March 25, 2022

Scott Houwman plans to get on a plane today, land in Poland more than a day later and then figure out how best to help those in need fleeing attacks in neighboring Ukraine.

“I hope it’s a good deal for the people we encounter, but we really don’t know what to expect,” he said. “We have good intentions, and there are a lot of good people who are going to help support once we find out what the needs are.”

Houwman is hoping to work with a Polish mission building a field hospital near the border with Ukraine that’s able to take care of people “who are sick or hurt or trying to walk across the border,” he said. “People who are shot, have wounds, people who are sick. That’s probably where I’d be best utilized.”

Call it a bit of unfinished business for the Sioux Falls native, who trained as a combat medic in the Army in the late 1980s.

He was called into Desert Storm, preparing to fly into the Middle East, when he and more than 100 medics were told their services were no longer needed.

“The Army trained me, and I feel like I can do something, and I’m angry,” he said. “I see this guy (Russian President Vladimir Putin) that has a country five times bigger than the United States and he lives a very posh lifestyle, and if good people don’t stand up, he gets his way. I don’t want that to happen. I’m not thinking I’m going to make this huge difference, but I might make the difference to a couple people who are going through a really tough time.”

He is taking a leave of absence from Malloy, where he works in national sales for the company’s wind energy division, and plans to meet up with a few people he has connected with who are from Sioux Falls and also in the area to serve.

Houwman joined the military midway through college and then spent time in a Colorado hospital helping perform surgeries before spending two decades as a physical therapist in Mitchell.

In Poland, “I might end up in an orphanage. I might end up in a hospital system. I might end up wherever they see fit,” he said. “You have to keep your options open because you don’t want to be in the way and cause a problem. You want to be part of the solution.”

Once he has identified needs, he hopes to connect with those in South Dakota positioned to help.

He envisions figuring out how to transport needed items to the war-torn area, including leveraging his existing business relationships.

“We have a lot of really good people who do a lot of shipping where they’d be able to put it together and work through the system to get it where it needs to go,” he said. “I think South Dakotans are the most generous people in the world, and if they believe it’s not a scam … if they know it’s going to go directly to people … they will step up and help.”

Houwman also plans to document his journey to help bring awareness to the situation. Watch for updates here or on our sister site pigeon605.com as he shares them.