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Orin Jackson (right) built Hickory Hills Veterans Lodge to give veterans the opportunity to be outdoors with other veterans and heal. And our family units are suffering in America.” It’s the whole family who has to be made a unit. “It’s not just the husband who has to be healed. “I’m trying to be a leader and doing the important work of getting the family the help as well,” he said. Having the cabin, which Jackson built and funded through donations and around $100,000 of his own money, allowed him to begin including veterans’ families, too. The entire trip, including travel for service members from out of state, is free, paid for by donations. Jackson opens the property to veterans and their families on request, and once he has enough interest, he begins work coordinating everyone’s schedules.

Operating the nonprofit costs several thousand dollars annually. “That’s the whole factor of what made me decide to do this.” “Let’s get them up there and make them feel like they’re a part of something again,” Jackson said.

He especially wanted to help a sect of veterans struggling after returning from a deployment: those who have PTSD but want an option other than taking a mouthful of pills for treatment. Though he never served himself, Jackson said he has a strong sense of patriotism. “Coming to a place like Hickory Hills and being with other veterans who have also done things to the people that they love, that shared shame is often as cathartic as the mission that we go on when we come here.” “I have so much shame for the things that I’ve put my family through,” Wolfenbarger said. “We have to do this, we have to do that, and then there’s not time for us. It’s always so stressful at home,” said Leah Sword, Wolfenbarger’s wife.

“It’s just nice to be able to be on common ground and be doing the same thing, but not having to do anything. They spent a July weekend bonding and being outdoors on a property equipped for hunting, fishing, archery and four-wheeling. Recently, for the first time, the Raytown resident brought his family with him to a place that has been helping him heal: Hickory Hills Veterans Lodge, a quaint cabin secluded on 100 acres of wooded property in northern Missouri. But the toughest part for him and his family is the post-traumatic stress disorder that causes rage control issues.