FitOps brings mission of veteran wellness to film festival

NWA Democrat-Gazette/FLIP PUTTHOFF John Cena poses with audience members Saturday after a panel discussion about the FitOps program for veterans.
NWA Democrat-Gazette/FLIP PUTTHOFF John Cena poses with audience members Saturday after a panel discussion about the FitOps program for veterans.

BENTONVILLE -- A veterans service foundation is seeking to help former service members find a sense of purpose and potentially save lives.

Founded in 2016, the FitOps Foundation was the focus of a discussion event at the Bentonville Film Festival on Saturday, featuring FitOps staff members, program supporters and John Cena of World Wrestling Entertainment fame.

The film festival celebrates diversity, said FitOps founder Matt Hesse, explaining one of the biggest challenges for veterans following their service is entering back into a community that's thankful for their sacrifices, but feels sorry for their circumstances.

"We want to flip the script a bit to make it about being thankful for veterans' service but giving in a way that makes vets feel good about their service as well," Hesse said. "This platform allows us to do that."

FitOps' efforts are focused on helping veterans transition into careers as certified personal trainers in an environment they understand, Hesse said. That setting is created at camps that are similar to a basic training environment.

"When we get the vets, most of them are trying to transition or find another career, and we spend three weeks on camp training them," Hesse said, who served for four years as an Army artilleryman and infantryman.

Hesse said the camps focus equally on the veterans' physical, mental and emotional fitness with a schedule that keeps participants engaged from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Bobby Somers, a former Army communications specialist, said both he and his wife, Nicole, have gone through the FitOps program. Somers is now the program's head cook and credits FitOps with not only saving his marriage, but saving his life.

"It forces you to be in the moment," Somers said. "You get to think about yourself, because if you stop taking care of yourself, you can no longer take care of those around you."

The camaraderie of training alongside those with a shared history gives participants an opportunity to heal in a way they may not be able to in other environments, he said.

"If I share a story about Iraq here, unless you're a veteran, it's just going to be a sad story for you," Somers said. "To a veteran, he's going to understand the acronyms that I'm using, he's going to understand going out on mission ... he's going to understand that fear."

Cena, who had considered joining the Marine Corps just two weeks prior to giving professional wrestling a go, said he's seen the healing that can happen when veterans train together at a FitOps camp.

"They share that common thread," he said. "So, when you get a group of people practicing comfortable discipline in an environment they can relate to, you've got a good chance of them opening up and relating to you maybe some stuff that they're going through."

Somers said the very real threat of suicide for veterans makes the program a life-saving necessity for some.

There were more than 6,000 veteran suicides annually from 2008 to 2016, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs Suicide Data Report published in 2018. In 2016, the suicide rate was 1.5 times greater for veterans than for non-veteran adults, after adjusting for age and gender, the report said.

"I'm wanting to address the saving of lives," Cena said.

He said success can be measured by the impacts FitOps has on participants' following graduation.

"Success is walking away with a support system, being able to look at themselves in a different light, maybe being able to face things that they thought were taboo or unapproachable and hopefully look within themselves and grow and become better," Cena said.

To date, FitOps has helped 300 veterans graduate from the program as certified personal trainers at no cost to themselves, Hesse said. At least 1,000 veterans are on a waiting list to participate in future camps, which he said makes the need for getting a permanent home for the camps necessary to bring the program to scale.

The latest FitOps class graduates May 18 from a camp being held at Camp War Eagle in Rogers, Hesse said. Camps are currently offered at a variety of locations throughout the county, but he said he hopes Bentonville will become home to the first permanent FitOps camp.

"The people of Arkansas are extremely patriotic and want to give," Hesse said. "The governor has an initiative to hire more veterans than any other state, bring more veterans to the state of Arkansas.

"When you combine the governor's strategy with the people of Bentonville being giving people and heartfelt for veterans who've served, in combination with Bentonville being such a hub for commerce, it makes for such a great place for this," he said.

NW News on 05/12/2019

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