With a background as a student-athlete in basketball and football, Drew Farney has a passion for the outdoors and activities such as hunting. He is a quarterback on the football team at Hyde Academy. Active in Texas as a volunteer, Drew Farney has volunteered as part of the Wounded Warrior Project’s Lone Star Warriors Outdoors (LSWO) initiative.
With a large percentage of combat veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to some extent, issues such as depression and suicidal tendencies can impact their lives for months and years. LSWO proactively addresses this issue by taking small groups of veterans on hunting and saltwater fishing excursions. When it comes to hunting, this is accessible in Texas from October through February at high-fence ranches. The primary game is whitetail deer, with exotic species also in the mix.
However, the real objective of the activities is not simply to hunt but to have a therapeutic experience of sitting with new and old friends around campfires and connecting. The bonding between the three to five people in these groups is similar to that with military settings, with veterans regaining a sense of normalcy and purpose through social interactions. In the process, they can work through persistent and often repressed psychological issues and return as better functioning members of society.
