The sun not yet risen, the light will still be dim early Saturday as hundreds of fishing boats stream out of Everett Marina bound for Deception Pass, Mukilteo and other points in the Salish Sea to fish for salmon in the quiet of an August morning.
“It’s spine-tingling,” Monroe’s Ron Garner said of the view.
For Garner, president of the Puget Sound Anglers, and others, this day is about much more than just another day fishing on the water.
Saturday marks the third annual Salmon for Soldiers event.
Started three years ago by Randy and Penny Shelton, and Rob Endsley, Salmon for Soldiers takes military veterans fishing for a day. The boats and gear are provided by area anglers, who also act as guides, allowing the veterans to simply enjoy a day on the water with friends.
“This isn’t veterans on display,” Randy Shelton said. “This is something for true American heroes who have given everything. We’re just trying to honor them and give them a day they can remember.”
Shelton gravitates toward veterans for two reasons: He is one, and so is his son, Chris. When Chris came home from two tours in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, Shelton was reminded of his return home after serving in Korea in the early 1970s. He felt rejected by society and isolated, not sure what to do back in civilian life.
But Shelton, 58, is quick to point out that he doesn’t pretend to know what some of the men coming back now have gone through. So he does what he knows he can do for them: Go fishing.
“I won’t tolerate people who take our wounded veterans and put them over here, out of the way,” Shelton said. “They are citizens of the U.S. and they protected our freedom. We should embrace them. I can’t thank them enough. I do that one fishing trip at a time.”
After Chris returned home in 2013, Shelton was talking with Endsley, an Alaskan charter fishing captain and co-host of The Outdoor Line on 710 ESPN radio, about how much fun it would be to take some veterans fishing for the day. Nine months and thousands of phone calls later, the first Salmon for Soldiers event was held.
“It just seemed like a blessed event,” said Penny Shelton. “From Eagles Scouts providing lunches, Dwayne Lanes providing money for the barbecue, to the boat captains, everyone who heard of it wanted to be a part of it.”
That first year Salmon for Soldiers had 70 boats to take 125 veterans fishing. This year there will be 160 boats on the water to take nearly 400 veterans and their friends out for the day. Penny said there is currently a 20-boat waiting list.
Salmon for Soldiers also organizes one-off trips for veterans. Randy said that two veterans are currently in Alaska fishing with Endsley.
The first event was for disabled veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars only, but the next year it was opened up to all veterans. Shelton said the demand is greater than the supply, and that he wants to be careful they’re not just checking a box.
“We want to provide for as many as we can while still giving it a personal touch,” Randy said. “We contact them and introduce ourselves. We show up and shake their hand.”
The stories of those involved are endless. There’s the veteran who Randy recently visited to help fit a device on his arm so he could go fishing this year.
Or the vet he had to convince with 15 to 20 phone calls to leave his house — he hated civilians — to come out to the first event. He came and it changed his life.
“When he got off the boat he couldn’t believe how healing it was,” Penny Shelton said of the vet. “He says, ‘This was like five years of therapy.’ He went and bought a boat and now he’s one of our boat captains.”
Earlier this year, Shelton helped find someone to build a custom track chair so that a veteran who is quadriplegic could do the one thing he’d been wanting to do since coming home: go hunting. Another veteran, who is blind, wanted to go turkey hunting. So someone donated a turkey hunt.
Garner remembered the time he took out a veteran who had lost his arm in combat. The vet had built a prototype mechanism that allowed him to fish one-handed, but had never been able to try it out until that day.
“They never ask for anything in return,” Garner said. “It means the world to them. It’s an honor to take them out for what they’ve given.”
Brad Brown, the Veterans’ Representative for Salmon for Soldiers, brewed a beer, Freedom’s American Pale Ale with Snohomish’s Sound to Summit Brewing, to raise money for the event this past spring.
Brown, who grew up in Everett and did two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, was able to reconnect with friends from his unit at last year’s Salmon for Soldiers event. It was first time he’d taken part and he said he was surprised at how much the event affected him.
“What Randy (Shelton) and those guys are doing is important,” Brown said. “I hadn’t seen any guys from my unit since I was in combat 11 years ago. It was a big healing experience for me.”
As the boats leave the marina around 6 a.m. on Saturday, full of men heading out for a day of fishing, Randy Shelton will be thinking about the friends he lost during his time in the service and the others that slipped through the fingers of society when they got home. He’ll also be thinking about the young men, like his son, who return home now and feel ostracized.
“I want them to know we’re always flying a flag for them,” he said.
Salmon for Soldiers
To register to go fishing or apply to be a boat captain, visit www.salmonforsoldiers.com. Saturday’s event is closed for registration, but you can register for next summer’s event or other one-off fishing or hunting events.
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