In May of 1966, I returned from a combat tour in Southeast Asia. It was a return full of challenges (“Wilderness as therapist,” HCN, 2/16/15). For two years, I had been surrounded by the noise and smell of war and had been trying to survive day to day. How was I going to cope? I needed to find a place where quiet and solitude dominated. West of Fort Collins, Colorado, a newly minted wilderness area was legislated into existence by the 1964 Wilderness Act — the Rawah Wilderness, named for the Ute word for abundant. For two weeks that summer, I found peace and solitude in abundance in the Rawah. The therapeutic value of wilderness is priceless.
Martin Sorensen
Lakewood, Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wilderness vets.
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