the strange body positions. Even impassive Mason, who moved as
little as possible, swiveled her torso for gentle twists. Skinny Hana
was usually cold but always smiled. I noticed she was babbling less.
Each day, there was more laughter. Lopez created nicknames for
our guides, who rowed the gear boats, cooked the food, set up our
tents and then left us alone. They were all young, strong, and mostly
male. She dubbed the clean-cut trip leader, Reid, Captain America.
Another, burlier guy with long hair became Fabio. Like an army unit
but with better hair, they had their jobs, routines and ways of
contributing to the group. Some were funny, some wise, some
watchful.
“This is not unlike war,” Herrera told me. “There’s something that
can kill you. There’s a tight group that depends on you for survival,
and everyone is a part of it. Bonds develop that have meaning. Life is
better when it’s simple. Here, like in the Army, you don’t have forty
different options for toothpaste. You have your place. We all have it.”
IT’S NO WONDER there is a storied American legacy of damaged
soldiers heading for the wilderness. The backwoods of Idaho,
Montana and Alaska are notoriously peopled by veterans. After
Vietnam, men went there who felt misunderstood by civilization and
found the greatest peace away from it. But despite its strong anecdotal
legacy, the wilderness is not recognized by the Veterans
Administration, or even by most psychologists, as a legitimate
healing tool. It’s largely been the veterans themselves, privately
funded and socially inclined, who are driving the current renaissance
of programs aimed at helping service members.
David Scheinfeld, who has led Outward Bound backpacking
courses for veterans for 11 years, uses the term “therapeutic
adventure,” but doesn’t necessarily share that with the participants.
He has seen so many lives transformed by six-day trips in the wild
that he decided to study them for his Ph.D. in psychology from the