SPECIAL OPERATIONS WARRIOR FOUNDATION
The Special Operations Warrior Foundation was founded in 1980 as the Colonel Arthur D. “Bull” Simons Scholarship Fund to provide college educations for the seventeen children surviving the nine special operations men killed or incapacitated in April of that year at Desert One in Iran during the failed attempt to rescue American hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It was named in honor of the legendary Army Green Beret, Bull Simons, who repeatedly risked his life on rescue missions.
Following creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command, and as casualties mounted from actions such as Operations Urgent Fury (Grenada), Just Cause (Panama), Desert Storm (Kuwait and Iraq), and Restore Hope (Somalia), the Bull Simons Fund gradually expanded its outreach program to encompass all special operations forces. Thus in 1995 the Family Liaison Action Group (established to support the families of the Iranian hostages) and the Spectre (air force gunship) Association Scholarship Fund merged to form the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. In 1998 the Warrior Foundation extended its scholarship and financial aid counseling to cover training fatalities as well as operational fatalities since the inception of the foundation in 1980. This action immediately made 205 more children eligible for college funding.
The Warrior Foundation’s mission is to provide a college education to every child who has lost a parent serving in the U.S. Special Operations Command and its units in any branch of the armed forces during an operational or training mission. These personnel are stationed in units throughout the United States and at overseas bases. Some of the largest concentrations of special operations forces are at military bases at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Hurlburt Field, Florida; Coronado Naval Station, California; Dam Neck, Virginia; MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; Fort Lewis, Washington; Fort Stewart, Georgia; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Little Creek, Virginia; Fort Carson, Colorado; Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico; Royal Air Force Mildenhall, United Kingdom; and Kadena Air Base, Japan.
The Warrior Foundation also provides immediate financial assistance to special operations personnel severely wounded in the war against terrorism.
Today, the Warrior Foundation is committed to providing scholarship grants, not loans, to more than seven hundred children. These children survive more than six hundred special operations personnel who gave their lives in patriotic service to their country, including those who died fighting our nation’s war against terrorism as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and the Philippines, as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom.
To date, 121 children of fallen special operations warriors have graduated from college. Children from all military services have received or been offered Warrior Foundation scholarships.
Contact information:
Special Operations Warrior Foundation
P.O. Box 13483
Tampa, FL 33690
E-mail: warrior@specialops.org
Toll-free phone: 1-877-337-7693