I met him on a muggy morning in July — a friend-of-a-friend’s kid, laser-focused on becoming a Navy SEAL yet clueless where to start. Determination blazed in his eyes, but so did a wound: His father, a first responder, died in the Twin Towers. You could feel the void.
He didn’t want pity. He needed what his dad would’ve given him: strength, guidance and the rock-solid belief that someone had his back. In that moment, I learned a truth that still drives me: The brotherhood doesn’t die with a warrior, it expands to the people he loved.
We toss around “never leave a man behind” at the range, in the firehouse and on hunting trips, but what about when that man is gone forever? Every community has kids carrying that loss; the neighbor boy whose dad didn’t return from deployment, the teen at deer camp whose father died too young. They’re not statistics; they’re future leaders waiting for someone to step into the gap.
Building Character Through the Trident Mindset
In Train for Transformation, our popular Trident Mindset program for kids in juvenile detention, we don’t just build muscle, we build character. These teens run workouts that break grown men, learning our pillars of discipline, focus, adaptability and the courage to move forward when life detonates.
The most powerful mentoring comes when we choose the wrench together. If you volunteer to do brutally hard things, life’s everyday problems shrink quickly.
One morning, my mentee griped, “Why 6 a.m. workouts? Why not a normal time?”
“Because,” I told him, “if you can choose this hard, you can choose to study when you don’t want to. You pick your hard—discipline or regret.”
That’s the moment he fully understood: Hardship is inevitable; ownership is optional.
Step Into The Gap
Mentoring will test every ounce of you. My mentee pushed every boundary —part defiant hero like his dad, part scared kid afraid everyone would leave. I realized my job wasn’t to “fix” him but to show up, consistently and relentlessly, when others walk away.
A single committed mentor changes the odds: Fatherless boys are twice as likely to drop out, yet according to the National Mentoring Partnership, mentored youth are 55% more likely to enroll in college. The math is simple: Presence equals possibility.
Outdoorsmen get this: Teach a kid to tie a fishing knot and he remembers you for a day; teach him how to untangle life’s knots and he’ll guide others for decades. I’ve watched graduates of our program mentor newcomers, breaking cycles that shackled their families for generations.
5-Point Mission Brief for Mentors
There’s a young hunter, angler or neighbor kid in your AO right now who needs a steady hand. You don’t need special training, just the same commitment you’d bring to any mission:
- Spot The Need: Who’s missing a father, a coach, a compass?
- Show Up Weekly: Coffee, range day, early-morning hike. Consistency beats grand gestures.
- Share The Wrench: Invite them into hard, purposeful work. Split wood, run hills, clean game. Talk while you labor.
- Model The Mindset: Discipline, humility, service. They’ll copy what you do, not what you say.
- Repeat Until They Lead: The mission ends only when they’re mentoring someone else.
Let’s Go
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation builds homes for Gold Star families; we build the men those children are meant to become. Somewhere out there is a kid who must know that when warriors fall, others stand up, proving his story doesn’t end with his father’s last chapter.
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