2021 Run to Home Base: ‘One team, one fight’
Ricardo Figueroa knows how hard it can be for military veterans to separate from the service and start life anew as civilians.
He spent four years in the U.S. Navy, including deployments in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
When Figueroa left the Navy in 2013, he found the transition tough at first.
“When you get back from deployment, you don't really accept the wounds you can't see," said Figueroa, who now works as a section manager for lab programs at Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a Raytheon Technologies business.
One way he got through the transition was by using the services of Home Base, an organization that offers clinical care, wellness resources, education and research to help veterans of all generations, along with active service members and military families – including those who have lost loved ones. It is based in Boston but offers its services to people across the U.S. and around the world.
In Figueroa's case, those services included conversations with people who’d had similar experiences.
"It was nice to talk to somebody who could relate," he said. “It’s one team, one fight.”
Now he's giving back. Figueroa was among approximately 200 runners, walkers, volunteers and supporters from Raytheon Technologies who donned the company’s red T-shirts to participate in the 2021 Run to Home Base, a 9K/5K course in Boston whose finish line is the home plate at Fenway Park.
Raytheon Missiles & Defense employee Ricardo Figueroa (center) has taken part in Run to Home Base for four years, including his virtual participation in 2020. (Photo: Cullen McIntyre)
This was the first in-person Run to Home Base in two years. Raytheon Technologies was the presenting sponsor, and the company's team raised more than $100,000 toward the 2021 run's overall $1.9 million tally. Raytheon Technologies’ partnership with Run to Home Base dates back to 2018, and the company ranks among the top fundraisers each year.
In the event’s opening ceremony, Raytheon Missiles & Defense President Wes Kremer thanked the company’s Run to Home Base teammates who participated in person and virtually outside Massachusetts.
About 200 additional employees took part in other locations, including Tucson, Arizona; San Diego and El Segundo, California; and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“Together, we are here to show our heroes that they can count on us on and off the battlefield,” said Kremer, a U.S. Air Force veteran.
“As an aerospace and defense company,” Kremer added, “we have a unique and profound responsibility to provide our military and allies with the most technologically advanced capabilities in the world – to give our service members an advantage on the battlefield so they can return home safely to their families and friends. Our commitment to their safety and well-being does not stop there. That’s why we are a proud partner of Home Base. We believe in their mission.”
Home Base operates the first and largest private-sector clinic in the U.S. that offers treatment and support for men and women experiencing post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injury, anxiety, depression, related substance use, family relationship challenges and other issues associated with their military service. Home Base is run by the Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital program but serves people from across the U.S. and around the world. All services are offered at no cost to veterans, service members and their families.
In El Segundo, California, Raytheon Technologies colleagues – Cyrus Weaver, Brent Dias, Adam Kelly, Karlyn Eoff and Edie Ung – teamed up to support the Home Base program through the 2021 run. (Photo: Cyrus Weaver)
The Home Base program was launched in 2009, due in large part to the staggering number of veterans who had died by suicide since 2001.
“We’ve lost 30,000 veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq to suicide,” retired Army Brig. Gen. Jack Hammond told the crowd at the run’s opening ceremony.
On average, 20 veterans die by suicide every day, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Hammond, currently the executive director of Home Base, said the program has recently seen an unprecedented spike in veterans seeking help.
“We deeply appreciate the service and sacrifice of the men and women from two generations of families who have fought two separate wars over 20 years. We are committed to fulfilling the trust placed in the nation by these warriors – by providing the best care possible for our warriors anywhere in the world,” he said.
That strength of commitment is reassuring to Ashley McQueeney, who works in human resources for Raytheon Technologies in Connecticut. She thought often of her husband and his 22-year military career as she raised more than $2,000 for the Run to Home Base and ran the 2021 course.
“Home Base is tremendous,” McQueeney said. “Our veterans really need us. And, when they have the courage to ask for help, we should be there for them.”
Raytheon Technologies volunteers worked at water stops and cheered on participants along the 9K/5K course that started and ended at Fenway Park. (Photo: Courtney Ryan)
