OPERATION COMBAT BIKESAVER
Written by Christine Walker
Photograh by: Bill Konway | Real Tree Photography
Jason Zaideman, an Army Veteran, served between 1996 – 2000 with the 70th Engineer Batallion. In 1997, he was part of a joint taskforce operation, training Combat Engineers for deployment to Bosnia-Herzegovina as part of a peacekeeping mission. “The Dayton Accords, which ended the 3 1/2-year civil war, called for the deployment of thousands of peacekeepers to man cease-fire lines between the warring sides. They also oversaw the removal of heavy weapons from the front lines and the demarcation of the boundary between Bosnia’s two constituent entities — the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic.”
JASON ZAIDEMAN
Photograph by: Bill Konway | Real Tree Photography
In 1999 he was deployed to Nogales, Arizona where he helped build 2 miles of fence on the Mexico border (counter-drug campaign) with the Army Corps of Engineers.
A year after his discharge, hell was unleashed on September 11, 2001. “I tried going back in, but I still had four years inactive. They’re like, unless it becomes a World War, [we don’t need you]” Jason recalled.
Jason settled into civilian life, and “for the longest time, I forgot that I was a veteran, like I don’t even think about it. You know, every once in a while, there’s a ‘Thank you for your service’ kind of thing and I always enjoyed hanging out with other veterans,” Jason said.
By 2015, he owned Zink Factory, a graphics & screen printing company. As a way to give back, he was helping a lot of non-profits, including Veteran organizations, raise money at no cost to them. Jason took on the marketing role and was making their events super “bad-ass” so they could make an impact and help their cause.
“But after a while, I noticed some of these people are doing stuff for awareness, [but] what impact are they actually making? We were making these people tons of money, [but] where is It going? Where is your product?” Jason goes on to say, “A non-profit organization is supposed to be solving a problem, or at least trying to. So, if you’re just blowing money telling people about a problem that everyone already knows exists and you’re not actually solving it, or at least trying too, what’s the point?”
It took Jason about a year to realize that he had joined the organization he thought was making an impact, but ultimately, he was just spinning his wheels. “I’m like screw this, I’m working on my own shit. I don’t have any ties to any other organizations. I have my business, my bike, my wife, and my kids. So, I just focused on that. I decided to work on my bike and actually get it finished, ‘cause I’ve been riding it and it kind of looked like a polished turd. It was not what I wanted but it ran. I was like, you know what, I’m going to build this bike bad-ass and finally build it the way I want it.”
THE BIRTH OF OPERATION COMBAT BIKESAVER
On his personal mission, Jason went to his garage, every evening and all-day on the weekends, for two-weeks, focused on nothing else than finishing his motorcycle. Once it was completed, he spent the next two weeks riding and enjoying his accomplishment, but something was still missing.
“I kind of went into a slump. My wife said I was being a grumpy asshole. She’s like you need to get back out in the garage and build something. ‘I know, that’s why you’re in a bad mood’ and I was like ‘bling’ light bulb! Working on that motorcycle. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I gave her a kiss and went out to the garage. I was out there till probably three in the morning writing the mission statement of this organization. [Operation Combat Bikesaver] kind of started out of my angry vet status, like I’m pissed off and aggravated that people are still spinning their wheels and not solving the problem. So, I started it mainly out of frustration, aggravation. Plus, on the other hand I’m an engineer and I love fixing problems. Motorcycles was the key niche. I had to do something that I already knew about. So, I had to create this program that was built around what I could teach, which is all about building motorcycles, fabricating them, welding, airbrushing, painting, electrical, everything that goes along with building a motorcycle was [what] I had to offer.”
The next day, Jason shared what he calls ‘his little booklet of chicken scratch’ with his wife. She was absolutely on board with the idea and after rewriting his mission, the two of them began the journey of building Operation Combat Bikesaver or OCB over the next year.
The first year was difficult, but they established their non-profit and opened the garage at their home on Sundays for ‘shop day.’ The following February, they held their first ‘Kickstarter’ event and raised $11,00.00 within the first two hours. “So, within 364 days, one day shy of a year, I kicked the hole in the wall in this building here and it’s been off to the races since. I wanted to start an organization that was always mission-focused and solving problems all the time.” Jason said.
