Fifth Green Beret with a Mission Challenge tests participants' endurance, mental grit

BRISTOL — Ladd Farm’s 192 acres was a flurry of staged military combat activity on Saturday for the fifth annual Green Beret with a Mission Challenge, as competitors fought through overgrown trails and muddy, rainy conditions to raise funds for veteran-serving organizations.

“It's designed to be a scenario that unfolds as people walk along. So each person has a Green Beret walker who is letting people know, kind of like, what a Green Beret does, how they're trained [and] some of the things they do in their training,” said Brenda Ladd, who owns Ladd Farm with her husband, Jon. “It is quite challenging. Intimidating.”

The mission-based endurance event tracked seven teams in the morning session as they competed for points at nine stations, each one cultivated to simulate real-world military scenarios. Tasks like wearing camouflage and carrying a backpack earned extra points. Roughly 25 Green Berets and Army Rangers volunteered at the event.

This year, stations included the rope bridge, an ambush halftrack, water resupply and drop-off, hand grenades, react to enemy contact, ammo resupply and drop-off, MPX shooting, first aid and patient drop-off, and a log walk and wall climb.

“The mud crawl — and we made it this year — we made it really spicy. We got some of our composted horse manure and mixed in some potting soil, and then we just keep pouring water in it through through the day,” Ladd said.

At the water resupply station, members of Team 110 Fitness earned points for carrying water jugs of varying weight up the trail’s steepest hill, meeting volunteers at the top who returned the jugs to the bottom for the next team. Several members of Team 110 Fitness are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and showed their true resilience.

Volunteering at the top of the big hill were Danielle and Matthew Ayers of Temple. Matthew, an Army veteran, enjoys pitching in each year at the event.

Matt does it to give back, adding, “it's always fun to just support and cheer on the teams that are out here.”

Across the course, participants crawled through cold, stinky mud laced with manure while carrying a “rubber ducky,” a fake gun resembling the weight and sound of an assault weapon, the sounds of enemy fire filling the air. At another station, they dealt with that enemy fire: A group of kids spraying water guns from the tree line.

Additional teams participating included the Snapping Turtles — “slow yet dangerous” — and the Green Beret Rockers, along with first-place winners Team Lockheed Martin.

“For teams going through it, it’s a great team-building experience and it’s fun. For the volunteers, it’s a great team-building experience and it’s fun. It’s the camaraderie,” said Kurt Webber, a retired U.S. Army officer who is heavily involved with the event. “Even when the weather is lousy and people are covered in mud and tired.”

The fundraiser began years ago, after the Ladd Family connected with Swim With a Mission, a similar water endurance test meant to challenge participants and spread awareness about the nation’s military members.

“Brenda and Jon are super people. They not only let us use the farm, but they work as hard as we do to make the event a success,” Webber said.

The proceeds from Green Beret with a Mission generate 35% to 40% of the nonprofit’s annual revenue, benefitting SWAM and Camp Resilience, a Gilford-based organization which utilizes the New Hampshire landscape to improve the emotional, physical and mental well-being of veterans and first responders through outdoor experiential learning activities.

Following the course, which takes about two hours to complete, a lunch was served in the barn, where tables of merch promoted various service organizations.

After miles of grueling exertion, participants certainly worked up an appetite.

“It’s really good food for them to resupply,” said Ladd.

For more information on upcoming fundraisers, challenge missions and retreats, visit swam.org.