The result, “mission therapy” for Veterans and cleaner oceans and waterways for all of us.
for NPR
The idea for FORCE BLUE grew out of a trip co-founders Jim Ritterhoff and Rudy Reyes took in 2015 to go reef diving. Since returning home from several tours in Afghanistan Reyes, a former Recon Marine, had been struggling with PTS and depression. The experience of reef diving in the Caribbean was immediately life-changing.
Reyes suggested scheduling a return trip and bringing down more of his Recon buddies…. After a few hours of discussion that idea morphed into a different plan. The new plan would bring together combat divers from all branches of service, and marine scientists, conservationists and journalists. And Force Blue was born.
For Reyes, like most SOF (Special Operations Force) veterans, diving had never been about exploration or enjoyment. To him diving meant hauling 200 pounds.of gear underwater to destroy some potentially dangerous target in the dead of night.
Former special operations veterans are used to work under hard and grueling conditions in the ocean. Retired Navy Seal Master Chief Steve Gonzalez says they’re now on the other side, enjoying its beauty. He describes his first dive with Force Blue as “transcendent,” saying … “I’d never seen colors before, and I was always diving at two o’clock in the morning in water I could barely see my hand in front of my face. So to see all the beauty and the wonder of the undersea world was truly magnificent.”
Earlier this year, to build a living shoreline in Choctawhatchee Bay, on the Florida panhandle. Military veterans and local conservationists came out on a chilly morning to carry chunks of limestone the size of soccer balls into the bay at low tide. This will help address the results of heavier high tides and frequent storms eating away at the shore and washing roadway runoff into the water.
In 2018 the Florida Department of Dept of Environmental Protection approached Force Blue about deployment to monitor and curb the spread of coral tissue disease in the reefs. They partnered with scientist from NOVA Southeastern University to study and treat an 80-miles stretch of reef.
Special Operations veterans of FORCE BLUE, working with our nation’s top scientists and environmentalists, have launched a 5-year campaign to conduct marine conservation missions in and around each of the country’s fifteen (15) National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS).
Force Blue is not only making marine conservation look cool, they are providing veterans with a sense of camaraderie they may have been missing… and a new sense of purpose. If you want to support Force Blue with donations, become a team member or suggest a deployment project visit their website, https://forceblueteam.org/. And, be sure to spread the word.