“At Operation Combat Bikesaver we build bikes with Heroes for Heroes. At NO COST to the participant and they get to keep the finished products. We believe that breathing new life into tarnished motorcycles by honing in on learned skill sets will relinquish the deafening grasp PTSD / TBI / Depression has on Veterans. “By creating distinctive works of art, those candidates can give back to others suffering in a brotherhood of unity, targeting relief to the chaos of one’s own mind.” They will be introduced to building, fabricating, welding, and painting to resurrect something that was once damaged and forgotten into something new and truly unique while rebuilding themselves at the same time.
We have lost way too many to PTSD / TBI and Depression. All of us here at Operation Combat Bikesaver have lost someone to the aftereffects of defending their country and community. “We would love nothing more than to help our Heroes return to feeling normal again.”
OCB & THE VETS
“If somebody asks me what we do, I would rather you ask somebody else in the organization, I don’t want you to hear what I have to say. For all you know, I could be blowing smoke up your ass, selling you on how amazing we are,” Jason said about OCB.
One Veteran said, “The constant work, joking, and honest interactions really helps keeping the thoughts of what’s inside in the back of my thoughts for the moment.” Another wrote, “I learned how to take off carbs and all that goes into it, love the way I feel when I’m here.”
Operation Combat Bikesaver is open to all Veterans. If the doors are open, you never need an appointment. “Our place, yeah, our place will always be an open door. Eventually, I want this place to be able to be open 24/7. We’ll have staff duty here all the time. So, the guys can come out anytime they want to, once they’ve earned their code to the door here. So, we’re like an open gym. So, all day long I’m here Monday through Thursday and Sundays are shop days that are open to the public.” Jason stated.
OCB’s primary program is ‘Hot Rod Therapy,’ the Bike Build program. Veterans seeking to build their own motorcycle as therapy at no cost to them; OCB gives them a 2k budget. Then, Jason and the crew will take them through the entire process of building a custom motorcycle. “They will be introduced to building, fabricating, welding and painting to resurrect something that was once damaged and forgotten into something new and truly unique while rebuilding themselves at the same time,” the OCB website states.
MORE THAN JUST METAL & GEARS
Jason and the crew at OCB are more than just Veterans hanging out in a garage. The mental health and the well-being of their Veterans is their number one priority. “Here we’re about facts. Fact is, you have a DD214. Fact is, you have injuries sustained while acquiring that DD-214. And here is the place for you to fix that. Fact of the matter is, Veterans are committing suicide. Fact of the matter is, Veterans are disabled, they have problems and need a little extra help. Fact is, they need camaraderie and to be surrounded by like-minded individuals to help push them through a situation and not treating them like they’re fucking broken and worthless. It's not like a doctor sitting there staring at their watch, not even listening; waiting for the time to be up so they can say 'that all the time we have for you.' - If I had a nickel... Because we all know, we’re all broken on some level. Yeah, there’s no agenda or motive other than to help each other,” Jason stated.
On Thursday nights, OCB hosts their Veteran Peer support group, Lima Charlie. “So tonight, we sit around the war room table, and we spill the beans with each other. We take turns going around the table and after a while, sometimes, like the last few Thursday nights, we haven’t had any new people, so sometimes we just sit around and tell war stories and tell jokes and talk shit you know. It doesn’t always have to be bad; you know there’s sometimes we walk out of there just rolling, [and] in a way better mood, laughing our asses off.”
Lima Charlie is “very organic,” and Jason makes sure that absolutely no one leaves in crisis. “You know there’s no real end time to the therapy here, there’s no disconnect, we treat each other like family here. There’s been times we’ve been here till 1 o’clock in the morning.”
OTHER OCB PROGRAMS
Richard W. Pratt AKA "BLASTER"
AUGUST 25, 1965 – FEBRUARY 11, 2019
Blaster Program - This program was created to help Blaster’s name live on through Operation Combat Bikesaver. Richard W. Pratt, aka ‘Blaster’, passed away in his sleep on February 11, 2019. A retired Air Force TACP Veteran - Master Airborne Jump Status, ‘Blaster’ donated his personal vehicle to an OCB Veteran, and “the impact he made on that Veteran was life-changing.” Since Blaster’s initial donation, several other vehicle donations and other various Veteran-specific donations have come in benefiting countless Veterans to help improve their daily lives.
