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a bus filled with widows of war and their children left ukraine bound for the austrian alps. they'd been invited to a charity summer camp hosted by nathan schmidt, an american marine, who knows all too well the bereavement of war. as we first told you last fall, mountain climbing was schmidt's path to recovery from three

combat tours in iraq. and so when vladimir putin launched his attack on an innocent people, schmidt offered ukraine what seemed like an impossible hope, that in only six days in the alps, he could teach grieving families to rise. the journey to an austrian hotel ended at the 3:00 in the morning after 45 hours on the road. so, the trip already felt like a mistake to widows who'd packed enough skepticism to last the week. their husbands died defending ukraine, among the tens of thousands of ukrainian soldiers killed. time stopped for natalia zaremba and her two young boys. she told us -- >> translator: i think they still don't believe what happened, just like me. they're still waiting for daddy to come home from work.

>> reporter: for daddy to fly home to 8-year-old illia and 5-year-old andrii, who imagined mastering the air like their dad. mykhailo zaremba was a navy pilot, shot down may 2022 in the unprovoked invasion of his home. >> translator: he loved ukraine, so he gave his life for ukraine. >> what is your hope for this trip? >> translator: i want to find strength for myself to be able to bring my children up, to bring our children up. i want to find the strength to not let my husband down and to give our children a good future.

>> reporter: 13 widows and 20 children had come to austria from mykolaiv, a city bombed by the russians for 260 days. the bereaved families travelled 1,300 miles on faith to meet a stranger, still struggling to heal from his own war. [ speaking in a global language ] >> reporter: nathan schmidt, naval academy graduate, lieutenant colonel u.s. marine corp. reserve led shouts of "glory to ukraine" at the third summer camp hosted by his small charity, the mountain seed foundation. >> it comes from the bible. it was, you know, with faith the size of a mustard seed, one can move mountains. we're not a religious organization, but that faith,

that faith in something bigger, can reinforce that faith, we and you can move mountains. >> what do you hope these families have when they return to ukraine? >> we teach -- we teach about the significance of the rope in mountaineering. the rope signifies community, signifies team. you're never alone on the rope. it also signifies courage. because when you're on the rope, that means you're climbing a mountain. and courage doesn't mean that you're not afraid. it actually means that you are afraid and you're going to overcome that fear. >> reporter: there would be plenty of fear to overcome because ultimately this was his goal, to lead children on the last leg of a climb to the peak of mount kitzsteinhorn, at more than 10,000 feet. the first steps to the summit

began with the kids, ages 5 to 17. for their moms, there were daily group therapy sessions, and every day of the camp would raise the challenge for both. >> we're going to trust ourselves, the main thing, we're going to trust our equipment, and we're going to trust the team that we're with. >> reporter: the team of professional guides and other volunteers included dan cnossen. cnossen was schmidt's naval academy classmate. as a navy seal in 2009, he lost his legs in afghanistan. he's a three-time paralympian, but he'd never climbed since his injury. the first days of training looked dangerous. >> three, two, one. stop! stop! >> reporter: but there was always an expert on the rope. >> that's a little late. >> reporter: one professional

guide for every four children, who eased the tension slowly for kids, including 14-year-old myroslav kupchenkov. >> now, just lean back. lean back. totally trust. >> no. >> lean back. >> i can't. >> you can. >> i can't. >> you can. >> i can't. >> of course you can. >> myroslav, his adult sister, and their mother, natalia, lost oleksandr kupchenkov, a 53-year-old career soldier. [ speaking in a global language ] natalia told us, "he was the man i wanted to spend my whole life with. he was the best at everything, wonderful husband, wonderful dad. people loved him." kupchenkov was hit by a russian missile march 2022, as he was running ammunition to his pinned down soldiers.

