A Mission in the Mountain: How One Marine Built a Refuge for Our Wounded Warriors
- By Sandee Caviness, Pinewood News
- 6 hours ago
- 13 min read
Each November, the Pinewood News chooses a local veteran to honor for their service. Over the years, Genna and I have felt deep gratitude for every veteran we’ve highlighted, their sacrifices and stories never fail to touch us. But this year’s profile is something different altogether. This veteran’s grace and humility stayed with us long after the interview ended. We hope our readers find their story as meaningful as we did.
Ray Byrne had intended to go to college. He’d earned a football scholarship that covered everything except books, a golden ticket for a young man from modest means. One morning, he headed toward campus to begin that new chapter. But something stopped him in the turn lane.
Call it a gut check. Call it grace.
He looked toward the campus, then straightened the wheel and drove straight to the recruiter’s office.
“I want to join the Marines,” he said. “And I want to leave as soon as possible. Just not before November 15th.”
The recruiter, accustomed to impulsive young men, studied him carefully. “Law looking for you? Girl pregnant?”
“Neither,” Ray said. “I just know myself. If I go to college, I’ll screw it up.”
Ray laughs now when he tells that story. He wasn’t book smart, he admits, not at the time. He was a young man who enjoyed a good time and found trouble more often than he should have. But in that moment, the quiet voice telling him to pause revealed a different kind of intelligence. It showed wisdom. Ray knew what kind of man he didn’t want to become.
He asked to leave after November 15th because he had deer tags. He figured he’d squeeze in one more hunt. The Corps shipped him out on December 2nd.
Learning to Lead
Ray made it through boot camp and trained in North Carolina. Then he requested a post in Okinawa with the Third Marine Division, not a choice many made willingly.
“Every Marine ends up in Okinawa,” he said. “I figured it was smarter to go early rather than late. I didn’t have a wife or children. Nothing was holding me back.”
It was another act of quiet wisdom. While he prepared for military life overseas, unbeknownst to him, he had twins on the way.
In Okinawa, they sized up his frame and sent him to the armory. Ray had trained as a motor vehicle operator, but the Marines put you where you’re needed. His master sergeant had different plans, Ray would run the motor pool.
The work demanded precision. No computers. No networks. Everything depended on paper, process, and memory. Stacks of manuals replaced the convenience of a search bar, and every answer had to be earned.
His supervisor challenged him constantly, testing what he knew and pushing him to learn what he didn’t. Once, he asked, “What’s the only vehicle in the military you can’t fire on under the Geneva Convention?”
Ray didn’t know. So he dug through manuals, page after page, until he found the answer — the ambulance.
It was a simple challenge, but it taught Ray how to dig for information and solve problems without anyone handing him the solution.
His work didn’t go unnoticed. After two years managing the motor pool overseas, Ray returned to Camp Pendleton and checked in with the 1st Marine Regiment. They put him in charge again. He’d already managed four times the equipment overseas—if he could handle that, they figured, he could handle anything. Even giving orders to Marines who outranked him.
Ray understood the difference between rank and respect.
“With senior guys, I’d ask for help instead of barking at them,” he said. “No hard feelings. With the younger ones, I kept it simple: get it done. Got the same result.”
This practical, ego-free leadership stayed with him long after he left the Corps.
Building a Life
When his time in the Marines ended, Ray entered law enforcement. He started as a detention officer in Coconino County, then became a deputy. But the job, though honorable, couldn’t support a family with three children. Ray needed more.
He turned to construction and joined the Army National Guard at Camp Navajo to supplement his income.
“One weekend a month, two weeks a year,” he said. “And I loved it.”
Eventually, Ray founded America Roofing in the Valley, a business his sons still run today. But it wasn’t just shingles and contracts. Ray understood the value of service. As both a veteran and a first responder, he knew what those roles demanded. So his business gave back—discounts, support, honor.
“We always helped where we could,” Ray said. “It was the right thing to do.”
Ray Byrne never claimed to be a scholar. But in every moment that mattered, he showed wisdom. From that split-second turn away from college to years of managing men and missions with quiet command, Ray built a life on grit, instinct, and deep respect for duty.
That’s the kind of man worth honoring. The kind who kept his word, carried his weight, and never forgot where he came from.
