New Hampshire
From circus clown to Army Night Stalker: Stratham veteran finds new purpose in NH
HAMPTON — When Army veteran Kyle Saltonstall stepped to the podium at Hampton’s American Legion Post 35 Memorial Day ceremonies on May 25, the crowd met a speaker whose path to service has been anything but ordinary.
Saltonstall, 44, spent years with the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment — the “Night Stalkers” — but that’s only one chapter in a life marked by adventure, reinvention and a steady pull toward service.
“He’s quite an interesting guy,” said Berk Bennett, commander of Post 35. “And a great speaker.”
Raised on a Marine Corps air station in southern Arizona, Saltonstall developed an early appreciation for military life.
After losing his father at 17, he spent a decade crisscrossing the country — from Florida to Alaska to Oregon — collecting experiences that ranged from managing a pedicab company to performing as a clown in a small Texas circus.
“I was the mechanic and manager of a pedicab (bike taxi) company in Portland (Oregon),” Saltonstall said. “I met a clown there who was heading down to Texas, and I went with him. Being a clown was so much fun. It’s an art form. The role of the jester in the court was unique historically. He was the only one allowed to challenge the king.”
Saltonstall spent two years in the circus when, in 2010, he saw a Craigslist ad seeking volunteers to help rebuild homes in Haiti after a devastating earthquake.
Initially skeptical, he answered the ad and soon found himself working alongside U.S. service members providing humanitarian aid.
“These were men who spoke like my father,” Saltonstall said. “They were confident, disciplined in their language, competent and calm.”
Inspired, he walked into a Marine Corps recruiting office when he returned home — only to be told by arecruiter that while his life thus far had been “interesting,” the Marines weren’t looking for “interesting.”Undeterred, he stepped next door to the Army recruiter, where he found his place for the next five-plus years.
Serving as a Night Stalker medic
Saltonstall completed the combat medic’s course at the Joint Special Operations Airborne School and deployed to Afghanistan as an Advanced Tactical Paramedic with the 4th Battalion, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.
The Night Stalkers are the unit that delivers special operations teams — Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, Green Berets — on high‑risk night missions. Their pilots are trained to fly low and fast under enemy radar.
Although he wasn’t involved, such military enterprises include the May 2011 mission to capture Osama Bin Laden, Saltonstall said, or more recently, the one that retrieved the pilot shot down in unfriendly territory during the current Iran War.
“We flew the big Chinook helicopters,” he said. “We’d have at least one medic assigned to each mission. I usually tried to make myself as small as possible and sit in the back out of the way of the (combatants).”
His job was threefold, he said. First, he tended to the daily well-being of the people in his unit. His second role was medical contingency planning when deployed to make sure that any injured combatants brought back to the helicopter would survive until they got to land-based medical facilities.
The last of his roles was going on missions and providing the care needed. This service, he said, was in his nature. Throughout his life, Saltonstall said, blood never bothered him; he’d always been interested in medicine and found it natural to help those injured.
His awards include the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon and the Parachutist Badge.
A new life in New Hampshire
After leaving the service in 2016, Saltonstall planned to pursue medicine through an Army program at Wesleyan University. That’s where he met his future wife, Sophie, an Emmy‑nominated filmmaker whose family owns Stratham’s historic Saltonstall Farm.
“My goal was to become a doctor and make enough money to retire and buy a farm,” he said. “When Sophie learned of it, she said, ‘Do you want a shortcut?’ When he returned from World War II, in 1947, my wife’s grandfather, Dr. Saltonstall, founded her family farm.”
The couple moved to Stratham, married, and took Sophie’s mother’s maiden name as their own. Saltonstall transferred to UNH, switched from pre‑med to agriculture, and never looked back.
Today, the father of three young children helps run the family’s organic farm, where strawberry season runs from early June through the Fourth of July, followed by raspberries and an indoor strawberry crop that produces into November.
“I really believe we have the best organic strawberries on the Seacoast,” he said. “And we hope to bring in blueberries soon.”
One thing was missing when he returned to New Hampshire: the adrenaline of emergency response. He found it with the Stratham Fire Department, where he has volunteered for seven years. He has earned EMT certification and recently completed Firefighter I and II training.
“I enjoy the variety,” he said. “I’m glad to be where I am.”