FogHorn August 6 Meeting

He explained how the Anglers were launched: his brother had served in the military and twice was awarded the Purple Heart, and served in military organizations in California and Arizona before his death three years ago, due to what the family believes to have been issues related to exposure to Agent Orange. He started the organization, he said, as a way of doing something for his brother, but as he came to meet more Veterans he “didn't realize I had so dang many (figurative brothers, or Veterans.)”
Of Purple Heart Anglers, Houston said, “We hunt, fish and eat,” and added that he tailored it to be a recreational and community-building entity for Vets, that has not political ties or agenda. The nonprofit was formed in 2010 and Houston, whose wife served on the board of Half Moon Bay's historic Johnston House, welcomes donations to keep it going. He said he often encounters Vets who also want to help him keep it going. He told the story of a vet named Charles, who provides his own boat for Anglers trips and volunteers his time and money.
Houston gave some insight into the Anglers, pointing out that the organization is all-volunteer and eager to welcome more Veterans into their numbers, and described the group and its outings as “like a giant family picnic without the arguments.”
He described trips to locations as far as Manteca for fishing or also to Oregon. He also suggested that a trip to Alaska might be in the works.
To illustrate the work and mission of Purple Heart Anglers, he presented a slide show that HMB Rotarians watched intently. It began with a summary of the concept of the group and its trips: a day outdoors to enjoy the land that the men and women who had served in the military had fought to defend. The video contrasted a fishing trip to local lakes with the conditions in dangerous, often stiflingly hot combat zones. It went on to present the situations and difficulties Veterans face when they return to life at home. He also talked of the long-term goals of the nonprofit: fundraisers and sponsorships, obtaining boats and all-terrain vehicles, the need for donations to support events, and of putting together presentations on his organization, from the point of view of a disabled veteran, that the lay person would understand and identify with.
He made clear that the organization is not a political one, though it does have political figures among its supporters, such as Congresswoman Jackie Speier
He spoke of the benefits that a simple hunting or fishing trip can offer the Vets. He summed up the media coverage his organization had gotten in magazines and papers across the country, and said that he hoped to get his community involved in the effort and that he would like to see Rotary help the Anglers group grow. He gave an idea of the scope of the group: that they mount hunting and fishing expeditions from Southern California to Donner Lake, and have even done ocean-fishing trips. The facts that the group is a nonprofit and affiliated with the Purple Heart, he said, give it an identity.
He defined the scope of the disabilities that the Veterans that go on the hunting and fishing trips deal with: from physical disabilities to PTSD to brain or cognitive injury. He lets individual clients tell him if they are uncomfortable around guns. He said that in these days, he sees more PTSD in younger Vets. He said that on the trips he adjusts to the circumstances and needs of his clients, and that caregivers also come along on the trips

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Appropriately enough and to everyone's delight, Houston won the marble draw,

which he enjoyed even though he picked a green marble.