[ speaking in a global language ] myroslav told us, "every day he showed me how to be a good person, and he was always brave. he would never go back, only forward." and myroslav discovered in repelling, going back is going forward, and terror was just one step before triumph. >> that's it. there you go. super. >> reporter: as the children learned the ropes, the moms seemed to be near the end of theirs. >> it will be hard for you to hear this. >> reporter: they were lead by clinical psychologist amit oren, with translation by iryna prykhodko, the charity's ukrainian cofounder. amit oren is an assistant

professor at the yale school of medicine. >> the way i approach this group of people is not in looking at their trauma. it's in looking at their strengths. >> and what strengths are you finding? >> capacity for love. honesty. these are the strengths that they're finding. all i do is take a flashlight, illuminate inside them, and let them see and remember who they are. >> reporter: but svitlana melnyichuk, on the left, didn't see the light. she didn't believe in breakthroughs. she brought her daughter, myroslava, while her adult daughter stayed home. svitlana lost her husband, yuriy, a civilian building inspector, who volunteered the day after putin invaded. svitlana mixed homemade explosives for the troops, as her husband sent text messages from the front.

svitlana told us -- [ speaking in a global language ] >> reporter: -- "pictures starting coming in, good morning, darling, with a photo of a flower taken right from the trench." the photos thrilled her because yuriy had always worked too much at the expense of the family, she thought. but after the invasion, family was all he cared about. his revelation lifted their lives. then, he was dead, and her rage is almost like blindness. >> translator: i became very distant and angry, and i kept all the sorrow inside. i didn't share it. >> reporter: nathan schmidt was keeping his sorrow inside when,

in 2019, a friend invited him on a climbing trip. schmidt wasn't a mountaineer. he's afraid of heights. to him, the idea sounded so difficult and frightening, it might just have the force to break his grief. >> yeah. you know, i spent the naval academy preparing myself for war, and nothing can prepare yourself for war. >> reporter: in 2004, schmidt was a 24-year-old first lieutenant, who dreamed of leading marines. he landed in fallujah on the eve of the bloodiest battle of the entire iraq war. >> two weeks after arriving at camp fallujah, i lost my teacher, who was a mentor of mine at the naval academy. >> killed? >> yeah. the rocket struck the office. i was the second one in the

room, and it was the first time i'd ever seen anyone die in such a way. and it was my teacher. and that established a crack in me that had to be healed in another way that took years and years to heal. the problem was that was the first of many cracks. i lost one of our marines that was in my unit a month later. i then had my friend lose his leg. i took over his team. a few days after that, i lost my analyst in a gun tourette to our vehicle. by the end of november, the unit that i was with, which is a great unit, 3-1, was combat ineffective. we had lost over 20% of our unit, either injured or killed. >> reporter: and that was his first tour. he fought in iraq for three years.

>> who were you after that third tour? >> i thought, in my mind, that i was the strongest. but in reality, i was -- i was the weakest. i was strong physically. i could do as many pull-ups as you asked me to do. i could run. but, man, i was broke. and, you know, those cracks, they take a lifetime to -- to heal. >> reporter: you spend this week doing what you can to heal these families. and i wonder how much of that is healing you. >> it's huge.

this program has healed me in ways i can't even describe. and i feel sometimes i think it's selfish. but you're right. you're right. it works. and i'm not sure why. >> reporter: maybe it works because the children and mothers who arrived on the bus will not be the same people who return to ukraine. no one's quite the same after scaling a wall like this. when we come back, teaching the bereaved to rise.

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>> reporter: nathan schmidt's week-long summer camp for bereaved ukrainian children and their mothers began with training in the austrian alps. then, serious work began, the kind of challenge that might rise to a revelation. the hohe tauren national park embraces some of the highest peaks in the austrian alps and a feat of engineering. the mooserboden dam would be the first big challenge for the 13 widows and their 20 children. a zip line flew them to the concrete face -- >> i need some pull up. >> reporter: -- where they found a steel cable to clip their harnesses to. footholds were set across the span about two and a half football fields wide. the children and moms literally could not fall, and yet the mooserboden dam remained 32 stories of doubt.

natalia zaremba did not like the measure of it. the russians had killed her husband, the father of her two boys. was this risk foolish? >> why do you put them on this dam? >> we put them on this dam because we want them to confront discomfort. we want them to confront their fears. >> reporter: nathan schmidt cofounded the mountain seed foundation charity. we met in the 700-square-mile park, where the dam, finished after world war ii, is a tourist attraction for rock climbers. >> what makes this safe, in your view? >> first off, we have professional mountain guides. the second thing is all the equipment that we have, we -- they train throughout the week on it. they know how to use the equipment. and then particularly the little children, they are also short roped in to a guide.

so, there's multiple layers of security for them. >> reporter: and so, with all that security, the challenge was not so much under their feet as under their skin. >> and here we go. >> reporter: myroslav kupchenkov, who told us his late father never went back, always forward, was following his father's lead. >> you know, in life, sometimes the thing that gets you through a difficult point is knowing that you've already done something more difficult. >> reporter: what difference do you see in them when they reach the top? >> the sheer look of joy on their faces.