A New Mission
Ray retired young and handed the business to his sons. Now he spends his days in the woods on a quiet stretch of Mormon Mountain.
“I never thought I’d have a cabin here,” he said. “My dad hates when I bring this up, but it speaks to where we came from, and I’m proud of it.”
His father grew up in a house with dirt floors and tar paper walls. The house burned down, and they lost Ray’s great-uncle Franklin. After the fire, the family moved into a home with concrete floors and block walls. It wasn’t much, but it was more.
“My parents had five kids to feed. Money was always tight. So owning a cabin in the woods feels like a miracle, and I don’t take it for granted.”
With the gift of time and land he never expected to own, Ray began asking what should come next. He’d been blessed. It was time to give back, he thought, not through a donation but through work that carried meaning.
Ray started looking for the right organization. He did his homework. There were plenty of veteran programs, but he wanted one that invested its money in the mission, not overhead.
That’s when he found the Arizona Elk Society and their Heroes Rising program. Volunteers ran it. Donations went straight to the mission. One program in particular caught his attention: Guiding Our Heroes on a Hunt, designed to reconnect veterans with hunting and the wild places of Arizona.
“I love the forest. I love to hunt. I love being out in nature,” Ray said. “It was a perfect fit.”
Since 2019, Ray and his volunteer crew have been taking veterans on hunts. “It’s hard work and exhausting”, Ray says. Every year, he hits a wall. He’s tired. He asks himself why he’s doing this. But each year, something happens that gives him the answer—a moment, a conversation, a quiet reminder of why it matters.
Stories from the Mountain
“Some of these vets show up with more challenges than I’ve ever seen,” Ray said. “And to be honest, it helps me just as much as it helps them.”
One of the toughest cases was a Navy SEAL from Vietnam. Sixty-eight confirmed kills. Trained as a master chef in Italy. Played for the Miami Dolphins. Now he has dementia, he’s missing a leg, and he’s legally blind.
“Around here, we call him Blind Bob,” Ray said. “And we say it with nothing but respect. That’s the kind of man I want to see succeed. But I remember thinking, how am I going to make this work?”
Ray remembers Blind Bob vividly. “We called it divine intervention,” Ray says. “And I’m not exaggerating.
The first day they took him out, they spotted five bucks. Ray quietly pointed them out, clear as day, just 50 yards away. But Bob couldn’t see a thing. The light wasn’t right.
They went back to camp empty-handed.
The next morning, Ray asked him, “Bob, what can I do to make this easier for you? How can I help?”
Bob thought for a long moment. Then he said, “If you could find a deer standing in the open, in the sun, with the light just right... I think I could see it.”
Ray nodded, but inside he was already mourning the moment. This is impossible, Ray thought. That kind of shot doesn’t happen. Not like that. Not on command.
So Ray did the only thing he could, “God, I need a hookup here,” he said, half pleading, half hoping.
But that afternoon, something shifted.
A deer stepped into an opening. Standing in full sun. Perfect light. Perfect distance.
Ray whispered, “I’ll be damned.”
They used a special scope synced to a phone so the team could guide Bob by watching the sight on screen. It took coordination, patience, and trust.
Bob pulled the trigger.
The shot landed.
And the mountain, once again, gave something back.
There’s no trophy on Bob’s wall. There’s no memory he’ll hold onto for long. But for a second, everything came together, and Blind Bob got to be a hunter again.
And for those who were there, it didn’t feel like chance. It felt like grace.
Then there’s Nick and Vinny.
Nick carries a weight of PTSD, survivor’s guilt, the things that cling to you after war even when you scrub yourself raw trying to get clean.
He had a buddy named Vinny, who also suffered from PTSD, and hadn’t left his house in five years.
Five. Years.
Somehow, Nick convinced him to come on a hunt. Vinny didn’t carry a gun. He wasn’t ready for that. He came to be with Nick, and for now, that was enough.
But once Vinny got into the mountains, once he breathed the air and felt the brotherhood around him, something shifted. He didn’t want to leave.
Six months later, Nick and Vinny came back for a weekend. Four months after that, when Ray was gearing up for Blind Bob’s deer hunt and needed help, he called them both.
They said yes.
Then Nick and his family came down with COVID and had to cancel, but Vinny came anyway.
The same man who hadn’t stepped outside his home in half a decade drove up the mountain alone. He got out of his truck, smiling.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said.
