FOUNDER’S STORY
Red, White, and Clix exists because one veteran came home, found the war had followed him, and was handed a way back by people who did not know him.
Wesley Robertson served as a Combat Engineer in the Indiana Army National Guard from 1999 to 2006. In 2004 he deployed to Mosul, Iraq, operating out of Forward Operating Base Marez in support of Explosive Ordnance Disposal operations. The work put him close to the daily realities of that war, where the risks were constant and the stakes were measured in lives.
The challenges did not end when the deployment did. Over time he was diagnosed with severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and later with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. Those diagnoses changed the shape of his life, his health, his career and his sense of stability.
Harder still, several of the people he served with did not survive the years after coming home. Watching brothers-in-arms lose that fight left a mark, and with it a sense of responsibility to do something. The realisation that the war continued long after the battlefield became the turning point.
During one of the worst stretches of his life, Wesley received help from a veteran-focused charity. It was practical support, but it was also proof that somebody had bothered — that he was not doing this alone. He has been open since about how much that mattered, and about the fact that it came from strangers.
Motivated by both loss and gratitude, he built the thing he wished had found him sooner.
Because it works. A tournament hall is one of the few places where people who would never otherwise meet end up sitting across a table for six hours, talking. No clipboard, no intake form, no having to announce that you are struggling. Just a game, and the conversation that happens around it.
That is the whole design. Create somewhere connection happens naturally, conversations come easier, and support can be raised in a way that feels human rather than clinical.
Two events in, the model has held up. The first raised $15,000, of which $4,000 went directly to veteran-focused causes once the venue, prizes and catering were paid for. The second year funded a new equestrian therapy facility that is open and free to veterans and first responders. This year the beneficiary is the Mary T. Klinker Veteran Resource Center.
Red, White, and Clix is now an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3), and Wesley is still the one setting out the tables.
Read the mission