>> perfect! >> it's hard to even comprehend. and we know that that will be a strong point for them when they go back to ukraine. they will know that they've -- they've conquered this wall, and they will -- they conquered their own fears. >> reporter: fears conquered by natalia zaremba, who, at the end of the climb, was walking on air. >> yeah! >> reporter: she told us, she came to austria to find strength to raise her boys alone. >> nice! [ speaking in a global language ] >> reporter: she said, "it was something incredible. as soon as i stepped on the ground, the children ran to me, hugged me. there were no flowers there, so my older son gave me a branch from a bush." >> you know, i see you smiling, and i suspect there hasn't been a lot of that.

>> translator: i don't feel joy the way i used to. wherever i am, no matter how good a time i'm having, it's hard, knowing my husband could have been with us. but he's not. and even when i smile, the pain in my heart is very strong. >> reporter: the pain is strong but maybe not invincible. natalia was listening at the meetings, and words of inspiration, like those of navy seal dan cnossen, were getting through. >> that bomb in afghanistan took my legs, and i can't change that fact.

[ speaking in a global language ] >> but ultimately it has to be up to me to decide if it's going to take the rest of my life too. thank you all very much. >> reporter: still, for others, especially svitlana melnyichuk, words fell short. she had told us her husband sent photos of flowers from his trench until the russians killed him. she said -- >> translator: life is a book that you read your whole life. when my husband died, i stopped turning the pages in the book. >> reporter: but opening a new chapter is what clinical psychologist amit oren had in mid. and so she took the widows to a storybook castle, where she hoped to scale the walls of svitlana melnyichuk.

>> and i started to talk with her about castle walls, that we are going to see a castle where there are always very deep, tough, impenetrable walls, and that i thought that her face looked like that, that it was hard to see what's inside, like this castle. and i brought them to a wall, a side wall, of the castle, where there were teeny, tiny windows. and i said to them, right now, i think you're here at the bottom. and as you go up, you're able then to see three windows. i said, unless you open that window, you can't peer out and see the beauty around you. you're trapped. and ultimately what happened is several of the women stood there on the grass and opened up to each other. she was one of them. >> it was choking you. it was choking you.

>> reporter: the next day, after the group session, svitlana had been thinking. >> she came up to me and said to me, it was a very painful conversation we had, and i made a decision. my anger was choking me, and i decided to let it go so i can breathe. >> congratulations. [ speaking in a global language ] >> you've done hard work. [ speaking in a global language ] >> i'm so happy for you. [ speaking in a global language ] >> she has a long way to go, but she's understood that it's a choice at least. the few things she can control in this world is how open or closed she chooses to be in her own castle. >> you know, as you talk to the mothers, none of them expected

what happened in february of 2022, the invasion, losing their homes in many cases, losing their future, or at least a future being unknown. and it's one of those moments in climbing where you look all around and you don't know where you're going to put your hand and you don't know where you're going to put your foot. you don't know if you're going to be able to stay in that position or fall. this program is meant to show them the footholds and the handholds to fill the cracks that they have too and then lead their children back up the mountain. >> reporter: on day five, one mountain remained. nathan schmidt took the first steps from a high tram station on an ascent to the peak of mount kitzsteinhorn. it was a steep and icy 570 feet to the ultimate test of the

camp. like the dam earlier, there was a fixed cable to hook onto. but, like the dam, glancing down looked fatal, and looking up, a cold, thin glare exposed hours of struggle. we followed schmidt's lead and remembered what he told us about the rope we were on and its three lessons, community, courage -- >> and the last thing is responsibility. and this is probably the most difficult one. and that is, when you're on the rope, you're responsible for those that are on the rope with you. when they're weak, you pull them up. when they are showing signs of fatigue, you encourage them. >> look at me. breathe in, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four. >> we hope that when they go home that they build their own

