A young man grins for the camera, holding aloft a large red drum. In another picture, two others stand on opposites sides of the bow on a fishing boat, lines slung over the side. The photos could have been taken on any summer day, on any river in America, but these were taken on the Pamlico in September, and the story told by the snapshots barely scratches the surface of what’s really happening.

“I like to call it group therapy because that’s what it is, when they start talking,” said Bill Warren, founder of Combat Warriors, Inc. “All these guys, they are the tip of the sword. They’re always in the battle.”

Warren is talking about Navy SEALs, 82^nd Airborne, Special Operations, Delta Force, Combat Control, Green Berets and MARSOC. They’ve been deployed to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, North Africa and other war-torn areas, their deployments numbering in the double digits for each. Combat Warriors, Inc. issues an invitation that spreads by word of mouth: come hunt at Warren’s camp in Hyde County; fish at Dana Eddings’ camp in Aurora — spend a weekend away from war, with no pressure to do anything but hunt and fish, surrounded by others also intimately acquainted with combat.

“It gives these guys a chance to fellowship with their peers,” Eddings said. “Some of them will be guys from their unit; some guys they’ve never met.”

But the shared experience of the trip, and of combat, opens doors to conversations that help to heal, according to Warren.

“We’ve got 22 soldiers a day killing themselves — that’s just way too much. That’s why our sense of urgency is getting more as this thing drags on,” Warren said. “It is a type of therapy. It just happens. There’s no psychologist or therapist — it’s just them talking. … We knew there would be a therapeutic value, but we just didn’t realize how much that was going to be.”

For Warren, Combat Warriors, Inc. is personal: he wanted to see soldiers get the support denied him and his peers when they came back from Vietnam. When a business associate asked for financial help to send soldiers to Wisconsin on hunting trips for three years running, Warren decided it was time to increase his involvement and start Combat Warriors, Inc.

“We wanted to make a commitment to these guys and girls coming back from the war,” Warren said.

Five years ago, it started with one event with five soldiers. This year, so far 18 events have been held, serving many more. Unlike more-prominent, national programs, Combat Warriors, Inc. is all volunteer and subsists on monetary donations, and donations of goods and services: time-shares in Nags Head, piloted fishing boats, hunting camps and guides, and more.

Not only are volunteers culled by word of mouth — Eddings became a volunteer after hearing about the program while sitting in a duck blind with a fellow hunter —the soldiers are as well.

“We knew there was too much demand to try to grow it advertising, so it’s strictly word of mouth,” Warren said. “Once you’ve been to one of hunts or fish camps, you can return, but you have to bring a new warrior with you, that’s been wounded or in combat. … They go back and tell others. They’re actually doing the qualifying for us. Now they refer people each time they come.”

“I had a medic call me; ‘Bill, we’ve got to get this solider to one of your hunts. He’s really having a hard time dealing with the loss of one of his friends.’ We brought him to the fishing trip — that weekend I had 30 guys fishing in Nags Head,” Warren said.

“The corpsman actually told me later that that was one of the best things that could have happened to that young man.”

To be able to decompress and talk with peers that these soldiers may or may not ever see again, is a much better option than dealing with loss and depression through self-destructive behavior, Eddings said.

“They’ve got to be pulled back out of that and anything we can do to pull those guys back out is imperative,” Eddings said.

It’s a healing process that’s not without its own potential set of wounds. Eddings described bonding with one young soldier during the first fishing camp he hosted in Aurora and being devastated to learn he was one of the MARSOC Marines who died when a Black Hawk helicopter went down during a training mission in Florida earlier this year. The Camp Lejeune-based Marine had been awarded the Silver Star the week before he died, in addition to being named the Marine Corps Man of the Year.

“You just own these young men once you spend a little time with them. They’re all of our sons and daughters,” Eddings said. “We should weep every time one of these guys goes down.”

Taking combat veterans on hunting and fishing trips is just a part of what Combat Warriors, Inc. offers. The organization also provides financial and emotional support for families of those deployed, as well as those who’ve lost a loved one to combat.

“We’ve actually made house payments for guys who are about to lose their homes,” Warren said.

Now, Warren and the board of Combat Warriors, Inc. is aiming to expand services in North Carolina and starting chapters in other states. This year, a volunteer started a chapter in Texas; two more have expressed interest in starting others in California and Colorado.

“We eventually want to be in every state,” Warren said. “We’re looking for growth, but we want to control it because we want to under-promise and over-deliver.”

Warren said the board is looking for donations — of time, of skills, of loaned properties and money — and asking the entire eastern North Carolina community support the warriors right next door, at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and U.S. Army Base Fort Bragg.

“You see pictures of smiling guys hunting and fishing, but it’s way deeper than that,” Warren said. “This country is asking a huge amount from them.”

For more information about Combat Warriors, Inc. visit www.combatwarriorsinc.com, email info@combatwarriors.com or contact Dana Eddings at 252-944 5466.