Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan “Birdman” Parrott.
Ryan “Birdman”, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
It all started for me as a kid playing ice hockey in Detroit. I was a below-average student, and that is putting it mildly; with no love for school.
Fast-forward to 17 years old. It’s the morning of 9/11. I was sitting in High School and I saw on the TV screen, the towers engulfed in heavy smoke and the newscasters beginning to report that they suspected it was a terrorist attack. I had been thinking about joining the military already, and then made the decision, went to enlist in the US Navy, and ultimately became a US Navy SEAL.
During my first tour in Iraq, our team’s Humvee was met by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). I witnessed my teammates suffer devastating blast injuries as well as myself as I was shot out of the Humvee’s turret while manning the gun. We were all hospitalized and sent back to the US to recover. I was the least of the injured in the vehicle and returned to full active duty and completed two additional tours in Iraq.
After my military career, I moved to Dallas, Texas to work with a security firm for private client security. I helped establish and develop their training department and enhanced their best practices for personal safety.
While going out in the DFW area, I met quite a few veterans. One of these veterans was severely burned with a lifelong injury and a long road to recovery while serving as an Army Ranger. During our conversation, I asked what the doctors were doing for his medical condition. I was quickly surprised to learn that there was nothing more to be done. He looked me in the eyes and said, “I’ve had three dozen surgeries and this is as good as it gets for me”. I walked away, disturbed by what he had said, so I did quite a bit of research only to discover that he was right. There have been no more notable advancements in burn care since the Vietnam era, in the same way, amputees benefit from prosthetics.
Feeling compelled to help burn survivors, I established the organization, Sons of the Flag to support current military, veteran, and first-responder Burn, Survivors. Sons of the Flag is dedicated to funding burn education through Medical Fellowships, through the development of several programs, funding burn unit needs throughout the country, and by offering direct support to better the lives of these burn survivors.
In addition to wanting to help others, I also enjoy extreme sports! My favorite activities are wingsuiting, B.A.S.E. jumping, skydiving, skateboarding, and snowboarding. Two extreme things I have done for charity included running 100 miles in 24-hours and riding a bull to raise funding and awareness. I have also B.A.S.E. jumped the Eiger in Switzerland and I have some major extreme stunts lined up in the near future to raise money for charity!
Since I enjoy these extreme activities, I felt that others would as well and decided to try to do even more for the greater good. I started an organization called, Birds Eye View Project. The objective of this nonprofit organization is to shine a light and raise awareness of smaller veteran nonprofits through extreme sports and stunts. It began with the concept of “Extreme Sports for Extreme Needs” and continues to evolve today. Last year, 33 volunteers from the business world came together for a skydive and collectively raised more than $300,000, and large gifts were made to each of the eight charities under Birds Eye View Project.
In addition to running two nonprofit organizations, I am an inventor, author, public speaker, and entrepreneur. I wrote a book entitled, “Sons of the Flag”, that accounts real-life war heroes as told through their eyes. I wanted to showcase veterans and what they have done and sacrificed. I also invented and owned the patent on a revolutionary device that completely enhances the accuracy of firing a weapon. It has also been a pleasure to fulfill many public speaking engagement requests to address businesses, including MassMutual Dallas-Fort Worth, JP Morgan Chase, and Benchmark Bank.
Personally, I feel like I have already won in life because of the love of my life, my wife, Vlada Parrott, my two-year-old son named after his Grandfather, Kaston, and another child on the way!
I feel so blessed to have passion in my life for my family, for Burn Survivors and for other veterans and first-responders in need, all under God.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Life has not been without its challenges. Transitioning out of the military is not easy; you are essentially hanging up your shield of armor. You are not hanging around with your team anymore, so it takes time to adapt to a new environment. A good useful tool for transitioning veterans is to start their new career by taking it back to “Day 1” of Basic Training and if they utilize that same mentality they had on Day 1 and put their heart and soul into it, they can create a new shield of armor and realize that they still have their brothers from the service; they have not gone anywhere and will still be there.
Charity work is tough; super tough. Probably one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever done, but the most rewarding because I personally believe that I am affecting more of our military and veterans today than I ever did in the service. There are no guarantees that any dollars will come in the door. It takes determination, planning, and brainstorming and consistent focus and work-hard attitude to produce. At the end of the day, the outcome of helping a veteran or a first-responder through donors is only carried out because of the amazing people that step up to donate their hard-earned money because they believe in the mission; that’s the real inspiration.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sons of the Flag and Birds Eye View Project story. Tell us more about the business.
Sons of the Flag was specifically started to help one individual burn survivor, but seven years later, we help thousands of veteran, current military, first-responder Burn Survivors and their families. We have created various programs, including medical fellowships, direct donor support, and our newest program called Mission: Reconstruct Freedom. We implemented Mission: Reconstruct Freedom in 2018, which is a holistic approach to heal one veteran or first-responder with a lengthy surgery to address each of their issues at once. We assembled a renowned team of burn and reconstructive surgeons to identify all needs at once, instead of a burn survivor having to have multiple add-on surgeries. It has been successful and we hope to be able to fund many more veterans and first-responders this year that we have in our pipeline.
Sons of the Flag is headquartered in Dallas, Texas; however, we have a National Task Force made up of mainly Firefighters and we now have “boots on the ground” in 28 states.
I am so proud of our efforts with Sons of the Flag and this organization is where my heart is! With the help of our donors, we hope to continue the work we do for many years to come and to help as many burn survivors as we can. Of course, our ultimate goal is for there to be so many advancements in burn care, that our organization no longer needs to exist!
Another of my passions is Birds Eye View Project. As I said, this is an organization dedicated to highlighting smaller veteran organizations to create awareness for the public to see what great work is being done by other organizations.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I don’t believe that luck has set the tone for our charity organization; instead, I believe that God has put me on this path and I intend to follow his command.
Pricing:
- To learn more about Sons of the Flag or to make a donation, please visit www.sonsoftheflag.org
- If you would like to purchase a copy of the book “Sons of the Flag”, please visit Amazon and type in the title (all proceeds go to Sons of the Flag)
Contact Info:
- Address: 12700 Park Central Drive
Suite 304 Dallas, TX 75251 - Website: www.sonsoftheflag.org
- Phone: 469-930-6694
- Email: sherry@sonsoftheflag.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sonsoftheflag/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SonsOfTheFlag/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sonsoftheflag
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0siVRsJF0mBQHFkIOGYmw
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