communities, they add people to their rope, that they encourage them to face their fears and have courage. >> reporter: courage lifted them 10,508 feet, a summit reached by everyone. >> let's go! >> reporter: including nathan schmidt's naval academy classmate, dan cnossen, on his prosthetics. >> it's tough, but i'm happy to make it to the top. and it was great to do it with everyone. seeing the kids climbing gave me a lot of inspiration to keep pushing. >> reporter: natalia zaremba's kids pushed to the top. she had come to austria to find strength within herself. but from the peak, she could see where that kind of strength truly comes from. >> translator: we have something that bonds us more now, some new achievements, which we

experienced together and that taught us to be braver and stay together because only together can we overcome this. our strength, she said, will be from being together. >> reporter: also among the climbers of the summit was myroslav kupchenkov, who told us, now he could do anything. >> what is your hope for them? >> my hope for them is that they can remember the achievement that they've had, and i also hope they can remember the stillness and the peace of these mountains. can't hear the sounds of war here. you just close your eyes and you feel like you could fly. >> reporter: even svitlana melnyichuk took flight, rising to the summit, and at last to

the high, open windows of her castle. >> translator: i was screaming. to be honest, i was simply screaming. having breathed in full lungs of air, i was screaming with my head up toward, i don't know, god, nature, i don't know. i was just getting rid of all the negative. >> has this helped you in some small way to heal? >> translator: oh, well, at least i managed to open the bag of my sorrows. >> reporter: to open their sorrows to the sky five days before they clip to a rope, a string of broken souls. now they would return to the war but this time resurrected in

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- lift the clouds off of... - virtual weather, only on kpix and pix+. and, lo, before the flood, the lord said to noah, make yourself an ark. bring out every kind of living creature. that was the old testament. but what happens today when disaster threatens animals? a powerful force, a zoo, a foreign government, even the u.s. department of justice often calls from on high and enlists the services of one man, pat craig, founder of the wild animal sanctuary in colorado.

as we first reported in january, craig has emerged as the go-to guy for orchestrating high stakes rescues around the world. we accompanied this modern-day noah to a zoo in puerto rico for his most ambitious mission yet. >> reporter: these lions were once literally the pride of puerto rico, housed at the dr. juan a. rivero zoo on the island of mayaguez, the only zoo on the island. but after years of decline, mismanagement, and neglect, this was the tableau that greeted pat craig and his wife, monica, when they arrived from colorado. >> what was your impression when you got to the zoo for the first time? >> the animals were very, very sad looking, and some of them were very, very sick. i felt physically and emotionally overwhelmed. >> even while we were there, animals died almost on a weekly basis. >> correct. >> so,that felt even worse because we're present and yet we

were there too late. >> reporter: over the course of a decade, the u.s. department of agriculture cited the zoo two dozen times for substandard conditions and animal mistreatment. after hurricanes irma and maria ravaged the island, the zoo closed to the public in 2018. for the more than 300 winged, scaled, and four-legged residents still captive, the situation turned from bad to down-right desperate. >> we saw a zebra that had a horrible wound on her leg and her tail, and she couldn't stand up. we saw a pig that had a skin her skin was just falling apart. >> reporter: a mountain lion's untreated cancer had been allowed to spread all over its body. >> seeing the mountain lion suffering the way that he was, that broke my heart. and not being able to -- sorry. >> yeah, help them. yeah. it was just so evident that this facility was way beyond repair. >> reporter: the u.s. department of justice, which enforces

federal animal welfare laws in the states and puerto rico, agreed and in february of last year staged an extraordinary intervention, sending a battalion of agents to the zoo to evacuate every single species to permanent homes on the mainland. to lead this mission, to captain this ark, as it were, the doj tapped wild animal sanctuary founder, pat craig. we were there to witness the operation. equal parts military-style logistics and battlefield extraction. among the targets, seven lions sweltering in a concrete bunker. >> and they never hooked up the power after the hurricane. they never hooked up the power to the zoo. >> never. >> wait, wait, wait. there's a zoo that's functioning with animals there and there's no power there? >> there's no electricity. >> there's no power. if you look at the pictures from the inside of the building, it's like jail cells, all in a row. >> reporter: when it came time to coax the cats out of their cage, craig entered the lion's den. >> i gather the lions weren't

