{"id":310071,"date":"2024-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=310071"},"modified":"2024-10-24T16:51:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T16:51:10","slug":"cowboys-4-heroes-dfmwr-support-morale-of-fort-cavazos-soldiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=310071","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys 4 Heroes, DFMWR support morale of Fort Cavazos Soldiers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Chris Joplin, volunteer with Cowboys 4 Heroes, brings hot coals from a fire to sit on a pot during the Cowboys 4 Heroes Bumpers and BBQ event Oct. 19, 2024, at Fort Cavazos, Texas. Inside the pot are homemade biscuits. Biscuits are just one of the many items served at the event.
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\n Volunteers plate beef tips with homemade biscuits for attendees during the annual Cowboys 4 Heroes Bumpers and BBQ event Oct. 19, 2024, at Fort Cavazos, Texas.
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\n Volunteers hand over a bowl of chili, one of many dishes available, for an attendee during the annual Cowboys 4 Heroes Bumpers and BBQ event Oct. 19, 2024, at Fort Cavazos, Texas.
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FORT CAVAZOS, Texas \u2014<\/strong> The smell of barbecue wafted through the air as dozens of people began lining up early to try one of the many offerings at this year\u2019s Cowboys 4 Heroes Bumpers and BBQ event Oct. 19 at the Phantom Warrior Center.<\/p>\n

The annual event provides attendees with an authentic chuck wagon barbecue experience, cooking food over open fire and wood-burning stoves, along with the chance to shop at local vendor booths, enjoy a pumpkin patch, rock climb, ride the Belton Lake Outdoor Recreation Area train and vote on their favorite modern or classic car.<\/p>\n

\u201cCowboys 4 Heroes comes out to honor the veterans and the active-duty \u2014 the first responders,\u201d said Norma Hernandez, Fort Cavazos Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation community activities coordinator. \u201cIt\u2019s their way of giving back to them and honoring them today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Houston-based organization was founded in 2009 to assist combat veterans during the challenging transition from active-duty to civilian life. The volunteers who comprise the organization help veterans with combat-related wounds of war as they and their families find and adjust to their new normal.<\/p>\n

Since their inception, Cowboys 4 Heroes donors and volunteers have provided more than 1.5 million meals and nutritional support to active-duty military, veterans, their families and first responders. This is in addition to providing more than $350,000 in educational support to Future Farmers of America and 4-H youth who raise the steer, which are locally processed and provided to the program partners to assist veterans and their families.<\/p>\n

This year, they planned to serve around 18,000 meals to Soldiers, family members, retirees and Department of the Army civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first started doing this \u2014 the youth of Texas and then service members \u2014 it became such an easy group to serve,\u201d said Greg Liles, founder of Cowboys 4 Heroes. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter who you are, what side of the ledger you\u2019re on politically, male or female, young or old, \u2014 it doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s such an easy group to serve, and they\u2019re underserved in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to come serve,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe\u2019ll have around 200 people here today on cook team serving. They all come free. We love doing it. The sacrifices are real, and we\u2019re just trying to give back and say, \u2018Thank you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Among those volunteers were Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets from Texas A&M University, with the intent on giving back to the Central Texas community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I came here today is because my corps commander is a very big advocate for volunteer service,\u201d explained Cadet Dallas Salazar, a senior at Texas A&M. \u201cI really enjoy volunteer services at Texas A&M; they have this thing called the Big Event. It\u2019s a service opportunity that has the whole campus go out and help serve the local community. And I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to get to meet new people and help volunteer and serve the local community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other cadets in attendance agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was just one of the ways I thought I could give back,\u201d said Cadet Natalie Perez, a sophomore at Texas A&M. \u201cMy dad was stationed on (then) Fort Hood for a very long time, so coming back around, giving back to the community that pretty much raised me, it was a really, really easy choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the fifth year for this event, which always has the intent to support the morale of the Soldiers stationed here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that the Soldiers know that they\u2019re appreciated, they\u2019re seen, they\u2019re heard, and there\u2019s people out there that are willing to come together and do something like this for them,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy team and I \u2014 we say this all the time: \u2018It\u2019s a labor of love,\u2019\u201d Hernandez added. \u201cBut as soon as we see all the crowds come out, \u2026 we\u2019re all like, \u2018This is what we put together. This is what we did.\u2019 And we get a sense of joy and accomplishment in bringing this out to the community. We love it. It\u2019s just like I said. It\u2019s a labor of love, but we love it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 3 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 Chris Joplin, volunteer with Cowboys 4 Heroes, brings hot coals from a fire to sit on a pot during the Cowboys 4 Heroes Bumpers and BBQ event Oct. 19, 2024, at Fort Cavazos, Texas. Inside the pot are homemade biscuits. Biscuits are just one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310073,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=310071"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310077,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310071\/revisions\/310077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/310073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=310071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=310071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=310071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}