Earlier this month, Freedom Alliance had the pleasure of sending four Marines to hunt for mallards at H2O Fowl Farms in Dunn, North Carolina.
This special event was hosted by the Johnston County Quail and Upland Wildlife Federation, and their members were on site to make sure our Marines had a blast—literally and figuratively!
We invited Marines Wally, Kevin, Tom, and Colby.
Wally was an MP (military police) with the Marine Corps and later joined Special Operations, deploying three times to Afghanistan. He most recently served as a dog handler for a bomb-sniffing black labrador; Rocky also attended the duck hunt with his owner.
Kevin, a nine-year Marine veteran, served in Iraq and Afghanistan. When his vehicle was hit by an explosion during combat, Kevin’s legs were crushed, and he is medically retired as a result.
Tom, a gunnery sergeant, spent 14 years in the Marine Corps and five deployments. These include tours in Fallujah, Iraq and aboard a ship in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Inherent Resolve.
Staff Sergeant Colby first deployed to Iraq in 2007. Later, he served with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit responding to piracy off the coast of Somalia. He’s since moved into the intelligence field, countering Islamic extremist groups such as Boko Haram.
This was Colby’s first duck hunt, and he said, “The guides were great, the dogs were awesome to watch, the staff bent over backwards to take care of us, and I got my limit of ducks!”
He said that he came with one box of ammunition, which he guessed would be enough; but when he ran out, a member of the QUWF handed him another box of ammo without him even asking for it.
“Thank you and everyone who worked to put this hunt on for us,” he said.
Kevin had been duck hunting for seven years, but he’d never taken a green-headed mallard … until this event with QUWF. He said his trophy was going on the wall and it was “definitely a memory that will always be with me.”
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