Veterans return to help couple that helped others

They came to split and stack wood, to weed the garden and wrangle goats, a simple way to give thanks to a couple that gave them hope again. Todd Gladfelter watched the workers, mostly men who served in the military and suffered afterward, from his wheelchair on a Sunday afternoon in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Gladfelter, 63, had slipped off a nearby shed on Black Friday in 2021 and broke three vertebrae in his neck. The fall left him paralyzed on the right side with only partial movement on the left. Gladfelter was a master woodsman, a chainsaw-carving artist more at home under the stars than a roof, and the fall broke his spirit too. Cindy Ross, his wife and lifelong hiking partner, made him rebuild the broken things he could fix, though. “She made me work,” Gladfelter, 63, said in April. “She makes me work every day.”

In 2014, Gladfelter and Ross founded River House, a nonprofit that helps take veterans into nature for healing through hiking, biking, kayaking, and camping. Three years ago,

Ross authored a book, Walking Toward Peace: Veterans Healing on America’s Trails, that tells the stories of 25 veterans searching for solace in the outdoors. Since Gladfelter’s fall, some of those same veterans have returned to the couple’s cabin in the woods to clear brush, mow the lawn, or simply have meals and laugh together. “It helps me not to be alone. I spent a lot of time in inpatient treatment at the VA and when I left, I was all by myself again. There was like nobody that understood me, anywhere,” said Mike Peterman, 41, a bomb technician who served in Afghanistan with the Army. “Then I came here and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s not just me.’ It’s helpful and makes it easy to come back. I’m helping because they made it easier for me.” Veteran Ramon Madrid, 39, piled logs high into a wheelbarrow, back and forth from a pickup truck to a woodshed behind the cabin. Madrid served in the Army, doing two tours in Iraq before being assigned to a security and cleanup detail in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. “That had its own challenges, because I grew up there, and you have to transition from a combat zone,” he said. This Sunday was Madrid’s first at the cabin, but he’d seen Ross speak about using nature as therapy and was intrigued. A graduate of the Rodale Institute’s Farmer Training Program in Pennsylvania, Madrid said agriculture has been healing for him. “They’re doing things I believe in,” he said of Ross and Gladfelter. Ross, an artist and writer, first encountered veterans suffering from PTSD through her writing when she interviewed some veteran “hiking off their war trauma.” The experience changed Ross’ life and she and Gladfelter decided to make it a focal point. “Well, we knew so much about hiking and backpacking and we’d raised our kids that way. We thought we can do this,” Ross said. “I can take them hiking and they can talk amongst themselves about their war stuff.” After the accident, Ross has chronicled “Todd’s Road to Recovery” on her website, but it’s not full of inspirational quotes that can be framed and hung on a wall. Sometimes Gladfelter grows despondent. Sometimes Ross needs a break, a long walk in the woods, alone.

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear that, or think you should share it,” Ross said. “I’ll save the rest for the book.” Gladfelter attributes much of his recovery to his wife, her tough love, and their collective love of the outdoors. Today, he can walk with a walker and even a cane for a short time. He’s carving wood again and rides a modified recumbent bicycle so well that he and Ross will be biking about 140 miles along the Delaware & Lehigh Canal Trail in the coming weeks. Ryan Allman, an Army veteran from Cleveland, will be joining them on his recumbent bike. He was helping Gladfelter tune up his bike after hauling logs. “Something about being outdoors, even if it’s doing work like today, changes you,” he said. Gladfelter’s and Ross’ ride along the canal is just a warm-up though. Ross said they’ll be embarking on a 2,000-mile ride on the Great American Rail Trail next year to raise money for more accessibility in nature.