October 29, 2026

Written by David Reeder

If there's a better name for an organization like this, I can't imagine it. The phrase "We fight monsters" is as much a mission statement as it is the legal corporate name of a remarkable organization in Memphis, TN. It's who they are and what they do.

We Fight Monsters is a 501(c)(3) non-profit headquartered and operated in some of the worst parts of its home city. Its purpose is twofold: to work counter to human trafficking in all its forms, and to help victims—men, women, and children—regain their lives. It's not just about rescue. It's about recovery and restoring their humanity. And maybe, somewhat indefinably, more than that.

The organization was founded and is run by Ben and Jessica Owen. He's a former infantryman. They're both recovered addicts.

"The mission of We Fight Monsters is, we aim to reduce the impact and suffering that human and narcotic traffic have on the population. We aim to reduce the impact of generational poverty and trauma, and I like to say we've gotten pretty good at it." – Ben Owen

To understand what the Owens are doing, you have to understand what "human trafficking" really means. It's not just migrants being smuggled into ports in CONEX boxes on container ships, or locked in the back of trucks coming across the border. In fact, it doesn't always involve movement or transportation at all. Human trafficking is, in a very literal sense, the practice of human slavery right now, here today, sometimes in the very projects, apartments, or neighborhoods where the victims live (or are kept).

In fact, the Global Slavery Index estimates that more than 45 million people are currently held in slavery worldwide. Of those, more than 70% are women and girls. That means one in every 130 females alive on the planet is being held in bondage.

It's not just sex trafficking, though that's the most appalling aspect of it. There's much more to it. Enough more that it's considered one of the largest criminal industries in the world, generating an estimated $236 billion (with a B) annually worldwide. It's often mentioned in the same breath as narcotics, and the two often go hand in hand.

It's also labor trafficking, government-imposed forced labor (including an increasing amount of this to feed the meat-grinder of Russia-Ukraine, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Myanmar, Sudan, and other states and non-governmental organizations).

That combat is a long way from The Volunteer State's Shelby County, but the problem is at best only slightly less rampant.

That's where an organization like We Fight Monsters comes in. The lady strung out on dope and forced to provide sexual services by a dealer is, by definition, being trafficked and exploited.

Memphis in Particular—But Not Isolated

Think about this. Memphis is the county seat of Shelby County, TN. According to recent research, Shelby County is now (and has been for a while) the highest-risk county in Tennessee for human trafficking. Reports indicate that Shelby County has what's called a Vulnerable Population Index (VPI) of 100%. (You may see another version of this cited as the Social Vulnerability Index).

For comparison (keeping in mind exact comparisons are virtually impossible), Juba, South Sudan, is also 100%, and it's in the umpteenth year of one or more local wars. Mogadishu, Somalia (a failed state of some 40 years now), has an estimated VPI of 98%. The same number applies to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.

Residents of Shelby County, Tennessee, are at more risk for trafficking than two of the worst three cities in Africa. Large parts of the remaining metro area are only slightly better off.

VSO CONOPS: Living Among Them

Enter We Fight Monsters. Literally enter, as they've moved in and remained in some of the worst parts of the city.

Acknowledging Ben's Army background, and that of WFM board member Lt. Col. Scott Mann (U.S. Army, Ret.), I'll use two military acronyms.

VSO stands for Village Stability Operations. CONOPS is Concept of Operations. I think the VSO approach is one of the most compelling aspects of how WFM does its job. They "get out among them" the same way Green Berets and others did in Panjwayi, Marjah, Dand Patan and other areas in Afghanistan. And in some ways, like their predecessors did in the Strategic Hamlet program in Vietnam.

For almost six years now, Ben and Jessica Owen have been doing this, and they aren't doing it by holding fundraisers and distributing supplies to people in the afflicted neighborhoods. They're living, working, and developing contacts among local neighborhood residents—which includes the perpetrators and victims of their own focus (the trafficking), criminal actors and members of other illegal "professions" and affiliations, as well as the people who just want to be left alone but can't break the cycle and get away to do so.

Ben describes the methodology like this:

"What we are doing is very similar to the way the Green Berets run Village Stability Operations. So, we're out here just like they are. They move into villages. They go house to house. They bleed alongside those people. They farm alongside them. And that's exactly what we do out here on these streets. We are meeting in the trenches with them. We're in the trap houses with them. We're in the blight with them."

"That's rescue. But rescue is just the extraction. If you stop there, you're going to lose the war because the revolving door just keeps feeding bodies right back here into the churn. What you've got to do is actually get them into recovery."

The Scott Mann Effect

I don't know for sure if their VSO approach is a direct result of Scott Mann's influence, but it sure seems likely. You may recall Lt. Col. Mann for leading the unofficial but effective "Pineapple Express" extraction operation ("underground railroad") that brought allies and their families past Taliban checkpoints to Kabul's airport in 2021.