FAT Program - The Fitness and Tranquility Program (F.A.T.) is an internal program that will serve members of Operation Combat Bikesaver who would like to make health and fitness a priority in their lives in order to regain the fighting spirit they had when they were in the military.
IT’S A BIKER THING
Part of the mystic and often a misnomer is that the general public had the perception that OCB was a biker organization or a Motorcycle Club (MC). For years, Jason would shout from the rooftops that they were a Veteran non-profit that teaches ‘motorcycle stuff.’ Recently, however, they created a rider’s group as a department of OCB. Instead of the traditional MC designation, Jason decided on MF or Motorcycle Family.
“My dad was in a club back in the 60s and they were an MF. I haven't seen it used and I’m like, oh, I like that, think I'll bring it back. It makes more sense for what we truly are... Family! We have tons of clubs and organizations around us that support us, like Law Enforcement, but I’m also very good friends with all the one percenter clubs and rider groups from all over. I’m friends with all of them. I get along with everybody and that has been one of my other motives in creating this. To get people that are normally fighting with each other, being counterproductive, to work together toward impactful common missions. Hating each other and fighting is not helping this planet. A saying I always use is #teamwork makes the dream work, trying to unite and get everybody together to be impactful and not destructive,” Jason said.
“IMPACT OR DIE TRYING”
Over the years, OCB has impacted thousands of Veterans through their shops and Lima Charlie peer support group.
After every visit, the Veteran fills out the SITREP survey. This measures where they were at emotionally when they arrived and when they departed. The importance of these surveys is for program improvement, and over time it has produced the recipe for a highly successful Veterans service model. The findings have shown to be invaluable when it comes to the impact of OCB on the betterment of Veterans. So much so, that a university has been studying statistical data for the last 3 ½ years.
After seeing the data, it really brought home their commitment “to push that out there to be impact-driven and not just standing around complaining,” Jason said. And thus, was born their new motto: “Impact, or die trying.”
MAKING A GOOD THING BETTER
Currently, OCB has three locations, the national headquarters in Indiana, with two additional shops in Alabama and California. OCB continues to be open to expanding to other states, but it requires people who are willing to start from the ground up; following the OCB recipe and using their own garages, if necessary. With Jason's help in creating their own OCB non-profit, " We want you to succeed," Jason said.
“I’m working on a few other states, but I’m quality over quantity, so I gotta make sure that people can follow the recipe. I’ve got people down in Texas, and a few in several other states that have reached out, but nobody pulled the trigger on it yet. They just gotta have their team [who are committed] together.”
As the second-largest Veteran populous in Indiana, Jason and the crew want to have the space available for more Vets to receive the therapy and camaraderie that OCB offers.
As for OCB’s headquarters, they are popping at the seams.
In 2017, Operation Combat Bikesaver was featured on Mike Rowe’s “Returning the Favor,” and in the last 6 years, OCB has seen more and more Veterans come into the program.
“Our end game goal is to have a huge Disneyland 40 acres, you know, 20,000 square feet with separate buildings, paint booths, powder coating and we want to teach everything so that way they have the opportunity when they come in to have any kind of distractive therapy that they want. Plus, they’re also fulfilling a need in their life. You know they have this lawn tractor that they’re trying to fix so they can mow their lawn; fixing or replacing a lawnmower isn't cheap. They have all the tools and stuff given them... no excuse, right? There’s no reason why you can’t have cool nice shit, on a budget, and keep yourself distracted, not thinking about the negative.”
Long before AT EASE! Veterans Magazine existed, I first learned about Operation Combat Bikesaver in 2017 after watching Mike Rowe's "Returning the Favor" on Facebook. To this day I can't watch those episodes without shedding a few tears.
Shortly after publishing our first issue, I met Jason Zaideman in a Veterans entrepreneur group and when I finally connected the dots, I knew we had to feature OCB in our magazine.
What Jason doesn't know, is the lasting impact he, Andy, and OCB have had on myself and this magazine. How we decide what VSOs to feature, is determined by the 'boots on the ground' model I saw with OCB. Thank you to the OCB crew for that influence!
~ Christine Walker
HOW CAN VETERANS HELP?
Become a Member – OCB support membership is $45/year.
Volunteer
Investigate Opening an OCB Chapter/Shop in your area.