necessarily happy to see you and go with you. what happened? >> they were definitely defensive because they don't know who we are and what we're doing and why. we show up and we're like, believe me, you've got to trust we're trying to help you here. >> reporter: the sweet talking didn't work. so, they deployed plan b, sedation, hard to watch, but accepted practice when rescuing uncooperative carnivores. over the course of five months, craig and his team of 20 used patience, prodding, pursuit -- >> good boy. >> reporter: -- and grape jelly to lure each animal into its custom-built crate. a camel, a kangaroo, a rhinoceros, these stubborn hippos. monica craig, a native spanish speaker, had hoped to coordinate with the local staff. but the team from colorado mostly had to go it alone. she says the zoo keepers in puerto rico often refused to

help. >> we tried many, many days to communicate with them and try to tell them, hey, we're not bad people. we're just trying to do what we're supposed to be doing for these animals and give them a better home. >> what was their response to that? >> they were upset. they were like, no, i don't think -- i don't think that's right. the animals belong here. >> reporter: it was a sentiment shared by many in the community. and at times, resistance curled into outright sabotage. the rescue team had nearly rectangled mundi, once a star attraction, into her transport crate when suddenly -- >> out of nowhere, this elephant just flies up, tears out of there, starts running around. >> what do you think happened? >> i think somebody shot her with a bb gun if you ask me. >> and hit her in the rear end. >> hit her in the rear end, just to make her hate that crate. now she thinks that crate did something to her. >> reporter: we reached out to

the department of environmental resources, which is responsible for the zoo. in a statement, it said the animals were provided with comprehensive care and denied there was any neglect, blaming problems at the zoo on hurricane damage, limited resources, and aging animals. once the transport was finally ready, a police escort to the airport. then the animals were loaded, one by one, onto charter flights bound for new homes craig had arranged at sanctuaries across the u.s. how do you ferry to safety an 8,000-pound elephant like mundi? on a 747 cargo jet, of course. departure brought a sigh of relief. >> when she took off, i cried because i said, thank you, god. she's in. it's over. she's out of here. there's no question about it anymore. >> reporter: pat and monica craig took as many of the rescues as they could back to their 1,200-acre facility. a vast menagerie roams the grassy enclosures on the high plains of eastern colorado.

each of the 700+ animals here came with a sad back story, wagging their own tales of woe, as it were. tigers kept in garages as pets, lions saved from a zoo in war-torn ukraine, bears abused at a korean medical facility. now 64, craig got the idea for the place as a teenager in the 1970s, when a friend, who worked at a zoo, gave him a tour behind the scenes. >> there were all these animals, lions and tigers, that were in small cages. he said, these will be euthanized. and i thought, wow, this is crazy. you know, these are healthy. they're not old. they're not sick. >> reporter: craig decided right then and there to open his own sanctuary on his parents' small colorado farm. with few regulations to guide him, he built the animal enclosures himself and scoured biology books for pointers. >> did you have any experience with lions and tigers? >> no, no. none. >> a degree in zoology? >> no. i was just starting college back then. it was going to be a business degree.

>> reporter: and he quickly learned that lions and tigers are no house cats. >> in the early years, i was in the hospital more times than you could count. it was like, okay, don't do that again. all those years of making mistakes and not getting killed. >> what specifically does a mistake look like? >> pretty bad. i've had my left arm almost torn off, bit through the chest and collapsed lungs. >> reporter: the animals, craig can handle. but on his missions to hostile environments around the world, it's the people he often needs extra help managing. heavily armed federal marshals accompanied craig when the department of justice dispatched him to retrieve mal-treated big cats, who had been kept by the notorious "tiger king," joe exotic, the unlikely netflix sensation, and his associates. these two were among the 141 animals craig liberated and brought back here. >> what kind of condition was joe exotic keeping these guys in in oklahoma? >> well, you know, it was just all these really small cages

that were just line after line because it was a gigantic breeding operation primarily. >> reporter: the rescue missions and the sanctuary operate on an annual budget of $34 million. funding comes mostly from private donations. when animals arrive here, this is often their first stop, designed to reduce shock by mimicking the conditions they came from. here, they're evaluated and given a treatment plan, whether it's medication or emergency surgery. craig and staff veterinarian dr. mikaela vetters introduced us to chad and malawi, both rescued from puerto rico. >> how confident do we feel about our locks here? >> confident. >> this guy wants to get out. >> she says, yeah. >> this guy is ready to get out. this guy is ready to hang out with us. >> they suffer from permanent neurological damage, likely caused by malnutrition, something craig can spot just by looking. >> she doesn't have control over it. >> head tilting at an angle. >> we've had literally hundreds of lions that have come through