Before that shameful debacle, Lt. Col. Mann spent more than two decades in the United States Army, roughly 18 of them in Special Forces (the Green Berets). He was one of the primary architects of the VSO program in Afghanistan (and Iraq, Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador), and he sits on WFM's board of directors. If it wasn't his idea to run VSO-type efforts in Memphis, you can bet he helped develop how they're executed.

Four Count VSO Guidelines

Mann's approach can be summarized in four steps, all of which you can see reflected in We Fight Monsters' actions.

1. Get yourself surrounded. Move in with the locals, get to know their concerns first-hand and on a day-to-day basis, let them get to know you.
2. Meet them where they are. For VSO to work, we must embrace local realities. That means working with what is already there, and not with what we want to be there.
3. Connect through extreme collaboration. It takes more than a village. It takes a network to empower that village.
4. Tell a story that sticks. The side that tells the most compelling story, and backs it up with meaningful action, is the side that wins.

It would take a lot of pages to explain how the Owens do this, but somehow they manage it. It's a wide range of tasks and responsibilities that must be exhausting, albeit rewarding (and bitter at times).

Not to mention unpredictable and dangerous.

About that sparrow logo…

You might wonder why a sparrow is the WFM logo. The Owens make it clear there is a meaning behind the mark. In Matthew 10, Jesus talks about sparrows being sold for next to nothing. Even so, God cares about each and every one of them. And you are worth so much more than they.

“That,” Ben says, “is the heart of what we do. I didn’t become worth something the day I got sober. I was worth something barefoot and strung out in South Memphis, too. When I was sleeping in a trap house. When I was making decisions that were killing me. When I couldn’t find a single thing about myself worth saving. My life had value then. I just couldn’t see it.”

“A lot of the people we serve can’t see it in themselves, either. Their worth doesn’t depend on whether anybody notices them. It doesn’t disappear because helping them is difficult.”

That sparrow reminds us to act like we believe that.

We Fight Monsters VSO In Action

It must be a daunting and exhausting task. Maybe not quite as overtly hazardous as conducting stability ops in Helmand Province or wherever, but plenty unpleasant and dangerous nonetheless. The greater Memphis area sprawls across 11 counties in three states. It's home to between 1.3 and 1.4 million people. Roughly half live in the city proper.

The broader TN-MS-AR metropolitan area has the highest recorded violent crime rate of any metro area in the United States, and the city itself suffers a violent crime rate of more than 2,500 annual incidents per 100,000.

That's 5.5 times the national average. I wouldn't cross Lincoln Park unless I was going heeled and at least had armor on. I certainly wouldn't want to spend any leisure time in Oakhaven unless maybe I was looking for some hyper-realistic, live-fire force-on-force training.

Which I'm not.

But the Owens move through the very dregs of those neighborhoods and others, armed with nothing more than a mission and intense determination.

As an aside, let me point out that neither of them draws a paycheck from the non-profit. Passion and purpose drive their work, and their own 12-step recovery process (such as making amends) keeps them motivated.

Non-Partisan, Non-Denominational, and Non-Exclusive

Ben himself probably put it best.

"You don't have to be a millionaire; you don't have to have any crazy skill set to make a difference. You just gotta connect with another human being."

“We’re all in this together…we’re on the human side. It’s not about being a Republican or a Democrat, but we’re all human…and I think the sooner we can wrap our minds around that, that we’re all in this struggling and suffering together, well, the sooner maybe we can end that suffering. We are still the most prosperous nation in the world. There’s no reason any American should be out there suffering. Not if we can remove the thing that is causing the suffering.”

It's a decidedly non-partisan, non-ethnic, non-religio-specific effort. Which is as it should be.

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There's much more to tell about this organization, its founders, and what they do. Unfortunately, I have some time and space constraints to consider. If you'd like to learn more about them (or pitch in to help), I've included several links below. Hopefully I'll be able to write some more about them in the future. In particular, I'd like to explore more of Mrs. Owen's story...go into more detail about the sparrow...explain the 3 Rs. And/or even spend some time with them "in the field" in Memphis. We'll see what shakes out.

We Fight Monsters: Additional Sources of Background and Information

• Online: wefightmonsters.org
• Instagram: @wefightmonsters
• Facebook: wefightmonsters.org
• LinkedIn: We Fight Monsters
• YouTube: @MonsterFighters
• Ben Owen on X: @BlackRifle_Co

Videos and Interviews

• Excerpt from “Darkest Crimes” Witnessed in Trap Houses

  Shawn Ryan Clips, 13 minutes

• Fighting Monsters: Ben and Jessica Owen

  Texas Pictures Documentaries, 45 minutes

• Army Vet Beats Addiction and is now Saving Memphis

  Interview with Lt. Col. Scott Mann (U.S. Army, Ret.), 1 hour 40 minutes

• Inside the Life of an Addict

  Interview with Shawn Ryan, SRS #158, 5+ hours

• Memphis Mayor Paul Young Discussion with Ben Owen

  WFM Owen Army Podcast, 27 minutes