It was quite a random encounter to find the Knights of Heroes http://knightsofheroes.org/
signpost over Gold Camp Road in rural Teller County, just
outside of Victor, Colorado. Terry and I had gone to Colorado for business and
pleasure. He had wanted to show me this place, a place where he knew the
grounds-keeper, Kim, a Vietnam veteran, who takes care of the ground now known
as Knights of Heroes http://knightsofheroes.org/. When he said Kim was another Vietnam
vet just like he was, I became intrigued.
After making our way up into the Colorado High Country,
around tighter and tighter switchbacks, we finally emerged to a meadow where we
came upon a lone and lonely log cabin unable to be used because of some kind of
government bureaucracy. We had climbed the altitude up the side of that
mountain, through a canopy of pines, blue spruce and an occasional aspen. The
cabin was a welcome relief.
Terry then said, “Now we will be on a dirt road. You will
love this!” At which point he drove our rental car under a simple wooden
sign which hung from the skinny trunks of fallen aspen, into what might seem to
be, another world…
Major Troy Gilbert, http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/467558/additional-remains-of-air-force-pilot-found.aspx,
an F-16C Fighting Falcon pilot for the United States Air
Force, crashed and died in combat while engaged in the support of coalition
combat forces 20 miles northwest of Baghdad. Ginger, Troy’s wife, while her husband was deployed, had
already accepted her role as both Father and Mother, to raise newborn twin
girls, a three-year-old daughter, Boston, age 6, and Grayson, age 9. Not Ginger had to feel completely alone. But it would not be for long.
While stationed at Luke Air Force Base, outside of Phoenix,
Arizona, Troy had become friends with another US Air Force pilot, Steve
Harrold. During the eighteen-month relationship, they were bound by work, the
fact that both sets of their sons were the same age, and their relationship to
Christ.
The day I first made contact with Steve Harrold, he had been
up at the camp working with Kim. I had left him a voicemail earlier in the day,
asking for Kim’s contact information for Terry, and I added, "Oh, by the way, if you are
interested, I would like to tell the story of Knights of Heroes." When he returned my call, I was struck by his
passion for life and the ministry he’d begun, and I was struck by his humility
and willingness to serve others.
He said he would like to have me tell their story, that he
somehow felt my motivation was intended only to help their organization. I told
him he was right, and I also told him that I felt privileged and humbled that
he would allow me to help get the word out. We set up a time to talk another
day, but I left him to ponder the following questions.
2. What does it take logistically to implement your
once-a-summer camp?
3. What makes you get up in the morning?
When we spoke the next time, Steve made it a point to
mention that Troy had a way of making people with whom he came in contact feel
special; he made them feel as though they mattered in the big picture of life.
He said that Troy would fly missions all day in Iraq, only to volunteer at the
hospital in Ballad, Iraq. One can only imagine how difficult that would have been.
The answer to my first question, “What is Knights of Heroes all about,” Steve
gave me the following answer:
“Troy was deployed in August 2006, at the same time my family and I relocated to Colorado. Troy had long-before recommended that I read
the book, Raising of a Modern Day Knight: A Father’s Role in Guiding His Son
to Authentic Manhood. https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B005MZIDIY&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_yyi7xb9KNGP8P.
It was on November 27, 2006, while reading the chapter
in that same book entitled, “Absent Father Wound,” I found out Troy had
been killed defending the freedom we all enjoy.
Immediately, I began to ask the question, ‘What would Troy
be doing with his sons, Boston, then six, and Grayson, nine?’ You see, my
sons, Jake and Tanner were consecutively the same age, so it wasn’t hard for me to imagine the answer.”
Steve went on to say that he knew Troy would take them
mountain climbing, teach them to shoot guns; they would hike, camp, raft, and
rock climb, always with his core mission to teach his sons the tenants of
manhood through activity. Steve knew what he had as his own goal: to
instruct his sons in how to be godly men, how to be honorable and chivalrous to
women, how to become great leaders in the community, and how to have no semblance of entitlement.
It was at that point Steve embraced the model that Richard
Lewis had laid out, and then on a mission, became an ambassador for raising
knights in his own sons. He also felt that he needed to do the same for Troy’s
boys and other sons of fallen soldiers too. Thus was born Knights of Heroes http://knightsofheroes.org/.
I then asked the second question, “What does it take
logistically to implement your once-a-summer camp?”
Steve then began to tell me that they had started the
ministry ten years ago with a $15K a year budget, but the program had quickly
grown. This year, they will have 95 children at camp, 50 boys and 30 girls. He
told me that they had purchased the property that I had stumbled upon after
raising $250K for a down payment on the total purchase price of the property of
$735K. Most were donations that came by word of mouth.
He was careful to mention that they have an operating budget
of $120K; The Free Wheel Foundation,
who sponsors a 4-day bike ride where they raise almost $100K for Knights of
Heroes, annually, donates many of those dollars. Home Depot has donated a $22K
grant, and MyLineage.com https://secure.mylineage.com/index,
although a very small organization, donates hand-embroidered crests, which are
given to each child their first time at camp, along with a history of their
name.
MyLineage.com https://secure.mylineage.com/index, also gifts the boys daggers their second year, and a sword,
the third year. I remarked how those boys should feel like true knights once
they’ve received such amazing symbols of all their mentors and activities teach
them throughout the week.
“Once the boys graduate from the 1st-3rd-year
program, they go on to the “High Adventure Program,” where 8 boys and 3 mentors
pack into and out of the Colorado High Country.” Steve went on to say, “In the
1st-3rd-year program, the volunteer mentors are
one-to-one with the boys, and we have additional volunteer staff of about ten,
including a physician and a photographer.
Our biggest corporate contributor is South West Airlines https://www.southwest.com/.
They donate 100 tickets for the children to have free
transportation to the camp. That is the equivalent of about $140K. We are most
grateful to them.” We also give each boy a backpack with their name on it when
they arrive at camp, which contains 5 t-shirts, a fleece jacket, and a cap.
They must give back all but the cap and one shirt. We recycle the others for
the boys who will attend the next summer's camp.”
Then I asked my final question. “What makes you motivated to
get up in the morning,” to which he replied, “When my children were young and
left them sleeping when I went to fly a mission, I never left that I didn’t
have the thought of what might happen to them if something happened to me. Of
course, it did happen to Troy and so many other US soldiers who have paid the
ultimate sacrifice. I want to be there for as many of those soldier’s children as
I can.”
Steve is now retired military and an active firefighter. He and his
wife, Suzanne, along with their sons, Jake, 16, and Tanner, 19, currently live
in Monument, Colorado.
I would ask each of you to answer the last question for yourself.
My answer to that question is simple. “I want to find the hope that
is in today.” This organization, my friends, brings me hope. My desire is that
it does the same for you.
If so, please feel free to follow this link to donate to Knights of Heroes http://knightsofheroes.org/home/donate-now