“What’s that?” Ray asked.
“I got a job.” Then he paused. “And I got baptized!”
Vinny never came for the hunt. He came for a friend. But something about the mountains, the air, the people, and the silence cracked through the walls he’d built around himself.
He found purpose again. He found God.
That’s what the mountain does sometimes. It doesn’t just hand you a deer or a good story. It hands you a mirror. A moment. A second chance.
And Ray—he keeps going. Keeps hauling gear and hope and sorrow up the hill. Not for glory. Not even for healing, really. Just for the chance that someone might come down changed.
The General Who Never Wore Stars
Six years ago, a man named Dan came to enjoy the land and hunt. He and Ray have been good friends ever since. When Dan joined our interview, the depth of what Ray’s mission means became impossible to miss.
“What Ray and his family are doing is incredible,” Dan said. “They opened their home to help us enjoy the outdoors and hunting. They’re sharing what they have with those who sacrificed their minds and bodies in service to our country. I am one of them, and I can’t tell you how much this program means to me.”
Dan started college studying marine biology. But over time, he felt called to something different. He attended a missionary conference, and the advice he received surprised him: become a nurse.
“I remember thinking I was pretty big to be a nurse at six-foot-seven,” he said. “But I felt led to follow that path.”
He attended nursing school at the University of Washington, spent a year in critical care, then worked as a paramedic nurse in Seattle. It wasn’t what he’d originally planned, but it turned out to be exactly where he was meant to be.
At 38, while volunteering with FEMA after the Northridge earthquake, members of an Air Force evacuation crew approached him. They were launching a new program and wanted him to join.
So he did. Dan joined the Air Force Reserve as an AirEvac nurse.
Dan was selected with about 70 others to help launch a program that would address a brutal reality: throughout all our wars, the most severely wounded were left behind. There was no way to get them out safely or alive. The system simply didn’t exist.
That changed with the Critical Care Air Transport Team, or CCATT.
Think of an ICU at 30,000 feet. A doctor, a critical care nurse, and a respiratory therapist working together to stabilize severely injured warfighters during flights to hospitals in Germany, the San Antonio Burn Unit, or wherever care was waiting.
Each CCATT mission could last up to 30 hours. They could carry up to four critical patients, though sometimes injuries were so severe they could only take one. The walking wounded rode up front. Dan and his team worked in the back, managing every breath, every heartbeat.
“As soon as dustoff (medevac by chopper) called us, we moved,” Dan said. “We usually arrived within two hours of the incident. After emergency surgery at the MASH unit, we took over—put them on ventilators, drips, whatever was needed, and got them out.”
The job took a toll.
Dan shattered his spine while offloading a patient from a transport plane. He’d just spent 14 hours monitoring critical care in the air. When they landed, he and two Marines prepared to transfer 700 pounds of patient and gear onto a K-loader—an unstable scissor lift designed for cargo, not people.
“I kept yelling, ‘Watch the rollers, watch the rollers,’” Dan said.
When one Marine slipped, the stretcher twisted. Dan turned instinctively to steady it and protect the patient. In that instant, his spine shattered.
Injured and in blinding pain, Dan helped load the patient onto the transport. As they boarded, the doctor looked at him and said, “You still have to care for the patient.”
So he did. With no feeling in his legs and pain searing through his back, Dan kept going.
That wasn’t his only injury. He’s a tall man moving fast in tight quarters. Twice, he stood up too quickly on the plane and was knocked unconscious, suffering traumatic brain injuries both times. He lost much of his hearing. He shattered his wrist, which had to be surgically rebuilt.
And then there was the smoke.
Dan was exposed to toxic burn pits filled with discarded munitions, including depleted uranium. The smoke drifted through the base and into their lungs. He now lives with diabetes, pancreatic disease, and a list of chronic illnesses with no family history. He knows exactly where they came from.
And still, the worst wounds may be the ones that don’t show.
Dan’s PTSD is severe. He remembers every patient. He still sees them in his nightmares.
“This is why I need Ray,” Dan said. “He helps me face these challenges every year. It’s an amazing thing he’s done.”
Dan had hunted his whole life. “I figured I was done,” he said. “That part of my life was over. But I wasn’t ready to let it go.”
The Arizona Elk Society and Ray changed that.