that have had that kind of a problem. >> you've seen this before? >> oh, yeah. >> reporter: the sanctuary devises a special diet for each animal, which requires 100,000 pounds of food each week, mainly donated by nearby walmarts, occasional cupcakes included. when we met him, mikey the bare was midway through his rehab. >> right now he's in lockout just so we can medically manage him. >> what did you see the first time you saw him? >> he was in a great deal of pain, very gingerly moving. we assume he's got a great deal of arthritis, which we've provided medications for. and now he's getting around almost like a young bear. >> nursing animals back to physical health is one thing. administering to their emotional wounds is a bigger challenge. many animals arrive with what amounts to severe ptsd, and they must be taught to trust the humans caring for them. >> they're already mad at people anyway because of whatever people had done. i had one tiger, any time you

came near, he would want to hit the fence and kill you. >> what's the timetable for trying to ease some of the trauma these animals have been through? >> some were beaten. some were starved. some were mentally tormented to a degree. you know? so, every case is different. so, some of them will do it in a matter of days. some will be a few weeks. >> doesn't that story imply however traumatic this may have been, it's not irreversible? >> it's not irreversible. >> the goal of all this rehab is to get these wild animals to act the part. remember mundi? at the zoo, she had zero contact with other elephants for more than 30 years. we accompanied craig on a visit to a refuge in georgia where he placed mundi under the care of conservationist carol buckley. this marked the first time craig and the elephant had seen each other since puerto rico. >> what do you notice? >> well, first thing, she just looks so much healthier. just her demeanor is so much calmer and nicer. every day when i would go see

her in the zoo, god, it would just hurt. now to see this is just amazing. just truly amazing. >> hey, pretty lady. >> reporter: buckley provides the care and feeding but happily admits mundi's real mentors are the other elephants here. >> you're just the inn keeper. you're just the chef. >> that's right. hey, i just open and close doors and make sure the waters are running, you know? and the other elephant knows what they need to learn, and they're instructing them. it's fantastic. it is exactly the same as what happens in the wild. >> reporter: that's the same principle craig employs at his sanctuary. and after two months of rehab, the lions from puerto rico were ready to enter their permanent habitat. >> all right. robert's going to open the door. >> reporter: we were on hand for the release. no one quite knew what to expect, not least the lions. >> you can go, yeah. >> reporter: the first was reticent, but one by one -- >> this must be literally life changing. >> reporter: -- they started to venture out, enclosed for their

safety, and ours, but otherwise in a vast ocean of green. >> these guys have been in captivity their whole lives. this is a first time. >> this will be the first time they'll be able to run or live in a big space like this, even have deep grass. >> makes you feel good? >> yeah, absolutely. this is why we do this. >> there were a few scuffles, but for pat crag, that's exactly what he'd hoped for, lions acting like, well, lions. the animals come to the sanctuary from all over the world. but in this unlikely setting, here silouetted by the rockies in eastern colorado, they find more than just sanctuary. they finally find a home. a look at life after "tiger king." >> you have to learn a lot of it, what it's like to be a tiger. >> at 60minutesovertime.com. detect this: living with hiv, robert learned he can stay undetectable with fewer medicines. that's why he switched to dovato.

dovato is a complete hiv treatment for some adults. no other complete hiv pill uses fewer medicines to help keep you undetectable than dovato. detect this: marnina learned that most hiv pills contain 3 or 4 medicines. dovato is as effective with just 2. if you have hepatitis b, don't stop dovato without talking to your doctor. don't take dovato if you're allergic to its ingredients or taking dofetilide. this can cause serious or life-threatening side effects. if you have a rash or allergic reaction symptoms, stop dovato and get medical help right away. serious or life-threatening lactic acid buildup and liver problems can occur. tell your doctor if you have kidney or liver problems, or if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or considering pregnancy. dovato may harm an unborn baby. most common side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and anxiety. detect this: you could stay undetectable with fewer medicines. ask your doctor about dovato.

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