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Ray Hayes: Because a Sail May Save a Life

Ray Hayes has turned a childhood pastime into adult cause. He always loved to sail, ever since his days as a youngster in his family’s cottage on the Jersey Shore. Now Ray, who lives in Deep River, is using that passion for sailing to help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cope with the anxieties of the past and the challenges of the present.

Ray has started his own organization, Pay4Ward: Veterans Helping Veterans, to take veterans suffering from PTSD on co-operative sailing outings. With more than the wind and the water on his mind, he hopes the afternoon of boating will help the PTSD sufferers begin to cope with the demons that continue to haunt them.

The organization necessary for a team to sail a boat is key to the recovery process.

“There’s a lot of communication, a lot of coordination, shared physical labor, teamwork. Veterans know how to do that; they did those things to stay alive,” Ray says.

And the teamwork, he knows from experience, leads to something else, the opportunity to talk about long-repressed military trauma.

“It has to happen; I’ve seen it,” Ray says. “It’s a successful day and they feel good; it’s a first step.”

Ray is not only a veteran himself, he is also plagued by PTSD. For years, however, he had no idea what was bothering him. He served in Vietnam as a radio operator in the 82nd Airborne Division late l960s at the height of the war. It was a particularly vulnerable job, because the aerial from the radio he carried stuck up and made him a prime sniper target.

On one reconnaissance mission, he suffered a scorpion bite on his hand and felt such immediate pain and paralysis that he was unable to kill the poisonous insect. A fellow soldier killed the scorpion with a whack of his gun.

“It broke my hand, but it saved my life,” Ray recalls of the impact. “The shell was as hard as a lobster.”

Ray was escorted part of the way to an evacuation helicopter, but then, on his own, getting dizzy and feverish, he walked right into a tree and fell down.

“I couldn’t get up. I thought I was going to die there and my mother would be mad,” he says.

Two soldiers rescued him and he woke up in the hospital.

For a North Vietnamese ambush that he and seven other soldiers foiled, Ray got a combat infantry medal, including both a commendation letter and a medal.

“The eight guys that did it got an Army commendation, the lieutenant got a bronze star, the colonel a silver star,” he says, adding. “I’m very proud of my service. I did the right things.”

In fact, the outcome for the United States in Vietnam still mystifies Ray.

“We guys in the dirt never lost a battle. How did we lose the war?” he asks.

According to Ray’s wife Barbara, he didn’t talk about the scorpion, or any of his other war experiences for years. But he was active in veteran’s affairs, even starting a branch of Veterans of Foreign Wars in Deep River, which, though no longer in existence, lasted for a decade.

Through his veteran contacts, he not only became aware of PTSD, but more important, aware that he suffered from it—and a boat trip was a key part of his growing awareness of the lingering effects of the war.

While Ray was working as director of facilities for the Westbrook School System, a teacher from the school recommended an Outward Bound hike for veterans, knowing that Ray liked sailing and might enjoy a maritime adventure.

That’s how he found himself in an open boat, a World War II Liberty ship lifeboat, off the Maine coast with 11 other veterans for a weeklong expedition on the water.

“We carried all the food in the boat; there was nothing to sleep on, awful accommodations,” he recalls.

Did Ray hate it? Not at all. The conversation made up for the accommodations.

“I started talking. They started talking. I could see it helped me and it helped all the others,” he says. “I couldn’t wait to do it again.”

The next trip was in the Florida Keys.

Now Ray goes to regular PTSD counseling at a veteran’s center. He has met retired servicemen who share some of his particular aversions, like fireworks.

“It seems normal that everyone sits with their back to the wall,” he says. “I find that the only people who can help people with PTSD are other people who have suffered from PTSD.”

Ray says PTSD shaped much of his employment history even before he was aware of it, starting with dropping out of college when he returned from the Army. Because of confusion in the letter he sent the Veteran’s Administration about when he left the University of New Haven, the government agency sued him for the $70 in veteran’s benefits they claimed he owned. His wife paid the money.

“I never would have,” he says.

Ray found silence was easier than conversation. He worked for a time delivering sailboats.

“I liked it. I wanted to be by myself,” he says.

Then he found solitude for 25 years as a construction contractor, mostly in East Haddam.

“Untalkative, out in the woods, it was fine,” he says.

When the physical labor became onerous, he worked as a building supply salesman and finally as director of facilities for the Westbrook School System, a position he left last October.

He says he needed all his time to get Pay4Ward going. It is now a tax-deductible charitable organization. He has received some contributions and is working on applying for grants to finance his efforts. What’s more, Ray just received an award from the Small Business Administration of Connecticut as Veteran’s Advocate of the year for 2016.

Ray has spent the winter working on the sailboat that he will use. He is eager to get it out in the water, with a crew of veterans. One person, however, will not be aboard. Barbara is not an enthusiastic sailor, though she completely supports his efforts.

“So long as you don’t take me out with you,” she says.

In 2013, the Veterans Administration released a report saying as many as 22 veterans a day commit suicide. It is a number that Ray has seared into his memory.

“As long as I can help even one person, I am going to be doing this work,” he says.

For more information on Pay4Ward programs, visit www.pay4ward.org. Contact Ray Hayes at pay.4ward.rh@gmail.com.