Outside The Wire

Last but certainly not least, a very special thank you to Sorell, owner of The Honey Pitt, for opening their doors and hosting Outside the Wire for our 3rd Annual Veterans Retreat! ❤️🇺🇸

We truly couldn’t have asked for a better place to bring our veterans and their families together. We are incredibly grateful for the kindness, hospitality, and support shown to us throughout the entire weekend.

Thank you, Megan and The Honey Pitt, for helping make this retreat so special and memorable for everyone who attended!

If you’re looking for a great place to stay, be sure to check out The Honey Pitt on Airbnb! 🏡

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1430608003550939419?unique_share_id=55037bf4-0ceb-4ec3-92e3-20cfa378d711&viralityEntryPoint=1&s=76

📸 RETREAT PHOTO DUMP! 🇺🇸

It’s hard to put this weekend into words, but these pictures tell a pretty good story.

From welcome dinners and BBQs, to quite possibly the best gumbo in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri, (Thank you, Brandon Smith) to big breakfasts (thank you Girard American Legion Post 494 and Perla Vanessa) and late-night conversations around the fire… this weekend had a little bit of everything.

There were tears. There was a whole lot of laughter. There was camaraderie. There were tents being popped up, veterans sleeping outside (except our Air Force princess, Marcus P. Tolbert) while the fall rain came down, kids running around and fishing, s’mores by the fire, art activities, and memories being made everywhere you looked.

But there were also moments when we stopped and remembered why gatherings like this matter.

We remembered our fallen, those who never made it home and those who made it home but later lost their battle. We spent time visiting veterans in a local nursing home (Thank you, Tyrone Stinson for cooking for them), listening to stories and honoring the generations who came before us.

And somewhere in between all of that, veterans and their families simply got to be together.

No titles. No expectations. Just veterans, families, friends, kids, volunteers, good food, conversations, laughter, healing, and connection.

As we say “see you later” to our 3rd Annual Outside the Wire Veterans Retreat, we can confidently say this was one of our best retreats yet. ❤️

We are incredibly grateful for every veteran and family who trusted us enough to spend the weekend with us, every volunteer who jumped in wherever they were needed, and every donor, friend, business, and community member who continues to believe in what we are building.

Outside the Wire continues to grow because of you.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your support, your involvement, and most importantly, for continuing to show up for our veterans and their families.

Here’s to more memories, more healing, more camaraderie, and many more retreats to come. 🇺🇸

The Honey Pitt was the perfect spot to build lasting memories. Don’t forget to check them out on Airbnb

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1430608003550939419?unique_share_id=55037bf4-0ceb-4ec3-92e3-20cfa378d711&viralityEntryPoint=1&s=76

With gratitude,
The Outside the Wire Team ❤️

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A new $3.06 million Department of Defense-funded study will examine how menopause affects women veterans’ physical and mental health.

Researchers at Ohio State will follow 125 women veterans ages 45–55 over one year, measuring hormone changes alongside mood, cognition, sleep, pain, stress, inflammation, and changes in the gut and vaginal microbiomes.

The research is especially significant because prior studies suggest women veterans may experience menopause earlier than civilian women, potentially increasing the years they live with associated cardiovascular, cognitive, metabolic, sleep, and mental-health risks.

The goal: better understand the biology behind these changes and identify more effective ways to support women veterans through menopause.

Day Two of our 3rd Annual Outside the Wire Veterans Retreat. 🇺🇸

Yesterday, we shared the signs of those who are no longer with us, the veterans we lost in service and those we lost after they came home.

Today, we honor those who are still here.

Nearly 50+ signs. Nearly 50+ veterans. Different branches, different ranks, different generations, different stories, but all connected by service.

Some are still wearing the uniform and continuing to serve our country. Others have retired or completed their military service and have gone on to serve their families, professions, communities, and fellow veterans in countless other ways.

Every sign represents more than a rank, a branch, or a military occupation. It represents a person who raised their hand and said, “I will serve.”

One of the most important parts of Outside the Wire is reminding veterans that their story does not end when they take off the uniform. The friendships, sense of purpose, camaraderie, and commitment to one another can continue long after military service ends.

These signs represent the veterans who are still here to tell their stories, make new memories, mentor the next generation, and stand beside their brothers and sisters.

And that is something worth celebrating.

Today, as we continue our retreat-fishing, laughing, sharing meals, sitting around the fire, watching our families spend time together, and reconnecting with one another, we honor you.

To every veteran whose face appears on one of these signs, and to every veteran spending this weekend with us:

We see you. We appreciate you. We are proud to stand beside you. And we are grateful you are still here.

This is what Outside the Wire is all about.

