CityView Magazine

living K2 Solutions, Inc. will host a charity golf tournament for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation on October 28 at the Pinehurst Golf Resort. Please contact Seana Pernice-Kowalczyk or Tonia McRae at 910.692.6898 for more information. on that. They know what a difference we make in the lives of these people." The Warrior Foundation was founded in 1980 as the Bull Simons Scholarship Fund to provide college educations for the 17 children of the nine men killed and one wounded during the Iranian hostage rescue attempt. Since then the foundation has provided college educations for nearly 200 students and is currently working with more than 900 children who will start college in the coming years. "Whenever there is a [Special Opera- tions] fatality we contact every family. No family has to go looking for us. These children receive birthday and holiday cards from us forever. In junior high and middle school we send them information on college and materials to help them take the SAT and ACT. We know that their parent would have wanted them to go to college, and that is who we made a com- mitment to." The hands-on approach to getting kids ready for and into college has proved very successful for the Foundation. McLeary said that this year 26 children of fallen Special Operations Warriors graduated from high school and currently 25 of them are enrolled in college, "and we're working on that last one," he said. The help doesn't stop with college en- rollment, either, he said. Foundation work- ers keep in touch with the students and monitor their grades. They must maintain a 2.0 GPA to continue receiving benefits 28 | Anniversary Issue • 2011 and if a student starts to slip, he or she gets a call from the Foundation. Ninety- eight percent of the students the Founda- tion provides for graduate, McLeary said. In recent years the Foundation has expanded its mission to include provid- ing immediate assistance to the families of wounded Special Operations, as well. He said that in many cases families of wounded troops must drop everything and rush to get to a hospital. "Initially, there are a lot of costs related to that — lost incomes, childcare expenses needs," McLeary said. "We are notified when someone leaves Landstuhl and is sent to a military hospital here. We over- night $2,000 right away to that family and normally they get it within 24 hours." McLeary said there are no restrictions on how the money can be spent and that the Foundation has given out $1.4 million to date. But most of those sweating and push- ing their physical limits at CrossFit Fort Bragg last month didn't know any of that. They only knew that many brave warriors had made the ultimate sacrifice and had left families to carry on without them. They, like the people who organized that fundraiser, wanted to honor those sacri- fices by making physical and monetary sac- rifices of their own. Michelle Benedict, the owner of Cross- Fit Fort Bragg, planned the fundraiser with help from the combat controller who spoke at the event (who asked that his and travel name not be published) and several of the gym's members and staff. She said the workout they all did that day was modeled after the Air Force's Spe- cial Tactics Squadron PT test and serves as a glimpse of the hard work that Special Tac- tics warriors, and all troops, perform every day to train for and fight the War on Terror. She said that it made sense for her gym to do the tribute and fundraiser because many of the gym's members serve in the military and work in Special Operations. "They dedicate themselves daily to intensely punishing workouts," she said. They leave their sweat, and sometimes even blood and tears on my gym floor as they train to prepare themselves for their missions. I am honored to do this for them." CV

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