked.

(unknown speaker) All right, now we got to go.

Go, go, go.

[ambient music] (Bo) every time you're out there, there's it's something different.

[unintelligible chatter] (Bo) There's adventure to it.

There's adrenaline to it.

There's camaraderie to it.

You get back to it aspect of being with a team again.

It's very therapeutic.

And one of the things I love the best is when everyone just clicks and the sails, everything just clicks and the boats just going and everything's just jiving like it needs to.

It feels great.

It feels great when that happens.

[ambient music] [birds chirping] chirp, chirp (Meghan) And there's a big thrill that comes along with racing.

There can be a lot of intensity and a lot of excitement.

No two races are going to be the same.

(Michael) Thanks for coming out September 19th.

We've got Hospice Cup this weekend.

It is a long distance race, is an 8.1 mile race.

Breeze is going to be up today.

We are forecasted for steady at 15, up to gusts of 23 slowly backing through the through the day.

We should be under steady.

12 by one oclock in the afternoon.

Because breeze is up rules are everybody will be vested today.

Let's go do some racing.

It's gonna be a fun day.

You see?

All right.

(unknown speaker) ...right sides clear.

All right.

Ready?

Here's.

[ambient music] (unknown speakers) A little more left.

(unintelligble)...you two.

Thanks, Captain.

(Meghan) Mike, does our number three go inside or outside.

I don't know how big it is, I got it.

I know it's hard to hear them.

(unknown speaker) Keep it on the back, now.

(Meghan) And then when he says pull up, that's on that line just to help me get that up.

Okay.

All right.

Good, good.

(Michael) Pull back!

(Meghan) I pull back pull back.

Watch yourself, Jack.

Watch yourself.

Watch yourself.

(Michael) Pull it, pull it, pull!!

(Meghan) Were pulling, Mike.

lean all the way right, there you go.

There you go.

Awesome.

(Meghan) Good job!

There you go, we got it tight.

(Meghan) You don't always know what to expect.

And I like that.

I like that aspect of the unpredictable.

[instrumental music] (unintelligible chatter) (Meghan) it's it's just kind of always being on the edge.

[instrumental music] (Michael) My tack [instrumental music] (Michael) Pull the handle all the way and twist.

Guys.

(Meghan) is it an override?

(Michael) ...override.

(Jeremy) A lot of these people that we work with, we call them combat arms.

So combat arms is anybody that's an infantryman or somebody that's really on the front lines.

Not necessarily people that are supporting the frontline fighters, but a lot of the people that we have coming in, such as Marines or infantrymen in the Army, they're working with a team in an extremely high stres environment to accomplish a goal that is not replicated in the civilian side.

The high level of stress that we have on these boats, going super, super high tension on all of these lines and trying to get the boa go fast and working as a team.

(Michael Think about what youre doing.

(Bo) Roger.

(Michael) Alright.

Perfect folks, perfect.

(Jeremy) That's really something that they feel again that's outside of the military.

And this is kind of where they feel more at home.

And that's the beauty of this project and racing in general.

[dramatic instrumental music] (Michael) Great race.

Everybody was dialed in.

Communication was great starting from the back of the boat.

I would just ask that while you're trimming, keep an eye on your wind, keep an eye on the rafts and like try to get ahead of that.

But, with that happening, just like in the military, just like everything else, things, unexpected things happen.

What's important is how do you recover?

How do you actually make things right?

Getting the boat under control was the right call.

Kept the sail full and let us do our thing.

Next, I want to go around the horn.

I want each, each of you to kind of talk about your observations, how you think the race went something good, that you think, think happened, and more importantly, what did you learn?

(Meghan) I saw a new solution to an override.

I've seen a couple of different ones.

And so I learned another solution.

And to kind of piggyback on what Mike said, it's you may not have a perfect sail, but it's knowing how to to solve the problems that you encounter is really important.

And I mean, I think you guys did great.

I think it was a great race, a lot of fun.

[instrumental music] (Geoffrey) Our goal is, is to get these veterans back into a good place.

And what we found is that giving them a new family, giving them a new community provides a healthy distraction from these dark thoughts.

Bo Darlington is what this is all about.

(unknown speakers) Yeah.

No.

