With both sunny summer days and Memorial Day on the horizon, Team RWB (Red, White, and Blue) has come up with a plan to get people moving while honoring soldiers lost in battle.
On May 1, the nonprofit organization launched “Memorial Minutes,” a fitness initiative challenging Americans to move 40 minutes every day through Memorial Day, paying homage to fallen service members. Team RWB’s goal is to rack up 1.3 million minutes, logging one minute for every soldier killed in action over the last 250 years, culminating with the United States’ milestone anniversary.
Participants can take part in several activities, including CrossFit, running, rucking, cycling, yoga, and other cardio-inducing exercises, while charting their workouts along the way.
Close the ‘Transitional Drift’
Team RWB helps veterans and active-duty military members connect through social engagements and fitness events to support physical and mental health. Veteran Mike Irwin, a retired Army major, founded the organization in 2010.
Irwin noticed a gap in veteran care after leaving the military, specifically the “transitional drift” many veterans feel when their sense of relationships, purpose and belonging shift.
Many veterans, like Michael “Sully” Sullivan, know someone who never made it home from war. Sullivan, a retired Army colonel, serves as Team RWB’s executive director. He spent 30 years in the military (1994-2024), including 20 years as a Special Forces Green Beret. Sullivan’s six deployments to Afghanistan didn’t come without a cost.
He will be thinking about soldiers he lost under his command during the “Memorial Minutes” challenge.
“In Afghanistan, during my time as a battalion commander, I lost two guys during that rotation. I feel responsible for them each and every day for the decisions that I made that put them into harm’s way,” Sullivan told Military.com. “We did what we were trained to do and all that as Green Berets, but I feel a responsibility to get the best out of whatever I got left because of what those guys did to make sure I could do that. I think that’s something we, as Americans, should recognize for all those who went before us. We’re unique in so many ways in the U.S., in terms of what we believe in … the fact that we fight for a piece of paper, not a person, the Constitution is what we’re all about. Now that we’re an all-volunteer force, it’s a powerful thing that drives me each and every day, even now being out of the uniform and doing what I do for RWB.”
As he pushes his body and logs minutes, Sullivan will also be thinking of the grandfather he never met, a B-24 fighter pilot killed in World War II.
“My biological grandfather died just a couple of weeks before my dad was born. He never met his son,” Sullivan said. “But we had stories from my grandmother, and we always accepted the fact that he lost his life for the cause, for liberty in the U.S.”
Sullivan’s father, born just weeks later, served in Vietnam, and the former colonel’s twins, Samantha and Jackson, are both in the Army, the fifth generation of Sullivans to serve in the military. Samantha Sullivan, part of the Army’s World Class Athlete Program, won a bronze medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics as a key member of the U.S. women’s sevens rugby team.
Veterans Striving to Stay Healthy
Physical activity is a great way to release endorphins in the brain and combat stress, anxiety and depression, feelings veterans might be grappling with post-service.
Team RWB’s events, whether in-person or virtual, also focus on resiliency, encouraging veterans to push through a long run or grueling workout, similar to fitness tests they conquered in the military.
“It really leans into the idea that you have a sense of purpose as a veteran to stay after it, getting fit, helping your buddy stay fit, while making it an open community to include both those in uniform, those out of uniform, family members of service members and the community members themselves, making it free for everybody,” Sullivan said. “By using the physical fitness piece, people maintain their movement, their motion, all that stuff keeps you ‘left of clinical’ if you stay after your physical health and mentally, you’re going to stay ahead of the game.”
Along with “Memorial Minutes,” Team RWB typically hosts one large national event per quarter, like the GWOT 100. Last February, the event, which challenged participants to run or walk 100 miles in the shortest month of the year, attracted 25,000 registrations, according to Sullivan.
Additional events include a stair climb to commemorate 9/11 and a special workout challenge in November for Veterans Day.
With the Team RWB app, veterans can sign up for challenges throughout the year, including plans to eat better, get more sleep and find ways to tap into holistic health and wellness.
Looking ahead, Sullivan said the organization will work to support the next generation of veterans through education and encouragement to make the organization their own. Team RWB has 150 local chapters across the U.S.
“We actually believe that your journey to becoming a veteran starts the day you enter the service, not the day you get out,” Sullivan said. “So, we’re encouraging everybody in uniform right now to join Team RWB. I want my kids to see this as an organization they’re a part of post service, so that’s a big part of what we’re doing right now as well.”
Read the full article here