{"id":2454891,"date":"2020-02-22T23:04:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/sen-michael-bennet-celebrates-triple-deuce-day-at-camp-hale\/"},"modified":"2020-02-22T23:04:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T06:04:00","slug":"sen-michael-bennet-celebrates-triple-deuce-day-at-camp-hale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/sen-michael-bennet-celebrates-triple-deuce-day-at-camp-hale\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Michael Bennet celebrates Triple Deuce Day at Camp Hale"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Veterans pose with Colorado US Senator Michael Bennet as they walk, ski and snowshoe around Camp Hale Saturday. Some of the vets went to Vail the day before to enjoy and learn more about what made Vail what it is today.<\/strong>
Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

CAMP HALE \u2014 Mike Greenwood and his friends from the 10th Mountain Division have a special reason to celebrate Triple Deuce Day \u2014 Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

From 2003 to 2007, Greenwood and his friends served in the 10th Mountain Division\u2019s 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, known as the Triple Deuce.<\/p>\n

This year on Feb. 22, Greenwood and seven friends decided to visit Camp Hale, where the 10th Mountain Division got its start and \u2014 knowing he was on recess \u2014 they invited Sen. Michael Bennet, who has been working to preserve Camp Hale as the nation\u2019s first National Historic Landscape through a bill called the Colorado Outdoor Recreation & Economy Act.<\/p>\n

The group brought snowshoes, crampons and even a few splitboards bearing the 10th Mountain Division insignia for their tour of the historic training ground which prepared ski troopers for Alpine warfare during World War II.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t think of a more appropriate anchor for the CORE Act than Camp Hale,\u201d Bennet said on Saturday. \u201cIt captures exactly what Colorado is. These guys came here, they trained here, they went and fought overseas, successfully, and then they came back and started our outdoor rec industry, started Vail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where healing happens<\/p>\n

While Greenwood and company trained at Fort Drum in New York, also along on Saturday\u2019s trip was Nancy Kramer, whose father trained at Camp Hale in the 1940s. She is now the president of the 10th Mountain Division Foundation, and calls Camp Hale a healing place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is where more healing needs to happen,\u201d Kramer told the group on Saturday. \u201cFor vets, as well as our general public, frankly. We\u2019ve got some public health crises coming down the pike; we\u2019ve got to get people outdoors more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenwood said the idea to get everyone together started with men like William Kramer, Nancy\u2019s father, in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt initially started as, let\u2019s go out to Camp Hale, I want to show you the land, I want to show you what her father trained on \u2026 let\u2019s go have fun,\u201d Greenwood said. \u201cWe decided to contact (Sen. Bennet) and see if he wants to hang out with us and meet the guys who care about this land, and meet organizations who help veterans heal, or come home, or find nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greenwood is now working with Huts for Vets, a wilderness therapy program for war veterans who have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder or brain trauma.<\/p>\n

Col. Dick Merrit, a Vietnam war veteran and board member at Huts for Vets, said he is inspired by former Vail Mountain manager and 10th Mountain Division WWII veteran William \u201cSarge\u201d Brown in the work he does. Brown also served in the Korean War before helping Vail become what it is today.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s my hero,\u201d Merrit said.<\/p>\n

While Merrit was inspired by Sarge Brown, Bennet says it\u2019s people like Merrit who have inspired him in working to see the CORE Act passed.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Merrit) said to me \u2026 there\u2019s a whole new generation of vets who are getting out into the wilderness, getting out into public lands as a way of reacclimating to civilian life,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cNobody is doing more for them than veterans who preceded them, and they know how important public land is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vets fight to protect public lands<\/p>\n

Bennet said he thinks the CORE Act has a chance of getting passed this year.<\/p>\n

With the help of Congressman Joe Neguse, who represents Vail and part of Eagle County in the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill passed the House on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n

In passing by a vote of 227-182, the CORE Act found bipartisan support in the House, and Bennet is hopeful that it also will see support across the aisle in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are Republicans in this state who support the CORE Act,\u201d said Bennet, who is a Democrat. \u201cThey know that \u2014 it\u2019s 400,000 acres total, 70,000 of which is wilderness \u2014 all of that is protecting our watersheds. People want to protect our watersheds.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Camp Hale portion, which represents 28,728 acres, \u201cdoesn\u2019t hurt, obviously, because people, I think, want to preserve the legacy of Camp Hale,\u201d Bennet added, \u201cbut in addition to that, it\u2019s a reminder of what an important part of our culture and our history our public lands are. And the vets that come from all over Colorado and all over the country to support this work are truly an inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merrit said he\u2019s ready for a fight, if that\u2019s what it takes to get the bill passed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all fought in foreign countries for protecting our country, and now we\u2019re coming back here and we\u2019re fighting to protect the land,\u201d Merrit said. \u201cSo we can heal in the wilderness and for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veterans pose with Colorado US Senator Michael Bennet as they walk, ski and snowshoe around Camp Hale Saturday. Some of the vets went to Vail the day before to enjoy and learn more about what made Vail what it is today.Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com CAMP HALE \u2014 Mike Greenwood and his friends from the 10th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2454891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 14:04:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2454891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2454891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2454891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2454891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2454891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}