The Windmill 12 Grand Opening

The battle doesn't always end when they come home and today a new resource is opening right here in the Tampa Bay area giving veterans and their families a place to find support, healing, community. What's really cool here is we could actually show you a look at their website so it's called Windmill 12. It's a non-profit center in Odessa that uses a 12-step recovery approach. To help veterans navigate PTSD, addiction, other challenges. This is a look. Look, we even got the photos. Such a lengthy construction process. But today, that all comes to fruition for Tricia and Clark Rickey, an incredible couple, veteran couple behind this mission. Tricia, thank you so much. Clark, thank you both for your service. This is an exciting day for you guys. Happy Veterans Day. Thanks so much for joining us ahead of your grand opening. Well, thank you very much, Regina. It's such a pleasure and an honor to be here right now today, and it's a very exciting day for Tricia and I. It's been over a three-year process of getting this building finished and a 20-year plan that we had. And now it's finally come together. Well, I love to see that for you guys. I want to backtrack for a second to talk about how this plan came about. I see combat veteran, airborne ranger, both of you serving and sacrificing for our country. Can you talk a little bit about your stories and how you guys met and how this all came about? Well, first of all, I... I was going to college, and my friends were in Vietnam, and I was in the reserves, and I thought I could not stay at home and let my friends be over there. So I volunteered for Vietnam, took some very difficult training, and then volunteered to go to Vietnam. And I ended up serving in two outfits, one Kilo 75th Ranger outfit, we did long range reconnaissance patrol, and then I went to 173rd. Yeah, when Clark came home, I wasn't involved in his life at that time. He went to college, and then we met some years later. 20 years later and we got set up on a blind date actually isn't that a sweet story and it's been a really great journey since then we've been married 36 years and as part of that journey one of the things that we dealt with as a family when we got married was you know Clark came into our relationship with those issues with PTSD and it was not an easy thing to overcome. And because we have been successful in that and Maintaining our relationship all these years, we wanted to carry that out with the delivery of the message through the Windmill 12 organization. So we're excited about the opening today. It's at 5:30 this afternoon. We're in Odessa and it's really going to be a great event. We are so excited, and I know our very own FOX 13's Allie Corey is going to be there to celebrate your opening. I'm so grateful that she put us all in touch to kind of give people a lay of the land of what this facility is going to be like. So I guess, I mean, to backtrack even more for a second, was there a particular moment when you guys realized that there needed to be a place like this for veterans in your community? I can only go from my own experience. I was in full combat gear on a Thursday, and Sunday morning I was home with my parents and told, don't get into trouble. And I'm a 20-year-old kid on adrenaline for over a year, kind of hard to do. So alcohol became a solution for me until it didn't become a solution anymore. It became a detriment. And it took a lot of hurt and pain that I caused myself and others until I finally reached out and got help. Well, now I've been. Sober for over 41 years, and I attribute that strictly to a 12-step format and other veterans who have recovered. So if it would work for me, it would work for a lot of other people. We don't have doctors. We don't have medication. It's only peer-on-peer. It's very difficult for a veteran, combat veteran especially, to BS another combat veteran because they won't put up with it. They'll call them on and you become. Instead of being a victim anymore, you learn how to be responsible for your actions. And that's the first part of being in the healing process. Yeah, I can imagine. And I mean, I commend you, Clark, because I know, you know, that's not easy to finally have that conversation with the people you care about. And I know you're going to help a lot of people through similar pain that you felt. Tell us about Windmill 12. What is a 12-step recovery format and how will this process work for the people you will care for? Well, first of all, we bring the veteran in when you also invite the family because it becomes a family issue. PTSD, alcoholism, addiction, whatever you want to call it, that runs a pretty parallel path the way the brain works. So what we do is we bring the combat veteran in who's already in the room with other combat veterans. So he can feel safe. He knows what people are going through and he can feel that people actually care about him. So the first time that they start buying in, maybe they have a way for me to get out of this mess that my brain has been teaching me for years. So we bring them in. They learn what to do. We turn the focus back on them on how to really take a hard look at what was your part. What is making your brain do what it's doing? And that takes a process, Regina. And that process could go from months to years. But immediately, the veteran will start seeing light at the end of the tunnel. You can see that after the first hour sitting with other veterans. So I really want to express that. If there's a veteran sitting at home and struggling, just have an open mind and come and just give it a chance. You don't even have to say who you are. You don't even have to tell your name. Just come in and listen. And then once they understand what's going on, we have a way out, a path for them to recover. So we actually opened on October 1st, and so there are meetings that are scheduled there now. You'll see the calendar up, and they have been meeting with the... background of the 12-step format already. There's a group of people in the program already that also have combat experience, like my husband, Clark, that are in the process of creating a specific program just for the veterans. So instead of it being any other kind of recovery program, it is focused mainly strictly on the veteran recovery process. And so men and women, I mean, there's a lot of women out there too with PTSD that there is hope. I like that word. There is hope that they don't have to struggle alone. No, absolutely. And I think something that's so incredible, guys, is the fact that I understand all the programs and the resources are completely free. So how important was it to consider cost when, you know, creating this? Very good question. And we say this with humility. Trish and I have been successful. We sold a company, did well. We're taken care of. Our kids are taken care of. So at our age, what do you do now? You give it back. So the entity, the property in the Windmill 12 belongs to a non-profit, 501c3. It is debt free. So all the donations do not go to service debt or pay high wages. They go entirely into the program. We have two part-time employees. So it's a very, very strong operation. To help people, and the basic thing is to change lives. That's what we're all about, changing lives. I can imagine you are going to change a lot of lives, and you have already. Guys, I love this big red barn. What a really cool facility. Look at the photos. Yeah, and the pictures that are there are the pictures when we started construction, and you should see it now. The video, I encourage everybody that's watching to go out to our website, thewindmill12.org, and you can watch a video where Clark and I are in it. It shows each room as it grew from what it was to what it is today. It's really a very nice facility, and it's, you know, everybody that's told us they feel the love when they walk in the doors, and that's very meaningful to us. I love it. I love it so much. Guys, it has been such a pleasure and honor to speak with you both. I know you have a grand opening coming up tonight. What can people expect tonight? Well, at six o'clock, Allie is going to be out there with her team and she's going to do a little tidbits periodically through the hour and then be there for the ribbon cutting. So it'll get the folks who may tune in at six o'clock to give a real good look at what's going on at the It's the windmill 12. And the people that are there and how the facility's built, there's five meetings that can go on at the same time. And it's going to be very exciting. I think people will be very, very impressed. Well, Clark, Tricia, I know, as you have just expressed, you have been through a lot with your own personal battles, but to find success and then pay it forward in a way like this is just so incredible. And we can't thank you enough. We're so excited. We'll be tuning in at six. We'll let you guys get back to it. I know you have a busy night, but thank you so much for making time to talk about it. Thewindmill12.org. That's how people can find you. Awesome. We're grateful for you, Regina. Thank you very, very much. We're so grateful. Tricia and Clark, Ricky, have so much fun tonight and best wishes on your success. Happy Veterans Day, everyone. Yes. Yes. Happy Veterans Day. I know. Thank you. Thank you time and time again for your service, guys. Have so much fun tonight.