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Arts & Entertainment

Brawny calls her a 'shero,' but this Marine veteran and her horse just want to serve fellow soldiers

When you think about tough-guy household helpers — Mr. Clean, the Jolly Green Giant, Brawny's lumberjack — do you ever wonder what they're up to, you know, when they've finished scouring surfaces or enforcing healthy eating habits?

Likely not.

But, one of Brawny's new faces of strength — U.S. Marine veteran Rachael Wilson of Coppell — has a different story. The word "strength" barely dusts the surface.

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Wilson is one of three women chosen to grace Brawny paper towel packages in March as part of its Strength Has No Gender campaign for Women's History Month.

Now in its third year, the campaign includes a $100,000 donation to Girls Inc. and a curation of stories about inspirational everyday women on social media.

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Wilson was nominated for the campaign's top honor by a film producer who saw her interview for an in-production PBS documentary about the epidemic of suicide among military veterans. She, along with bricklayer Vanessa Casillas and adventure athlete entrepreneur Sarah Herron, were chosen to tell their stories in short videos produced by Brawny.

A "real deal, round 'em up cowgirl," as she puts it, Wilson is a more than halfway through a master's degree in counseling at the University of North Texas. One day, she wants to open an equine therapy rescue and rehabilitation ranch where military veterans can heal from trauma.

It's a treatment method with intensely personal meaning for Wilson. She says she was saved by a horse named Bonnie.

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"Horses make you open up," Wilson says. "You can't be inauthentic because they know; whatever's going on inside you, they feel it."

Dixie Belle's Bonnie Blu was born on March 22, 2012, during an especially hard period for Wilson.

After being honorably discharged from the Marines in 1997, Wilson returned home and stayed busy. She threw herself into creating the next chapter, but when her marriage ended, she faced new challenges as a single mother of two. Then, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease.

Things felt bleak. Wilson was suicidal, but she wasn't talking about it or much of anything else. She'd become isolated in her life in the suburbs, but her dad had a special project for her back on the ranch. He'd had his horse bred, and the baby would be Wilson's.

"You know that George Strait song, 'How 'Bout Them Cowgirls'?" Wilson asks, before reciting a line. "'She's trying hard to fit in in some city, but her home is 'neath that big, blue sky' ... that's me."

That spring, Bonnie was born with a paint coat, just like they'd hoped. The more time Wilson spent with her, she realized it wasn't just a welcome diversion from city life. She began to feel transformed.

Wilson had grown up around horses, visiting her grandparents' ranch in Marana, Ariz., as a child, but she hadn't interacted with them as much as she was now on her family's ranch in Comanche.

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She realized she could "hear" them, she says; her empathy ran so deeply she could work out systems of communication and intuit reasons for their behavior.

"Horses are like us in that they don't like to be controlled or disrespected," Wilson says.

Last summer, Wilson's dad and uncle — hardcore horsemen — recognized her skills, too. Bonnie was badly injured while Wilson was traveling to honor a friend's life in burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and she wouldn't let anyone near her to care for the wounds without sedation. When Wilson returned, she lowered her head and approached.

Forming that type of bond requires a handler to be intentional, calmly relating to the animal on common ground, she says. That's part of what makes equine therapy effective for people who need help reintegrating into life post-trauma.

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"Horses regulate heart rate like we do, and they're close to us in DNA," she says.

In 2009, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard published research from horse genome sequencing. The analysis revealed "more than half of the horse chromosomes [studied] show synteny with a single human chromosome. This is in contrast to dogs, where the figure is less than one-third."

Synteny describes how parts of chromosomes shuffle during evolution; sometimes they stay closely aligned to ancestral origins, and sometimes they alter. From a medical standpoint, the cellular similarities are significant.

"Horses and humans suffer from similar illnesses, so identifying the genetic culprits in horses promises to deepen our knowledge of disease in both organisms," senior author Kerstin Lindblad-Toh wrote in the report.

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From a mental health perspective, Wilson had begun sensing another important similarity between the two species — their mind-body connections — long before she began studying Animal Assisted Therapy in a formal educational setting.

She explains: Like a lot of animals, horses keep their distance or warm up slowly to certain people, and we sometimes interpret that as them not liking us. But, it's actually biofeedback. They mirror human emotions. Even the ones we try to hide.

Humans, particularly those with a strong sense of duty, often fail to acknowledge the physical manifestations of trauma. We pretend we're OK. We carry on. To the shores of Tripoli.

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"Veterans say, 'Save the help for someone who needs it more,'" Wilson says.

But, anxiety isn't just in the head. Elevated cortisol levels, a hallmark of chronic stress and mental illness, leave us on edge, ready to fight or flee. Animals recognize that. It makes them wary. Horses only submit to trainers when they feel safe, she says. It puts them in a place of vulnerability.

With practice, humans can develop and strengthen emotional tools that alter our mental state and behavior. It starts by making ourselves feel safe.

As she got to know Bonnie, Wilson found herself opening up. She began accepting help from veteran advocacy groups and making connections to build a support system. In turn, she dedicated her precious free time to people and organizations that had lifted her out of darkness.

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These days, she works full-time at Metrocare Services, matching veterans and their families to mental health services. She serves in leadership roles for local U.S. Marines and veterans organizations, including Patriot Anglers of North Texas and 22Kill, both of which focus on suicide prevention and awareness. When she can, she organizes roundups, taking groups of veterans to work the cows on her family's ranch.

That's on top of graduate school.

Wilson had volunteered with equine therapy organizations in the past, and in 2016 she began exploring that passion as a link to her future.

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At UNT, she studies under professor Cynthia Kay Chandler, director of the Consortium for Animal Assisted Therapy, who has pioneered a counseling theory called "human animal relational therapy."

"I'm not a professional, yet, but I want to be knowledgeable," Wilson says about her path to becoming a counselor. When it's official, she wants to open a facility focused on veterans and their families that also rescues and rehabilitates horses, dogs and other service animals.

That way, she says, those same veterans who want to 'save the help for someone who needs it more' will know the animals rely on them, too.

Brawny calls her a "shero" but, like many resilient, courageous people, Wilson shies away from the term, directing the conversation to those who built her up and inspired her to dream of ways she can serve others.

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To her, a life of advocacy is just a way to pay forward all she has received.

Rachael Wilson and Bonnie watch the sunrise on the ranch in Comanche.
Rachael Wilson and Bonnie watch the sunrise on the ranch in Comanche. (Sheri Edens Photography)