4th LAR July 25th-29th: Two Rivers Lodge, Nye, Montana
In July 2026, we hosted the men of 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion for four days at Two Rivers Lodge in Nye, Montana. Among them was 72-year-old Mary-Jane McWilliams, the mother of Sergeant David Smith. It was the first time in our program’s history that we hosted a Gold Star mother.
Their planes begin landing in Billings. The group chats have been going for days with “What time are you landing?” and “Where’s your connection?” For some, the greetings happen early in connecting flights, and with each familiar face comes a feeling that’s hard to name, part excitement and part calm. The hugs are deep, filling the void of years of I’ll reach out to those guys eventually.
Everyone jumps into the waiting 15-passenger van, which is nostalgic enough to get the stories going. By the time they reach the ranch, it’s like they just saw each other yesterday.
On the morning of January 23, 2010, in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, a suicide bomber killed LCpl Jeremy Kane, HM2 Xin Qi, and wounded Sgt. David Smith.
Two of the Marines on this trip stood with Mary-Jane in a hospital ward in Landstuhl, Germany, to see David for the last time before removing him from life support. The three had not been in the same room since.
This July, they sat in rocking chairs on a porch, watching the sun set over the Stillwater River in Nye, Montana.
Mary-Jane had known one of the Marines on this trip since high school. She took him on his first plane ride as a teenager. Now she sat across from the married father of two who survived that same bombing, listening as he told her how much she had meant to him through two years of multiple surgeries and recovery, and through his life since.
4th LAR is a reservist unit, meaning every Marine on this trip left behind a career or school, and a family, to serve their country. Some came home, others didn’t, and those who did carry a weight most Americans who have never seen war can’t comprehend.
One of the Marines was diagnosed with prostate cancer in August 2025. He arrived at Two Lodge Ranch cancer-free, almost exactly a year later. He and the others also arrived carrying the memory of another Marine from the platoon, who died last September from the same cancer.
During the trip, Chris Hare of The Storied Future led the group in a workshop on Atomic Storytelling, helping each of them put words to who they were, who they’ve become, and the experiences they share.
One of the Marines put it this way:
“The experiences we had overseas can’t be undone. But getting back together with the Marines who were there with me has changed the way I look at the experiences. Instead of seeing those memories only through the lens of trauma, I can see them as life-shaping experiences that helped make me the man I am today.”
Every year, Mary-Jane runs a memorial golf tournament in David’s honor. Before this trip, she wondered if it had run its course. She wasn’t sure she was still reaching the men her son served with, and she had started to think it might be time to let it go.
On the last day, after the storytelling workshop, she shared something with the men:
“You all saved my sanity. You kept me a part of you.”
For our donors, this is what your generosity pays for. Connection and open lines of communication. A Gold Star mother telling the men her son loved that she can breathe again.