Operation Amped Foundation

07/17/2026

Operation Amped supports wounded, injured, disabled, and seriously ill U.S. military veterans, active-duty service members, and their families through the healing power of surfing and community. 🌊

Every participant is welcomed into a supportive environment where they can build confidence, strengthen their well-being, and experience the freedom and connection that come from time in the ocean.

You can help make these experiences possible by volunteering, donating, supporting fundraising efforts, sharing our mission, or helping us reach more members of the military community. Every act of support helps create more opportunities for healing, growth, and belonging.

Together, we can honor those who serve by standing beside them both in and out of the water.

05/25/2026

Honoring the Fallen by Supporting the Living. 🌊🇺🇸

This Memorial Day, the Operation Amped family pauses to remember and honor the brave servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Their legacy is a profound reminder of the cost of freedom.

At Operation Amped, we believe the best way to honor their memory is by showing up for the veterans who made it home. Through the healing power of the ocean and the camaraderie of the surf community, we share a therapeutic community that helps our heroes heal, physically and emotionally.

To everyone who has served, everyone who has lost a brother or sister-in-arms, and the families who carry the weight of that sacrifice—we see you, we honor you, and we thank you.

Want to help us continue this vital mission? Consider supporting our upcoming surf camps. Every bit helps us get more veterans on the water.

🔗 www.operationamped.com

07/25/2025

Thank you to all who made Operation Amped’s One-Day Surf Camp with Rocky McKinnon a success TODAY! 🏄‍♂️ Our participants felt the healing power of surfing with pro surfer Rocky McKinnon. Gratitude for the premium lessons, adaptive gear, and epic vibes! 🌊📍 Huntington Beach Learn more at operationamped.org.

Operation Amped’s mission is to share the “stoke” of the surfing community and the healing potential of surfing with seriously ill, injured, and or disabled U.S. military veterans and their families.

09/21/2024

Camp Pendleton, 3-day event, 2024. Everyone is STOKED!

04/29/2024

This is a picture of Standing Holy, who is listed as Sitting Bull's daughter. It brings to mind the traditional Oceti Ŝakowiŋ style of parenting. The first time that Sitting Bull traveled and observed non-Native people spanking their children, he was shocked.
There was never a need to continually scold a child, belittle them, or strike them. They cuddled their children from birth to about seven because they believed crying wasn't good for children.
Often, if a child did not stop crying, some grandmothers would cry along with them to help them get over whatever had made them sad.
At an early age, they begin to take on the responsibility of their clothing and bedding. Our people traveled with the buffalo and had to be mobile. By the age of 10, most of our children knew how to take care of the materials needed for travel.
Love, teaching, structure, and community raised our children.
Colonization tells us that physical discipline helps shape our children and turn our boys into men. Yet, without ever being spanked, we produced the greatest warriors that ever walked this land.
Our lifeways and ceremonies through the different stages of life were more valuable than anything colonization offered.

04/29/2024

We were told we would see America come and go. In a sense, America dies from the inside out, because they have forgotten the instructions to live on Mother Earth. This is the Hopi creed, it is our creed, that if you are not spiritually connected to the Earth, and you don't understand the spiritual reality of life on Earth, chances are you are not going to make it.
Everything is spiritual, everything has one
Spirit.
We are here on Earth only a few winters, then we go to the spirit world. The spirit world is more real than most of us realize.
The spirit world is everything. Most of our body is water. To stay healthy you need to drink pure water. Water is sacred, air is sacred. Our DNA is made from the same DNA as the tree, the tree breathes what we breathe out, we need what the tree expires. So we have a common fate with the tree. We are all of the Earth, and when the Earth and its water and atmosphere are corrupted, then the Earth will create her reaction. The Mother reacts.
In the Hopi prophecy it says that storms and floods will get bigger.
For me it is not negative to know that there will be big changes. It's not negative, it's evolution. When you look at it as an Evolution, you know it's time, nothing stays the same. You should learn to plant something. This is the first connection. You should look at all things as Spirit, realize that we are family. It never ends. Everything is life and there is no end to life.
🌹🐎🌵🦅🤍🐺
- Floyd " Red Crow " Westerman, musician, actor and activist native of South Dakota

04/29/2024

Portrait of Chief He Dog, of the Oglala Lakota, 1900.

04/29/2024

Iron Thunder, Crow Eagle, Fool Thunder, Slow White Buffalo, all holding peace pipes, Dakota, circa 1880s.