Service brought us together. Brotherhood and sisterhood keep us together. 🇺🇸

Today marks the beginning of our 3rd Annual Outside the Wire Veterans Retreat.

This weekend is about reconnecting with old friends, with our families, with the people who understand where we’ve been, and sometimes, with parts of ourselves we may have lost along the way.

But this weekend is also about remembering.

Not everyone made it home. And of those who did, not everyone is still here with us today. We have lost brothers and sisters to su***de, illness, injuries, and battles that continued long after the uniform came off.

This year, we made yard signs honoring veterans who are no longer with us. Each sign has a name. A face. A branch of service. A story. And behind every one of those signs is a family, a friend, a battle buddy, and a life that mattered.

As veterans and families gather this weekend, we will walk past those signs and remember exactly why this work matters.

Outside the Wire was never meant to be just a weekend away. It is about creating a place where veterans know they still have a team, where families can reconnect, where stories can be told, where memories can be honored, and where no one has to carry everything alone.

So this weekend, we will laugh. We will eat together. We will sit around the fire. We will make new memories and probably tell some old stories for the hundredth time.

And we will remember those who should be sitting beside us.

We carry their names. We tell their stories. We honor their service. And we never forget.

Welcome to the 3rd Annual Outside the Wire Veterans Retreat. 🇺🇸

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We bow our heads in profound sorrow as we bid farewell to Major Albert “Doc” Brown, the remarkable Army dentist who survived one of the darkest chapters of World War II, the Bataan Death March, and lived to the extraordinary age of 105. With his passing, America lost more than a veteran. We lost a witness to unimaginable suffering, a survivor whose life became a testament to courage, endurance, and the astonishing strength of the human spirit. 🕊️🇺🇸

Long before history knew his name, Albert Brown was a husband, a father, an athlete, and a dentist. Born in Nebraska in 1905, he graduated from Creighton University’s dental school in 1927 and built a life and career before military duty carried him thousands of miles from home. By 1941, he was serving as an Army dental officer in the Philippines.

Then war came.

After months of desperate fighting on the Bataan Peninsula, American and Filipino forces,starving, sick, exhausted, and desperately short of supplies—were forced to surrender in April 1942. Albert was nearly 40 years old when he became a prisoner of war.

What followed would become one of the most infamous atrocities of the Pacific War.

Albert and tens of thousands of other prisoners were forced onto the Bataan Death March. Under the merciless tropical heat, already weakened men were driven mile after mile with desperately inadequate food and water. Those who stumbled risked brutal punishment. Men collapsed beside the road. Others never rose again.

Albert kept walking.

He saw suffering that would remain with him for the rest of his life, yet amid that nightmare, he did something extraordinary: he secretly tried to preserve a record of what was happening.

With a tiny pencil and writing material concealed from his captors, Albert recorded pieces of the horror around him. Discovery could have brought terrible consequences, but he understood that if he survived, someone needed to remember.

And somehow, against extraordinary odds, he did survive.

The Death March was only the beginning.

or roughly three years, Albert endured Japanese captivity in the Philippines and Japan. Hunger hollowed out the body of the former athlete. Disease attacked what starvation had left behind. He suffered malaria, dysentery, dengue fever, severe injuries and repeated physical abuse. His back and neck were badly damaged.

Before the war, Albert had stood about six feet tall and possessed the powerful build of a college athlete.

By the time freedom finally came in 1945, he reportedly weighed only about 90 pounds.

The man who had once cared for the health of others now returned home with a body devastated by war.

His injuries were so severe that his recovery required approximately two years in an Army hospital. He could no longer return normally to the dental career he had known before captivity. Doctors reportedly warned him that after everything his body had endured, he might not live beyond the age of 50.

Albert Brown quietly proved them wrong.

He reached 50.

Then 60.

Then 70, 80, 90 and 100.

The prisoner who had once been reduced to roughly 90 pounds lived another six decades. The man whose captors could nearly destroy his body refused to allow those terrible years to become the final chapter of his life.

For many years, however, the memories remained largely inside him. Like so many veterans who returned carrying wounds invisible to the world, Albert spoke relatively little about Bataan. Only much later in life did he begin sharing more of what he had witnessed and endured.

Eventually, the hidden memories of that young Army officer became part of the historical record.

In 2007, veterans' organizations recognized Albert Brown as the oldest living survivor of the Bataan Death March. He had outlived the prediction made after his liberation by more than half a century.

Then, on August 14, 2011, Major Albert “Doc” Brown passed away at the age of 105.

There is something profoundly moving about those numbers.

Nearly 40 years old when he was marched into captivity.

Around 90 pounds when liberation finally came.

Told he might never reach 50.