Going pay for it, guys.

(James) I mean, Bo took a RPG to the arm, so he's got some he's got some issues with his arm.

He jumped in to sailing an threw everything he had into it.

He is a quick learner.

He is eager.

He only knows one word.

Yes.

(Bo) Valhalla has impacted me in many ways.

They have learned so much here.

All the sailors around here have been very open and welcoming and have taught me so much and were key in helping me learn to sail.

Never would have thought I'd be where I am now, living on a boat and enjoy sailing and things so much.

I've never even stepped o a sailboat until four years ago.

Once I got in the water, it just it felt right.

There's a calm piece to it.

It was just something I haven't really felt in a long time.

And, it really helps me deal with the stressors that I have from my military service.

It just helps me clear my mind and relax an de-stress the stressors, if that makes sense.

I enjoy saying a lot because it kind of gives you those moments of peace, and you actually have to do things to make the boat work, which, I enjoy working with my hands and stuff, so, you know, get away and just sail a boat.

Just there's something about it that unless you do it, you really don't understand it.

It's crazy how life turns out.

I definitely belong in the water now.

(James) I've seen sailing impact both Meghan and Bow dramatically.

She immediately jumped into this leadership role.

She takes other veterans underneath her wing.

She really makes sure that not only is she improving in the sport herself, but that other veterans are improving as well.

(Meghan) Coming to Annapolis and getting into the sailing, into the sailing world.

It's just been an indescribable.

I've grown in a confidence and knowing tha there are people there for me.

I know that I can reach out to any number of people in the group if I'm having a struggle, an I know they're going to be there for me.

And and really, the most important thing I try to do is just bring my best attitude and bring my hard work and and do the absolute best I can for the boat.

(Michael Over the past year and a half, the program has grown by leaps and bounds.

This year is actually our fifth anniversary of existence for Valhalla Sailing Project and over these past five years, we've put over 500 veterans through the program and teaching the sport of sailing, but more importantly, building a family and a community through that sport.

And over the past year and a half, we've also been abl to accept the donation of a J35, which we've been using on the bay, to not only instruct new veterans, but we've actually been able to integrate those veterans into the race community here in Annapolis.

(conversation] I had a plan back base planning that whatever, (Bo) it was great.

There was no saving it.

Like as soon as I felt it going, I'm like, well, this is going to hurt.

(Michael) You're going to face plant on the boat.

You're going gonna hear you're, you're, you're you're.

(Meghan) I ultimately arrived in Annapolis after about ten years of living in five different places.

And in each of those places, having a struggle to make friends and to find a community, there's a real magic about Annapolis.

People here are so welcoming.

It's just absolutely lovely.

(Bo) You really see sailboats sail.

(Meghan) I think it's very easy that Annapolis is the first place I've ever lived in my life that truly felt like home.

(Music playing) (Bo) A few times I've not been able to sleep.

So I come down here an I've seen watch the sun come up.

So I love it because as it gets lighter, you start to hear more birds.

You start to kind of see everything just awaken and that's that's what's awesome about it.

And then I love being out in the boat when it's, when the sun's going down.

It's beautiful.

(Meghan) There's not a day tha goes by that I don't miss flying But sailing has been able to provide something for me to fill that void.

And while I don't know tha I'd ever be able to fly again, I can sail.

(Michael) My goal is to put a many veterans out in the water, be as successful as humanly possible, and field the best boat that is 100% veteran crewed in Annapolis and on the Chesapeake Bay.

[Follow the Sun by Xavier Rudd] ♪Follow.♪ ♪Follow the sun.♪ ♪Which way the wind blows♪ ♪when this day is done.♪ (James) That's what we're saying to these people in the Valhalla program.

You have a home.

I don't care what's going on.

I don't care what you bring to the table.

You have a home.

♪Where you feel love coming down on you♪ ♪like a heavy weight.♪ ♪Where you feel this crazy society♪ ♪adding to the strength.♪ ♪Take a stroll to the nearest water's edge.♪ ♪Remember your place.♪ ♪Many moons are risen and falling.♪ ♪long.

Long before you came.♪ ♪So which way is the wind blowing?♪ ♪What does your heart say?♪♪ [Instrumental music]