Nonprofit Saddles in Service gives veterans a new purpose

Bercher’s groups are comprised of veterans, active-duty military, and first responders suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and these weeklong outings serve as the capstone to a program with the nonprofit organization Saddles In Service (SIS).

Founded in 2017 in the San Diego area of southern California, SIS has provided more than 600 veterans, military personnel, and first responders (Heroes, to use the organization’s parlance) with access to a natural horsemanship program in an effort to combat high suicide rates and promote mental health, wellness, and healing.

Since its inception, the group has grown, expanding to Elkhart, Texas, where a second outpost allows Heroes in that region to participate — and to Wyoming. The charity recently acquired new property in California and commenced building on bunkhouses, which will provide free accommodations for Heroes from across the country to travel in and access the multi-phase program.

Bercher became involved with SIS in 2018. While in California to work on the border wall, Bercher found himself overwhelmed and struggling with his PTSD. By chance, he received a targeted ad on Instagram for the group and reached out to Tammy Oluvic, the group’s founder in Alpine, Calif., to see about doing equine therapy on his days off.

He couldn’t meet their schedule, but he went out for a single training session and so impressed Oluvic that he was granted rights to come and go from the ranch as he pleased.

The relationship between Bercher and SIS developed from there with Oluvic asking, at the end of his time in California, if he knew anyone in Wyoming who might be interested in helping the project grow further.

It just so happened that Bercher did.

“Greg Flitner lives across the street,” Bercher explained, “so I told Tammy I would ask when I got home.”

Flitner supported the idea, and the program’s final phase was born: between May and October, and after completing the horsemanship program with the help of a wrangler at one of the ranch outposts, Heroes are flown to Wyoming for a week.

Once here, they receive their orders from Flitner, ride out with Bercher, and work on the ranch, experiencing what it really is to be a cowpoke.

Bercher was born in Tennessee, and raised between Missouri and Arkansas. When he was five years old, he got his first mount — a firecracker of a Shetland pony named Ginger. He and his brothers began riding on the family property as children and, by their teenage years, were riding for other people.

In 1983, immediately after high school, Bercher joined the military and enlisted in the infantry.

Four years later, he left active duty but remained in the Army Reserves and in 1995 joined the 362nd Psychological Operations Company, which led to a peacekeeping deployment in Bosnia in 1997.

He met his wife, Rebecca, who served in military intelligence there; they have two sons.

Later deployments took Bercher to Iraq (2003) and Afghanistan (2005). In 2006, after a 23-year career, Bercher retired and went to work on the family property in Arkansas before relocating to the Big Horns in 2013.

“I saw combat, but I wasn’t storming Normandy or facing the Vietcong,” Bercher explained, recalling his own struggles with PTSD and journey toward mental health advocacy. “I had highly decorated superiors who served in Vietnam, (and) I knew World War II vets.

“Compared to their experiences, I didn’t think my trauma was trauma,” he said. “I kept it to myself for a very long time, but when people have mental illness, it can’t be hidden in the back corner. My trauma is not your trauma and your trauma is not my trauma; what’s traumatic to one may not be traumatic to another.”

At the recent Bob’s Diner Charity Open Mic, which raised over $1,000 for SIS, Bercher pointed to Wyoming’s high suicide rate as similar cause for concern.

“It doesn’t have to be someone in the military,” he said during an address to attendees at the top of the night. “It doesn’t have to be a veteran. If you see someone struggling, reach out and ask if they’re okay.”

According to Center for Disease Control data, Wyoming was first in the nation for suicides in 2021, with 33 deaths per 100,000 people (190 deaths total), more than double the nationwide average of 13.5 persons per 100,000. Of those 190 deaths, 32 were military veterans (16.8% of Wyoming suicides that year).

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Wyoming’s veteran suicide rate is significantly higher than the national veteran suicide rate as well as the general population’s suicide rate.

While the VA has not yet released formal numbers accounting for veteran deaths by suicide in 2022, more generalized data has given some cautious cause for hope: between 2021 and 2022, Wyoming’s suicides fell from 190 to 136, or about 18%, which is encouraging, given the recent focus on mental health and wellbeing throughout the state.

Programs such as the 988 call center for suicide prevention have undoubtedly helped and will further expand their reach with promised additional funding, but there is strong scientific evidence to support novel treatments such as Equine Assisted Therapy, which are used by groups such as SIS.

In a study performed by researchers at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, 63 veterans suffering from PTSD met weekly for eight 90-minutes sessions, and more than 50% of participants showed a marked reduction in PTSD and clinical depression symptoms post-treatment and in follow-up visits at the three month mark.

The findings, published in Columbia’s medical journal, are part of the university’s ongoing Man O’ War Project.

The answer as to what makes horses and EATs so effective appears to be related to horses’ highly-developed limbic systems.

Horses are highly attuned to humans’ moods and energies, capable of sensing emotions that people may not realize they are subconsciously processing. Humans have a limbic system, too, but ours is not nearly as large and evolved as a horses’, which essentially turns them into a tuning fork.

As a result, when people engage with horses through EAT, they are reorienting their bodies’ nervous system and becoming more aware of how they are feeling, what they are projecting, and how they are interacting with the world around them so as to better relate to the animal in front of them.

Horses and lessons in horsemanship, therefore, allow people to focus their energy outward, serving as a therapeutic anchor to further regulate and mend overtaxed nervous systems, thus combating mental health issues like PTSD, depression, anxiety, and more.

Bercher has seen it himself on the trails.

“SIS gives them something else to think about, another purpose,” he said, adding that several of his own men have since visited and gone riding with him. “When they get neutral and relax after a few days of riding, they start to open up.”

While Bercher has his own horses on his property, he and SIS lease horses for visiting Heroes through Yellowstone Outfitters. SIS pays for this lease through the spring and summer season and covers the cost of care, hay, and feed. At no point in time during the program are Heroes asked to pay a dime; their flights and accommodations as well as the care and training of the horses are taken care of for them.

“I get very emotional talking about this stuff. When I was younger, I had a tough guy mentality. I kept it in because that’s what I thought was expected of me,” Bercher said. “Now that I’m older, I know that my heroes, the World War II and Vietnam veterans, suffered in silence, too.”

“Now I try to be empathetic and just listen,” he said. “If somebody can just listen, that can make a difference. God saved my life, but so did horses and my family.”

To make a donation, visit saddlesinservice.org.