Gone at 105.

But numbers alone cannot tell us what it took to survive.

They cannot describe the hunger of a prisoner wondering whether another handful of rice would come. They cannot capture the exhaustion of putting one foot in front of another while men were dying along the road. They cannot explain the courage required to hide a tiny pencil and record what others might never live to tell. And they cannot measure the memories a survivor carried home after the world celebrated victory and moved on.

Albert Brown carried those memories for the rest of his life.

Today, we remember not merely how long he lived, but what he survived in order to live at all.

May we never allow their suffering, sacrifice, courage, and brotherhood to disappear into the silence of history.

Rest in peace, Major Albert “Doc” Brown.

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TSA now offers special military security access at more than 30 U.S. airports for service members, veterans and their families.

At airports with a dedicated “Honor Lane,” eligible travelers can show a valid military or veteran ID and enter a separate security line. They do not need to be traveling in uniform. TSA says that at participating airports without a dedicated lane, eligible travelers can instead show their ID to the lane monitor for front-of-the-line service.

Honor Lanes are separate from TSA PreCheck. They can shorten the wait to reach screening, but travelers are still screened according to their normal eligibility. Active-duty service members already receive TSA PreCheck at no cost by using their Department of Defense identification number as their Known Traveler Number.

TSA has also expanded other military travel benefits, including free TSA PreCheck enrollment for eligible military survivor families and qualifying disabled veterans, as well as a $25 enrollment discount for military spouses.

This is one of those days that reminds me exactly why I do this work. ❤️

Back in March, I met Gail while we were doing a veterans art retreat with residents at a nursing home. Lindsay came up to me and said, “We have a lady who needs your help. She’s been told several times that she doesn’t qualify for benefits.”

I told her I’d be happy to take a look.

When I reviewed Gail’s military medical records, they told a sad story, one of a veteran who had been failed by the system and had been trying to get VA services for nearly 50 years! Yes, you read that right, nearly 50 LONG years!!!

What followed was months of fighting through one barrier after another. Civilian medical records weren’t sent to the VA despite multiple requests, causing her first claim to be denied. I eventually SHOWED UP at her doctor’s office myself asking that the records be sent. When the VA finally scheduled her for an appointment, Gail showed up only to have the provider refuse to see her because she didn’t have her military records with her, records that were supposed to be provided to the examiner by the VA, not Gail.

We kept going. Gail even said she was ready to give up because this process was too hard and stressful. My response to Gail was “let me do the stressing, Ms. Gail.”

Eventually, Gail was granted benefits, happy ending, right? WRONG!!! The VA used the wrong claim date, which meant she was missing a significant amount of back pay. So we went back again. Three weeks later, the VA corrected the date.

That is the very short version of a very long fight.

Today, Gail’s case is officially WON. ❤️

She will now receive a monthly, tax-free VA disability payment, along with access to VA medical care and medications.

When I delivered the news to her today (in person), she cried. Then she hugged me for the longest time and said, “You have helped me so much.”

I told her, “I’m happy to help you, and I’ll take care of you when it comes to the VA.”

She looked at me and said, “I know you will.”

That one got me!!! 🥹

Nearly 50 years of trying to get help, and today, someone finally listened. Congratulations, Gail. You deserved to be heard a long time ago. 🇺🇸

I cannot thank Lindsey Bolejack enough for all of her help with this one! Lindsey works at the nursing home and is the one who approached me about Gail.

❤️🇺🇸🐾 A very special THANK YOU to Duke Bakery in Alton, Illinois!

Sometimes support comes from places you don’t expect, and this one truly touched our hearts.

Duke Bakery heard about Outside the Wire Veterans Foundation and chose to hold a bake sale to support our mission. Because of their generosity and the generosity of their customers, they raised and donated $500 to Outside the Wire!

What makes this even more special is learning more about who they are. Duke Bakery is veteran-friendly and dog-friendly, two things that are very close to our hearts at Outside the Wire. They also use their platform to help support rescue dogs and connect them with loving homes. As someone who personally has several rescue dogs, that made me love this place even more. 🐶❤️

There is something pretty special about a business that cares about both people and animals and chooses to give back simply because they believe in helping others.

To everyone at Duke Bakery and everyone who supported their bake sale: thank you. Your $500 donation will go directly toward helping us continue our mission of supporting veterans and their families, building connections, and creating a place where veterans know they are never alone.

You have our gratitude, our respect, and definitely some new friends at Outside the Wire. 🇺🇸🐾

And if we find ourselves in Alton, I think a trip to Duke Bakery is officially required! ❤️

From all of us at Outside the Wire Veterans Foundation — thank you, Duke Bakery!