THE WAR PARTY MOVEMENT

After 22 years of military service as a Special Forces Operator (Green Beret) I knew I needed to find a new purpose after retiring. To still embody the Special Forces motto of De Oppresso Liber (To Free the Oppressed) and serve my community in this next chapter of my life. I wanted to honor my family and continue the work my mother, Louise “Mountain Lamb” Wilber (Mescalero Apache) did in the Native community. I began to assist families in the Native community by conducting Search and Rescue efforts for missing loved ones, but the demands quickly grew, and I needed a way to help offset the associated costs. This is where the War Party Movement was born.

But after just a few months of helping multiple women to escape abusive relationships, the team at War Party Movement realized we had a problem. Once we extracted someone from an abusive situation, it was incredibly difficult to find a safe, long-term solution for them. Short-term shelters only offered 30-day solutions, which limited the opportunities for healing, recovery, and rehabilitation. 30 days was not enough time for women to break the abuse cycle, learn a viable skill set, find employment, or establish housing… and so many of these women would find themselves back in the same place we helped them escape from. 

We needed a long-term solution to help these women permanently escape their abusers and establish an independent life of their own. So I turned to a dear friend (and the most bad ass cowgirl I know), Mikah Wysocki, and together we collaborated to create a skills training, rehabilitation and housing program for the women we rescued. With my warrior background and Mikah’s kind, gritty, no-nonsense approach to problem-solving, we established a much-needed, long-term solution to breaking the cycle of abuse: the War Party Ranch.