BY CHRIS LAWRENCE
CHARLESTON — Juan Arevalo of Barbour County grinned ear to ear as he looked into the bed of his pickup truck.
A large doe lay in the truck as he and friends discussed the day’s hunt.
“This is the third deer I’ve ever killed,” he said.
He leaned against the tailgate and admired the big white tail he had harvested only hours earlier from the farm of Mike Gray near the Barbour/Harrison county line.
Arevalo is a native of Columbia and a veteran of the United States Army. His service was what brought him to the farm along with a dozen or so other vets who took advantage of the second segment of West Virginia’s split antlerless hunting season for some hunting and fellowship.
“I was born in Columbia, South America, moved to New York City when I was 10. Then moved to Florida after I graduated from high school. I joined the Army when I was 17 and spent 20 years in the Army. I married a girl from West Virginia, but we got divorced. But I moved to Belington, West Virginia, just to make sure I was part of my kid’s life,” he said.
Those 20 years in the Army took Juan all over the world. He started his duty in Texas, then in Germany in support of operations in Somalia and the first Gulf War. Eventually he was deployed four times in his career, twice to the Balkans, once to Iraq and once to Afghanistan.
“Each of those deployments gave me a life lesson in different aspects and made me who I am right now — which I hope is a good person,” he laughed.
Juan didn’t grow up in the hunting culture, but he was intrigued by the invitation from the group Warriors in the Field, a non-profit organization based in Elkins, which takes veterans on all-expense paid hunting and fishing trips as a way to say thank you for their service.
Sam Sanders, of Fairmont, was another veteran who was along for the day and had killed a doe as well. Sanders spent time in the Army as an MP and transitioned back into civilian life as a federal corrections officer. He appreciated the opportunity to spend a day, not only hunting, but with other vets.
“Yeah, we get to talk and exchange stories about different experiences we’ve had. It’s a lot easier to talk about your service with somebody who has served,” said Sanders
Ironically, the organization, is run by a man who never served. Dave Whittaker founded the group. He is car dealer from Elkins who wanted to make a donation through his business to a national veterans advocacy group and was told they didn’t want his help. Aggravated by the response, Whittaker made some phone calls and within days had his own organization put together and was off and running.
“I’m real proud of the date, Oct. 2, 2015, was the day we were founded. It’s also the late Woody Williams’ birthday,” said Whittaker.
Williams, who recently died, was one of the state’s most recent Medal of Honor recipients for his heroic actions on Iwo Jima during World War II.
“I wasn’t able to serve in the military because of an illness and an injury when I was a young boy. I was the first man in my family who was not in the military,” Whittaker explained.
“I lost my dad to suicide from being in Korea. I was 35 at the time. I wasn’t sure how, but I wanted to give back because PTSD is a terrible thing and because of it I lost my dad” Whittaker siad.
Since the inception, the program has built a following. As more people learned of it, more support developed. The organization routinely takes veterans on hunting trips to various places like Mountain Meadows Hunting Preserve. It regularly takes veterans on guided float fishing trips down the New River and other places.
The antlerless deer hunt is in its second year and is a result of a conversation between Whittaker and Gray.
“My son and I were talking about the fact we were overpopulated with deer and trying to figure out what we could do. We at first thought about giving disabled people a hunting opportunity, but my son knew Dave’s son and we knew he did something with the veterans. It just kind of became a thing after that,” Gray explained.
The inaugural hunt in 2022 resulted in 18 antlerless deer removed from Gray’s farm and that of a neighboring landowner who was also willing to open up his property for the hunt. The hunters in the 2023 program were able to tag 19 does at the end of the day. It was a win for Gray who saw some animals removed from his property and it was a win for the veterans who got the chance to spend a day afield with fellow vets and feel appreciated for their contributions.
For Whittaker, it was just one more opportunity to say thanks.
“I guess it’s almost like a calling now. This is something we feel like we have to do and we want to do,” he said.
The program now takes 50 to 60 veterans on a trip each year and operates strictly on donations. You can make donations or nominate a veteran to join one of the trips by visiting the Warriors in the Field Facebook page or warriorsinthefield.org.
