Maximize Your Benefits. Optimize Your Life.

July 2, 2026

I know, I know. You see me in your inbox and you’re expecting me to deliver another tool to squeeze a few thousand more out of the benefits you earned. Not this week. We're rolling into the July 4th weekend, and instead of homework I want to introduce you to our newest partner. Next week we'll be back to the usual grind of turning your benefits into a strategy.

I want to introduce you to an organization I've partnered The Better Veteran with, one that, the more I got to know them, felt like looking in a mirror. They give everything away for free, they don't care what your rank was, and they will not let a veteran twist in the wind if there's something they can do about it.

They're called the Recon & Sniper Foundation.

Here's the first thing I need you to understand, because the name may mislead you: you do not have to be Recon, and you do not have to be a Scout Sniper, to matter to these people. (Good thing, too, because I was neither, and I'd like to think I still matter a little.)

Yes, it was founded back in 2015 by a crew of Recon Marines, Scout Snipers, and Navy SARCs, which is about the most intimidating founding board a nonprofit could possibly have. But that's the origin story, not the boundary. RSF helps servicemembers and veterans from every branch of the Armed Forces. Active duty, Guard, Reserve, or someone who's been out for twenty years and only now realizes they need a hand: it doesn't matter. If you're a veteran in need and there's a way for them to help, they'll find it. I have never once heard them say "that's not our guy." That mindset is exactly why I wanted my name and TBV's name standing next to theirs.

This is the part that matters most, so I'm putting it first. RSF's whole reason for existing is to show up when a veteran is in a hard spot and to do it fast, without a mountain of paperwork or a six-week approval committee.

Help looks like whatever the situation actually calls for. Sometimes that's financial assistance to get someone through a rough stretch: a rent payment, a utility bill, the thing standing between a family and a genuinely bad month. Sometimes it's peer counseling from people who have been exactly where you are and won't blink at what you tell them. Sometimes it's helping connect a veteran to real mental health treatment instead of leaving them to white-knuckle it alone. And sometimes it's whatever else is feasible that day. They meet the veteran where they are instead of shoving everyone through the same tidy little box the VA would.

If you take nothing else from this issue: if you're hurting, you're allowed to ask. That's the whole point of them.

Here's the thing nobody warns you about when you get out: the benefits stuff is solvable. It's spreadsheets and forms and knowing which box to check. The part that quietly wrecks people is the day the phone stops ringing and the group chat goes silent. You go from a platoon to a parking lot.

RSF treats that as a mission, not an afterthought. They run preventative mental-health events all year long, the kind designed to catch people before the crisis, not after. That ranges from individual and group therapy in the mountains of Colorado at Rawah Ranch (which, if you've never been to that part of the country, is the kind of place that does half the healing for you before anyone says a word) to lower-key veteran get-togethers out in Southern California. Different speeds, same idea: get you back in a room with people who get it. If you want to see what that actually looks like day to day, their Instagram is the best window into it, and it's where they're most active and have the biggest following.

This one's my favorite, and not just because it's an excuse to go shooting. RSF fields a competitive-sport arm called Team RSF that plugs veterans into precision rifle, USPSA, endurance sports, and even cowboy sports (yes, that's a real thing, and yes, it looks like an absolute blast).

It sounds like a hobby. It isn't. For a lot of us, the thing that actually keeps the wheels on is having a mission again: a standard to train to, a match on the calendar, and a squad expecting you to show up. Team RSF gives veterans that structure and, more importantly, the network of people that comes bolted to it. Turns out "go to the range with your buddies who understand you" is a shockingly effective mental-health program.

RSF is a registered 501(c)(3), and the staff is 100% volunteer. Nobody there is drawing a fat executive salary off donations. They also don't take government grants; the work is funded through their events and through individual donors who actually believe in it.

That matters to me more than almost anything else, because the veteran space is crawling with people who figured out that "helping veterans" is a decent way to get rich. It's the exact same reason I built The Better Veteran to be free forever: when nobody's getting paid on the back end, you can trust the intent on the front end. RSF passes that test without even trying.

The Better Veteran and RSF cover two different halves of the same fight. I hand you the tools and the math: what your benefits are actually worth, and how to stop leaving money and options on the table. RSF is boots-on-the-ground for the moments a spreadsheet can't touch: the emergency, the low point, the stretch where you just need someone in your corner who won't flinch.

Between the two of us, a veteran shouldn't have to choose between knowing their options and having people who show up. So going forward, you'll see RSF listed in our partners section, and you'll see The Better Veteran show up in theirs. No money changed hands: just two outfits that give everything away for free deciding to point at each other.

Three ways, and every one of them moves the mission:

1. If you, or a veteran you know, need help, don't sit on it. Fill out their assistance request. Any branch, any background. They would genuinely rather you ask than tough it out.

2. If you're in a position to give back, they run on donations and events, not government money. You can support RSF here, and because they're all-volunteer, your dollar goes an embarrassingly long way.

3. If you can just spread the word, follow them and forward this to one veteran who needs to see it. Start with their Instagram, since that's where they're most active and have the biggest following. You can find them everywhere else too: website, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

I don't put TBV's name next to just anyone. RSF earned it. If you take one thing from this week's issue, let it be this: if you're a veteran in a hard spot, there are people who will help you, and they will not ask you what your Rate/MOS was first.

Talk soon,

Zak

I'm sharing the Recon & Sniper Foundation because I partnered with them and believe in the work, not because I'm paid to. They're a 100% volunteer 501(c)(3), and their help is free to the veterans who need it.