Newly chartered Post 340 in Bainbridge, Ga., held its first Veterans Day Weekend Celebration with a Be the One suicide prevention run/walk at its home on a lakefront campground.
At Ease Campground and Marina nestled along Lake Seminole in Bainbridge, Ga., was the backdrop for newly chartered Wingate Landing American Legion Post 340’s first Veterans Weekend Celebration. Events got underway Friday, Nov. 8, with food, live music and a flag retirement ceremony, followed by a Be the One suicide prevention 5K walk/run, fishing tournament, chili cookoff, raffle drawings, car show, fish fry and more on Saturday, Nov. 9.
“The opportunity to get vets together and create something for veterans and the community to be together in a fun environment and have activities, it really means a lot,” said Don Fabian, commander of Post 340 and owner of At Ease Campground and Marina with his wife, Patti. “I think the opportunity of getting the community and veterans together is important.”
The Be the One walk/run route had veterans, community supporters, families, children and dogs traveling through the campgrounds scenic hiking trails and lakefront views. Local resident Matt Craig pulled his three-year-old son Banning in a red wagon for the 3.1 miles. Craig supports Don and Patti whenever he can.
“I've been around a lot of veterans, so I understand the importance of supporting that community and making sure that they have the resources and people to talk to and just help going forward,” said Craig, who is in the construction field but used to be with the fire department. “It’s important, I think, that the community helps people around them. A lot of times we like to suffer by ourselves, so you don't know who's going through what, whether it's good or bad or struggling in any way. Just being able to be a part of the community and help is really something our hearts are towards.”
The Legion’s Be the One veteran suicide prevention mission was easy for Don and Patti to support upon helping charter Post 340 because it’s personal to them. Don has lost three friends he deployed with during Operation Iraqi Freedom to suicide, with one being very recent. “He was such a great human and really shocking that it happened. He had a wife and two kids. We need to bring attention to it,” Don, an Army veteran, said. “I was in the military for over 30 years, and it was definitely looked down upon if you said you had issues or you went to get help. So we’re trying to destigmatize (the need to ask for help) because you do physical exercise. You should do mental exercise as well.”
Be the One “is very personal,” Patti, an Air Force veteran and Post 340 adjutant, said. “We’ve all been called to serve and that’s the most vulnerable right now. That’s where we can make the most difference is really serving the ones that the most at risk.”
Don and Patti spoke about Be the One last year during a Veterans Day event, and it has been a mission of theirs since. “Really anyone can help; it’s not just a military thing,” Patti added. “Anyone in the community can help. Just call somebody, let them know that you’re thinking about them.”
She believes that was the message delivered during the Be the One walk to those who participated and stayed back to support. “I think that we let them know how important it is and how they can be a part of it and be part of the solution. So that was powerful.”
Yellow Be the One bags filled with suicide prevention resources were handed out to each run/walk participant. The bags included Columbia University Suicide Severity Rating Scale sheets, a Be the One coin and tech shirt, gun lock, cooling towel with the 988 Veterans Crisis Line, a bracelet with the words “Just ask, You can save a life” and more. Participants also signed a “My Life is Worth Living” banner.
Heather Stephens, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran who is serving in the Georgia National Guard, explained to participants what was in the bag and how to use the Columbia University suicide risk assessment “so they're not just walking away with a bag of stuff. We kind of provide them some education on how to use it,” Stephens said, adding that the hope is to conduct in-person suicide prevention training “so community members can come out and just be educated on that and then just get comfortable with asking the questions and talking about suicide prevention and mental health in general.”
Stephens has lost friends to suicide “so suicide prevention is, I guess unfortunately, a passion of mine. Especially in rural communities like this where there's not a lot of resources, it's important to come together for events like this. The camaraderie and then just the community's education on suicide prevention in general, whether it's for veterans in their lives or just for their everyday loved ones.”
Ritaann Schultz, a Post 340 member and a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War era, sounded a horn as the Be the One runners and walkers crossed the finish line. She lives 30 minutes away from At Ease Campground and Marina but comes for the monthly veteran meetup dinners, anytime Patti and Don need support, and to sit in the calmness of the surroundings.
“I’m a disabled veteran. There’s a lot of us that have disabilities, PTSD. What they’re (Don and Patti) doing for us veterans, there’s no place like this,” Schultz said. “This is everything that we could want. The cabins, the fishing, the atmosphere, the calmness. When we’re looking at veterans, Don and Patti are movers and shakers. And the fact that they’re both vets, so it’s coming from here (she points to her heart).”
A respite for veterans
Don and Patti acquired At Ease Campground and Marina about two years ago following Don’s military retirement and a calling to continue serving veterans. The campground has a mailing address of Bainbridge but the area is called Recovery for the troops who sought recovery in the area during the American Indian Wars. That history solidified to Don and Patti that they had come full circle to once again create a place for veterans and the community to recover. “That’s what we’re doing,” she said.
The 286-acre facility has a large tent and RV campground, cabins, motel, store, restaurant, marina, covered boat slips, playground, hiking trails, kayak, canoes and more to offer veterans and the community. And under their nonprofit Operation At Ease, Don and Patti host and conduct veteran retreats, take veterans fishing, installed a handicap accessible swing to help veterans get in and out of a boat, and have plans for more handicap accessible amenities onsite.
They too have housed homeless veterans at the campground to help them get back on their feet. “If there’s a veteran in need, we’re going to help them,” Don said. And over 300 people, many of them veterans, sought refuge at At Ease during Hurricane Milton. A few of them have already been back.
“I think anyone that comes, always comes back,” Patti said. “Once you come here you realize it’s a respite. Almost everybody out here is a veteran. You can say anything you want and the people around you get you.”
Not only is At Ease providing respite and camaraderie for veterans, but so is Post 340. The post originated out of monthly veteran meetups that Don and Patti held, and continue to hold, at At Ease where both Stephens and Schultz attend. During the meetings, Don and Patti provide free dinner for veterans and their families, along with guest speakers who share needed information such as Department of Veterans Affairs resources and benefits.
“The American Legion (Post 340) came out of that monthly meetup,” Don said. Since its charter in April, the post now has an Auxiliary unit with a Sons of The American Legion squadron soon to be chartered. “The American Legion is really active in a short time that we’ve had it.”
Besides this Veterans Day Weekend celebration, Post 340 hosts a pancake breakfasts the first Saturday of the month, had a low country boil that served 107 dinners and has fishing tournaments. “We really have a lot going on, and it’s only going to get better,” Don emphasized.
Stephens encourages veterans in the surrounding area to visit Post 340 at At Ease “so we can support each other and just the whole point of the Legion is getting together, continuing the camaraderie, being there for one another and just that brother and sisterhood that's created when you're in the military regardless of your branch of service or where are you deployed to, if you deployed, whatever, it doesn't matter. You're a veteran, period.”
With a mile of waterfront on the 38,000-acre Lake Seminole and endless outdoor recreational opportunities, At Ease is tucked away in a serene landscape that offers veterans respite, camaraderie and strength, both physically and mentally.
“I think the best thing we have going for us is that a lot of people want to help veterans and people in general, and we actually have the facility to do it,” Don said. “I think the advantage we have of being away from everything is we just have the perfect place to do anything. It gives any American Legion, we want everyone to know, that we are a place you should be coming to …
“The name of the place is At Ease because everybody who comes here is supposed to be at ease.”
- Be the One