
General Boykin Helps Launch Fundraiser for New Equine Therapy Service for Veterans with PTSD
Dave Barbush, CEO of Once A Soldier, was the guest speaker at “A Night Under The Stars” fundraising event.
Hosted by The HorsePlay Therapy Center to raise funds for a new equine therapy service for Veterans with PTSD, the event was Thursday, December 3, 2020 at 6:30PM.
Once A Soldier is a nonprofit that helps Veteran families after a suicide. Our Veterans kill themselves at an alarming rate of 16 times every day. The new therapy launched at this event aims to stop Veteran suicide. General Boykin will be the Special Speaker.

Equine Therapy for Veterans Suffering From PTSD Coming Soon
Former commander of Delta Force and the Green Berets Will Be Special Speaker
Special Speaker Lt. General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, U.S. Army (Retired) will follow Mr. Barbush. General Boykin is the former commander of Delta Force and the Green Berets. Under President George W. Bush, he was the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and the Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council.
HorsePlay Therapy specializes in serving children with special needs by providing physical, occupational, and speech therapy for children on horseback. With Mr. Barbush and HorsePlay’s Vicky Carrgal working together, the future of St. Augustine and north Florida veterans is looking brighter for them and their families.
The event was held at the Tringali Barn at 7319 US 1 N in St. Augustine. For more information on “A Night Under the Stars” and HorsePlay Therapy, please visit www.horseplaytherapy.org.
More About General Boykin
By 1980 he was the Delta Force operations officer on the April 24–25 Iranian hostage rescue attempt. Boykin called it “the greatest disappointment of my professional career because we didn’t bring home 53 Americans.”[7] Despite this, his “faith was strengthened” believing he had witnessed “a miracle”: “Not one man who stood with us in the desert and pleaded for God to go with us was killed or even injured that night.”[5]
In 1983 Major Boykin was in charge of a ‘special’ security detail consisting of OC Delta 9 and one OC CIA SA officer in South Korea to gain intelligence on the troop buildup by North Korea on the DMZ and as additional security for President Reagan’s visit.[citation needed]
In October 1983, Boykin took part in Operation Urgent Fury, the invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada. He was wounded by anti-aircraft fire during the Delta helicopter assault on Richmond Hill prison.[8] In 1989, Boykin took part in Panama as part of the mission to apprehend Manuel Noriega.[5] and participated in Operation Acid Gambit. From 1990 to 1991 Boykin attended the Army War College. In 1992 and early 1993, as a colonel, Boykin was in Colombia leading a mission to hunt for drug lord Pablo Escobar. Seymour Hersh later claimed in The New Yorker that there were suspicions within the Pentagon that Boykin’s team was going to take part in the assassination of Pablo Escobar, and that US Embassy officials in Colombia were acting as support. Hersh refers to Mark Bowden’s book Killing Pablo which made allegations that the Pentagon believed Boykin intended to break the law and exceed his authority in the operation. Mark Bowden states that “within the special ops community… Pablo’s death was regarded as a successful mission for Delta, and legend has it that its operators were in on the kill.” Hersh quotes an anonymous retired army general as saying, “That’s what those guys did. I’ve seen pictures of Escobar’s body that you don’t get from a long-range telescope lens. They were taken by guys on the assault team.”[9]
In April 1993, he helped advise Attorney General Janet Reno regarding the stand-off at Waco, Texas, between the Federal Government and the Branch Davidians.
ABOUT ONCE A SOLDIER
Our Veterans are killing themselves in record numbers mostly due to PTSD. An overmatched VA can’t take care of them or their families. We will.
Soldier suicide leaves Veteran families with thousands of dollars of bills unpaid, mostly bank loans.
We are the only nonprofit standing with the families after a veteran suicide. Stand with us.
Our Mission: Become the preferred channel for donors, advocates and volunteers who care about veteran families left behind after a soldier suicide.