This Air Force vet is rowing 3,500 miles to support veterans with PTSD

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This Air Force vet is rowing 3,500 miles to support veterans with PTSD
By Rachel Nostrant
 Dec 19, 09:01 PM
Owens. (Courtesy photo)

Row three hours, rest three hours. Row three hours, rest three hours.

That is the current daily routine of Robert Hamilton Owens, a 71-year-old Air Force veteran who, alongside a crew of 11 others, is spending 40 days rowing approximately 3,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

Owens and his crew, which include a policewoman from Norway and an ex-British Army soldier, departed from the Canary Islands on Dec. 4 and are destined for the island of Antigua in the Caribbean. The challenge, officially coined the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge — although Owens and his team are not competing in the official competition — will test the group’s ability to work as a team, to weather the highs and lows of transiting the Atlantic in a rowboat, and to push themselves beyond what were once their mental and physical limits.

For Owens, it’s one part of what he hopes to do prevent veteran suicide.

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