Built on Brotherhood: The Force Behind Wounded Heroes of America

To the untrained eye, it may look like just another softball game.

On a September afternoon, they showed up with matching T-shirts, representing something bigger than the game. The smell of something good coming off the grill, somewhere in the shade, while the DJ played the old classic the kind of songs that bring back a sense of nostalgia before you even realize it.
The scoreboard says 18-16, and by the seventh inning, a few of the older ones are limping a little more than they’d like to admit.

But the men standing on that field in the San Gabriel Valley know exactly what this is. It’s the eighth annual Wounded Heroes of America softball picnic, Marines from the San Gabriel Valley against a roster of combat-wounded veterans, and it is one of the most important days of their year.

“It’s another opportunity to get together,” says Mike Talleda, president and founder of Wounded Heroes of America. “For this community, camaraderie, fellowship, that’s the key.”

Talleda has been doing this for 25 years. He didn’t start yesterday.

One Tournament, One Letter, One Question

In 2001, Talleda was a Cuban refugee turned Torrance real estate man who had built a good life in the South Bay. When the towers fell, he was almost 50 years old , too late to enlist, too moved to do nothing.

“I needed to be involved somehow,” he says.

He gathered some friends and organized a golf tournament under the name 9/11 Help America. On November 29, 2001, they raised $10,000 , $7,500 for the family of Michael McDonnell, a young husband and father killed in the attacks, and $2,500 to Windows of Hope, a fund for the culinary workers lost in the towers.

It was supposed to be a one-time thing.

Then a letter arrived from Michael’s widow. She wrote, in part “After what you and your group have done, it has made me realize that all humanity is not lost.”

Talleda read that letter and asked himself a question that would change the rest of his life. If we can create an impact like that, what else is possible?

From One Family to 200 Heroes

The next years stretched the mission. He met Navy SEALs raising money for the widows of special operators lost in Afghanistan. He worked with surviving spouses as the Iraq war began. Around 2006 and 2007, he started meeting combat-wounded veterans, young men and women coming home missing limbs, sight, and pieces of themselves.

In 2004, Wounded Heroes of America incorporated as a nonprofit. Today, the organization has supported more than 200 combat-wounded veterans and their families, not with the machinery of a national giant, but with the consistency of a neighbor.

“We’re not the Wounded Warrior Project,” Talleda says plainly. “We’re a regional, in-the-weeds type of foundation.”

And that, he insists, is exactly the point.

The Niche the VA Can’t Fill

Talleda is quick to credit the VA. They rebuild faces and limbs; they teach men to walk and talk again.

“They do amazing things,” he says. “But they can’t do everything. And they’re not really all that great at creating a social environment.”

PTSD and traumatic brain injury don’t always show up in a mirror. Many vets look perfectly fine and carry invisible wounds , depression, isolation, the sense that no one understands what they’ve been through.

What they need, Talleda realized, is not another clinical appointment. It’s a reason to leave the house. A place where the person next to them has walked the same road.

That’s the niche Wounded Heroes of America fills , with a calendar instead of a brochure.

The foundation’s work includes financial assistance, fellowship, education, advocacy, and year-round events that create opportunities for veterans, their families, and the broader community to spend time together.

A Year in the Life of the Brotherhood

The method is constant contact. Not once a year, but all year.

• May, the golf tournament, a tradition carried since that first one in 2001.
• July, the WHOA fireworks stand, where families come to meet the vets.
• August, Alive Day at the beach.
• September, the softball picnic.
• November, turkeys and full dinners for vets and their families, thanks to friends at Albertsons.
• December, Operation Santa: collecting toys, driving to 35 Southern California cities, visiting more than 40 homes dressed as Santa Claus, and finishing the run on the Navajo reservation, where a group of Vietnam vets have been part of the WHOA family for years.

The events are different, but the purpose remains the same connection. Every gathering creates another opportunity for veterans and civilians to share a meal, a conversation, a laugh, or a few innings together.

Alive Day

The most beautiful event on the calendar started with a question.

Talleda was at a barbecue when he asked a vet if it was his birthday.

“No,” the man said. “It’s my Alive Day, the day I was wounded and survived. I celebrate it every year.”

Talleda never forgot that conversation.

Now, every summer, WHOA takes over a beach in the middle of the season with friends from Dive N’ Surf and Aqua Surf of Redondo Beach, who bring the boards and the people and teach the kids young and old how to boogie board and surf.

“We insist on enjoying life,” Talleda says. “Alive Day is a beautiful day that should be celebrated with family and friends… While always remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”

Alive Day is not about forgetting the past. It is about recognizing survival, celebrating family, and creating space for joy.

The Vets Run the Show

Ask who puts these days together and Talleda waves the credit away.

The vets themselves, Victor Montel, Mario Martinez, Rene Ramirez and their group are the ones who bring the people, set up the field, cook the food, and make it happen. Talleda is just the vehicle.

That humility is the secret. He doesn’t want the spotlight; he wants the community to find a way in.

“A lot of people want to help vets, but they don’t have a vehicle to do that,” he says. “We try to be that vehicle.”

People like Ron Salisbury, a friend who has hosted the vets for years. Dive N’ Surf. Aqua Surf. The Laker Girls, who once showed up at a WHOA event just to join the fun. The rancher who opened his land for horseback riding. The LA County Fair that hosted a hundred vets and their kids. Fantastic Café, where WHOA meets every other Friday to break bread.

None of it happens overnight. It took 25 years.

The Obligation

Talleda’s mission comes down to a simple moral arithmetic:

“If I sent you to war and you come back all mangled up, blind, amputee, paraplegic, the community has an obligation to share what they can with you, to help you along, to make life better for those that we send out.” …he pauses. “That’s it.”

The foundation just started a podcast only a couple episodes in so vets can tell their own stories, what they’ve gone through, how they got injured, what’s working in their lives and what isn’t.

Because the next generation needs to hear it from the men who lived it.

The Scoreboard Lies

The softball game ended 18-16. WHOA made a valiant comeback and came up a few runs short but everyone left better friends. The families grew a little closer. The brotherhood got a little stronger.

“Win or lose,” the event page reads, “everyone left better friends.”

To the untrained eye, it’s just a softball game. But believe Mike Talleda when he tells you it’s more than that. It’s a promise kept 25 years running that the people who carried the weight for all of us will never carry it alone.

That’s the brotherhood. That’s Wounded Heroes of America.

For Sports Media Network, spending the afternoon with this group was something special. They made us feel welcome part of the family like we had known each other our whole lives. That feeling is contagious, and it’s hard to come by.

Thank you to the vets of Wounded Heroes of America for letting us in.

Sources

• Interview transcript with Mike Talleda (September 2026)
• Wounded Heroes of America official site
• WHOA: From 9/11 to Today : 25 Years of Supporting America’s Veterans
• WHOA Board of Directors
• WHOA Events page
• CBS News Los Angeles: “Veterans’ Voices: Wounded Heroes of America”

Special thanks to photographer Joshua Salas for his support of this project.