On the anniversary of September 11th, a bottle of bourbon, a bar in the shadow of Ground Zero, and a story that started in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Just off the southeast corner of Liberty Park, tucked in the shadow of one of New York City’s most quietly powerful monuments, sits O’Hara’s Pub.
It’s the kind of place that holds history without announcing it. A neighborhood bar, 120 Cedar Street, a few blocks from where the towers stood. The De Oppresso Liber Horse Soldier Monument rises nearby, bronze soldiers on horseback, honoring the first Special Forces operators who rode into the mountains of Afghanistan in the weeks after September 11th, 2001. Men who answered the call before the dust had settled. Men who carried the weight of that day into some of the most dangerous terrain on earth.
Men like Will Markham and Scott Zastrow.
The Monument and the Mission
De Oppresso Liber. It’s the motto of the United States Army Special Forces, Latin for “to liberate the oppressed.” It’s also, in many ways, the quiet undercurrent of everything Project OVAT™ does.
Will Markham didn’t just serve alongside the soldiers that monument honors. He was one of them. And the mission he carried home from Afghanistan, the one that eventually became Project One Vet @ A Time™, has always been about liberation of a different kind. Freeing veterans from a system that underrates, underpays, and overlooks the people who gave everything in service to this country.
This September 11th, twenty-five years after that day changed the world, history came full circle in a way that felt entirely fitting.
A Bottle Behind the Bar
Ahead of Patriot Day, Will stopped by O’Hara’s Pub to personally hand off something special.
Maker’s Mark Cask Strength, “Made for the Brave”, a limited edition bottle crafted in direct support of Project OVAT™. Co-owner Paul Mackin received it personally. Mike Keane, the other half of O’Hara’s, stood alongside him, repping his POVAT™ gear, because that’s the kind of people O’Hara’s attracts. People who know what service costs and who want to honor it in real, tangible ways.
That bottle now lives behind the bar at O’Hara’s. In the shadow of a monument to the soldiers who infiltrated Afghanistan on horseback. Across the street from the footprints of the Twin Towers. In a neighborhood that absorbed the weight of September 11th more directly than almost anywhere else on earth, and rebuilt anyway.
If that’s not a fitting home for a bourbon made for the brave, nothing is.
Resilience, Poured Neat
O’Hara’s has always been more than a bar. It’s a symbol of what New York does with grief and loss; it turns it into something that endures. Something that welcomes people in, holds space for memory, and keeps showing up.
Project OVAT™ is built on the same instinct.
Veterans came home from Afghanistan, from Iraq, from every theater of service before and since, carrying wounds the VA has never fully accounted for. The system designed to support them is slow, complicated, and too often gets it wrong. Project OVAT™ exists to stand in that gap: to review the records, build the evidence, fight the appeals, and make the phone call that tells a veteran their decision has finally come through.
Twenty-five years after September 11th, the mission is the same as it’s ever been. Honor service. Fight for the ones who served. Make sure liberation isn’t just a motto, it’s a reality.
Raise a Glass
If you’re in New York City, stop by O’Hara’s Pub at 120 Cedar Street. Pull up a stool near Ground Zero. Order a pour of Maker’s Mark Cask Strength “Made for the Brave.” And know that every sip supports a veteran who is still fighting for what they earned.
If you’re not in New York, you can still be part of it.
Project OVAT™ operates entirely on donations, no cost to veterans, ever. Every dollar funds the case reviews, the medical analysis, the appeals, and the phone calls that change lives permanently.
This September 11th, we’re asking you to remember, and then to act.
“De Oppresso Liber.”
To liberate the oppressed.
That’s still the mission.
Visit projectovat.org to donate and support the veterans still fighting for what they earned.