“I retired as a Lieutenant Colonel,” Dan said. “That meant something to me. But Ray—Ray’s like a general. You don’t have to wear stars to lead men. You just have to show up when it counts.”
The Table in the Woods
To understand what Ray has built, you have to know the setting. Ray and his wife Kim have a separate living space beyond their main cabin, nestled among the pines on Mormon Mountain. The land is still and peaceful. Inside stands a long, solid wood table capable of seating a dozen men. Great windows run floor to ceiling, letting filtered light pour in from the forest.
The walls are timber. Everything about the space whispers the same thing: You are welcome here. You may lay down what you carry.
Around that table, the men speak in the language of soldiers. No one needs to translate. No one asks for clarification. They can just be.
“We’re brothers,” Dan said. “We understand each other.”
What he didn’t say outright, but what was deeply felt, is that there are things which, once experienced, separate a man from the world he once knew. Only those who have endured similar things can understand the weight soldiers carry—the losses, the guilt, the grief. Here, that weight can rest on the table like another guest. And unlike elsewhere, it’s not asked to leave.
This is the power of Ray’s place. For combat veterans who’ve returned to a world that cannot comprehend what they carry, the table, the mountain, the hunt, the men—it all matters. Here, at last, they speak. And more importantly, they’re heard.
“Kim is the backbone of this mission”, Ray explains. “She’s the one who makes it all happen, taking care of every detail—from having cleaning wipes ready for eyeglasses to putting out incredible meals. Nobody goes hungry. In fact, it’s probably the only hunting trip where people gain weight.”
Most hunts involve tents and outhouses. Ray’s camp offers something more: a warm cabin, a bed, a table, and a place to let go. But the veterans don’t come for the extras. They come for the hunt. For each other.
“Every day I think about coming here,” Dan said. “Not about what’s wrong in my life. I think about the five days I get to spend with Ray. The five days I get with my cousin Scott, who believes in this so much he flies up just to be here with me and the guys.”
Ray’s goal is simple. “Give them a place where they can be comfortable,” he said. “Where they don’t have to carry everything all the time. If they can get to that point, where they can let it go, even just for a while, then we’ve done what we came here to do.”
This isn’t just a hunting trip. It’s healing. It’s hope. It’s a lifeline.
And you can feel it: something greater is at work here.
Air Force Hall of Fame Inductee: 21,000 Lives Saved
By 2013, when Lt. Col. Dan Berg was inducted into the Air Force Hall of Fame, the program he helped launch had saved over 21,000 lives.
Before the Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT), the most severely wounded warriors were left behind. There was no way to evacuate them safely. Throughout all our wars, that brutal reality remained unchanged until CCATT.
Dan was one of about 70 selected to build the solution: an ICU at 30,000 feet. A doctor, critical care nurse, and respiratory therapist working together to stabilize the critically injured during flights that could last 30 hours.
Dan personally managed more than 21,000 trauma transports, including 104 critically wounded during 46 alert missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flying primarily in C-141 aircraft, he responded within two hours of dustoff calls, taking over after emergency surgery to get warriors to definitive care.
His most striking statistic? He has never lost a patient in transport.
How You Can Help
Ray and the vets go through the same draw process as every other hunter in Arizona. They don’t get special treatment. Every tag has to be applied for, and most years, it’s a mix of luck and generosity.
Hunters who pull a tag and want to donate it can do so through the Arizona Elk Society. They accept tags for elk, deer, ram, even buffalo. Once the tags are donated, the Elk Society reaches out to people like Ray, who run hunts for veterans across the state.
If you’re a hunter and you pull a tag for Zone 6A, you can donate it to Ray’s program through the Arizona Elk Society. It’s a way to give back — one tag, one vet, one life-changing experience at a time.
A Note of Thanks from Ray
None of this would be possible without the incredible people who give their time, year after year, expecting nothing in return. Every single person listed here is a volunteer. The non-family members have devoted hundreds of hours to scouting and spending time with hunters in the field. Their generosity and dedication mean everything to this mission—and to me.
Family
Kim Byrne
Robert “Bob” Byrne
John Byrne
Kevin Byrne
Mario Perez
Colleen Perez
Volunteers
Chris Adams
Anthony French
Lucas Longtine
Tanner Bunch
Hayden Jacobs
Sam Pesuti
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