help us support the
Veteran Suicide epidemic
“After Mark Crampton’s death I realized that I need to be more committed to serving in he area of suicide prevention.”
— Robert Hamilton Owens
The Mark Crampton Memorial Tran-Atlantic Row is a fundraising campaign spearheaded by the non-profit organization Courage Foundation. The purpose of cause it to raise awareness of, and funding for, the prevention of veteran suicide. In honor of his friend, retired Navy SEAL Mark Crampton, who took his own life in March 2022, Robert Hamilton Owens, a 71-year-old ex-Air Force Special Ops Para-Rescue, is supporting his late comrade by taking on the challenge of a 3500-mile row across the Atlantic Ocean. Not the first such challenge for the father of 5, Robert is also an Ironman triathlete, has run 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents (2020), and completed the 50-hour Kokoro Navy SEAL hell week simulation at the age of 69. Robert is raising donations for the Courage Foundation, which offers an integrated, holistic approach for helping veterans with post traumatic stress and transition back into society. The challenge will begin December 4, 2022, in the Canary Islands with the goal of arriving in Antigua by mid-January, 2023.
Mark Crampton Trans-Atlantic row
Robert Hamilton Owens
Robert Owens has been taking on extreme physical and mental toughness challenges for years — 50 years to be exact. But at 71 years of age, this one is different. Last April, his friend Mark Crampton, a retired Navy SEAL, took his own life. In his friend’s memory, Rob is undertaking a row across the Atlantic Ocean to raise awareness and funding to help with a problem of epidemic proportion: veteran suicide.
On December 4th, after months of training, Rob will leave the Canary Islands off Spain in a 12-person row boat. After 40 some days alone rowing in the open ocean, they hope to make landfall in Antigua.
Rob’s goal is to honor the life of his friend Mark, raise national awareness to the problem veteran suicide, and to raise $100,000 for the Courage Foundation, a nonprofit offering veterans an innovative, holistic, integrated approach to transform posttraumatic stress into posttraumatic growth and resilience.
“After Mark Crampton’s death I realized that I need to be more committed to serving in he area of suicide prevention.”
Willing to lay down their lives for country and fellow men, these virtues light the way of the Warrior. However, there are an estimated 500,000 Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) and more than 22 suicides each day. Exposure to traumatic life-threatening events is a common experience in the line of duty for our service men and women. Upon return, veterans experience loss of connection with their comrades, loss of sense of purpose and disability from their injuries physically and otherwise. Triggered by memory or circumstance, many veterans relive these traumatic experiences. The constant and chronic exposure to suffering, injury and death can have a devastating and lasting impact on the individual, their immediate family, friends and community. An inability to recover from the exposure results in the complex mix of debilitating symptoms called Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS). The Courage Foundation’s mission is to foster post-traumatic growth, restore purpose and transform lives through integrative self-awareness, physical health, mental toughness, emotional resilience and spiritual well-being.