Wesley Bauguess knows loss. Her husband, Army Major Larry Bauguess, was killed in action while serving with the 82nd Airborne Division in 2007 in Pakistan.
She also knows she is not alone. That Larry’s sacrifice meant something that still matters. That people remember the loss.
U.S. Air Force Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Dan Rooney and his staff at Folds of Honor make sure of that.
Each year on Labor Day weekend, Folds of Honor conducts Patriot Golf Day to raise money that funds educational scholarships for the families of killed and disabled service members. The 501C-3 nonprofit organization, founded by the pilot Rooney in 2007, has provided almost $150 million in such scholarships to nearly 29,000 students.
Bauguess knows the value of the scholarships well. Both her daughters, Ryann and Ellie, received $5,000 a year from Folds of Honor to help pay for private lower education and now receive scholarships while attending private universities.
But it’s not all about the money provided by Folds of Honor and the millions of golfers who make donations.
“Knowing they value and honor our service members as much as we do, that just means the world,” said Bauguess, herself a former Army captain who served 10 years in the Medical Service Corps as a treatment platoon leader, medical company executive officer and combat health support officer for the 101st Airborne Division. “To go to a Folds of Honor event and participate in Patriot Golf Day and to see the red, white and blue and just to see how people still remember our service members, that outweighs the dollar amount of the scholarships in my opinion.”
Bauguess, a former high school and collegiate golfer at Appalachian State, became an assistant golf coach at the private high school her girls attended in North Carolina, eventually taking on the role of head coach for both the boys and girls teams. Her connections with golf run deep – she and Larry used to play together.
She has seen firsthand the power of Patriot Golf Day, which has expanded beyond a single day and is Sept. 4-7 this year.
“The love and the honor we receive, that’s just what makes it the best,” said Bauguess, who has become a featured speaker for Folds of Honor and wrote the book “God, Country, Golf: Reflections of an Army Widow.”
For Patriot Golf Day, golfers can donate extra money through their green fee at participating courses nationwide, and many courses will present cash donation boxes on their pro shop counters. Many courses also conduct fundraising tournaments and other events to support the cause, and interested parties can donate directly to Patriot Golf Day through foldsofhonor.org. This year Folds of Honor joined forces with PGA HOPE – the flagship military program of the PGA of America’s PGA REACH foundation – to conduct the annual fundraiser.
Folds of Honor reported that in 2019 alone it awarded approximately $22 million in educational scholarships to more than 4,500 students, representing a 10 percent increase in scholarships from 2018. And while Folds of Honor has grown to include many corporate sponsors, Patriot Golf Day retains a special meaning for Rooney.
“Patriot golf day is how everything started with Folds,” said Rooney, who still flies F-16s for the U.S. Air Force Reserve and is a golf pro with an equity stake at the course he helped develop in Oklahoma, The Patriot Golf Club. “I can tell you as a Class A PGA member, it is my proudest moment. It’s just so pure. Over Labor Day Weekend we’ll have a few million people make small donations while playing their most heroic round of golf and being part of something bigger than themselves.
“I tell ya, you look at all the unrest and all the struggles of 2020, there’s an even deeper meaning to Patriot Golf Day, to get out and do something positive for somebody else and also have fun. That’s the magic, right?”
Folds of Honor certainly has grown since he brainstormed the concept while sitting on a tarmac after a commercial flight that also brought home the remains of a fallen soldier. The pilots of the flight asked that passengers remain seated while the casket containing the fallen soldier was unloaded from the plane, but many passengers stood and began deboarding. Rooney wanted to find a better way to honor the sacrifice of that soldier and all those like him.
Folds was born, named for the creases in an American Flag after it is lifted from the caskets of killed soldiers.
“I have an interesting walk,” Rooney said. “As a 21-year fighter pilot, I’ve lost a lot of friends. But as the founder of Folds of Honor, I have lost exponentially more. We are there as an organization to not just say ‘I’m sorry’ but ‘Hey, I’ve got your six. We’re going to take care of your family.’ To be able to step in there and provide an education is so foundationally important.
“But the one thing I never expected starting this journey is, to a recipient, they say, ‘I couldn’t have gone to school without this scholarship, so thank you. But the fact that you continue to honor the sacrifice our family made is more meaningful than the money you’ve given us.’ ”
When a family loses a service member, that family is thrown into a strange and sometimes harsh new world. The regular drumbeat of military service stops. Social circles shrink. Life goes on, but it’s never the same.
“We have tough days, and we kind of get down a little bit, and we miss Larry every day,” said Bauguess, whose daughters were ages 4 and 6 when they lost their dad. “It’s interesting because people told us early on that we just have to get through that first year, but the firsts don’t stop. Here we are 13 years later, and I just moved Ellie to her freshman dorm and her dad’s not here, so that’s another first you have to go through.”
Bauguess said the Army treated her well and her family continued living on and then near Fort Bragg in North Carolina for several years after Larry’s death. She was immersed in the military culture, and she wanted her girls to experience that life. They eventually moved to Wake Forest, North Carolina.
“But that military connection was still very strong,” she said. “And when Folds of Honor came alongside us to let us know that Larry had not been forgotten, and that his life mattered, and to just know Dan with his military service … they just honor and remember. It fills my heart that Colonel Dan and his team don’t forget that. …
“I’ve seen it for many years that they do what they say they are going to do. They are a wonderful example of what right looks like.”