By J.D. Leipold
Army News Service
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2013 – Gung-ho spirits were the norm as
wounded warrior athletes from the four services, the U.S. Special Operations
Command, and the Department of Veterans Affairs clashed Nov. 21 at the 3rd
Annual Joint Services Sitting Volleyball Tournament, in recognition of Warrior
Care Month.
Held in the Pentagon Athletic Club and hosted by the Office
of Warrior Care Policy, the tourney showcases the services' Warrior Transition
units. It also highlights the commitment of wounded, ill and injured service
members to their physical and mental well-being through the Military Adaptive
Sports Program, begun in 2011.
Before the two final games which pitted the Marine Corps
against Air Force and Army against Socom, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Warrior Care Policy Donna Seymour spoke about DOD's commitment to
"building a ready and resilient force," the theme for this year's
Warrior Care Month.
"Military adaptive sports facilitate stress release and
it provides reconditioning and camaraderie between our veterans and our
active-duty service members and it improves their overall health and well-being
as they adopt an added healthy lifestyle," she said. "To date in the
last year, almost 100,000 recovering service members have participated in daily
activities including yoga, wheelchair basketball, cycling, track and field,
strength conditioning, swimming and sitting volleyball."
Seymour added that as confidence is built in one area such
as physical competence, confidence in the emotional domain also increases. DOD
Warrior Care Policy intends to expand the number of competitive sports and
ultimately allow them to be included in the annual Warrior Games. She said her
office also wants to increase participation by female athletes as well as
service members with traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
A large crowd of supporters cheered for their services.
While it was apparent to them who the amputees were on the courts, other
players had wounds, illnesses or injuries that were not so obvious.
Irrespective of how they came to be members of their service's team, one
element all players had in common was their own brand of resilience and
fortitude.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Melissa Garcia, 27, was deployed to
Spain when one day in January she was diagnosed with breast cancer and returned
to her home station at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.
After seeing an oncologist, she opted for surgery, having
her lymph nodes removed, coupled with four rounds of chemo and six weeks of
radiation every day. So far, Garcia said, she seems to have beaten the cancer,
which never got her down.
"There was nothing I could do about it and I'm the type
of person who takes things as they come at me," said Garcia, who serves as
a medic. "I have a husband and 7-year-old daughter, and I thought it was
important for me to show her that I could be strong even when I was sick."
Garcia was invited by the Air Force to its three-day
adaptive sports camp in Las Vegas, which she jumped at. Taking a three-day
break from radiation which upset her doctor, Garcia said she wasn't going to
pass on the opportunity.
"Sports are my passion and playing in this tournament
brings a sense of togetherness for all the services, because yes, each branch
takes care of their own wounded warriors, but when we come here and play
against each other, [there's] real awareness of togetherness," Garcia
said.
On the surface, Army Sgt. 1st Class David Hall appears to be
a soldier devoid of physical injuries, but the pain he continued to feel after
injuring his lower back and spine in Iraq in 2003 continued to worsen until it
was simply unmanageable. He also was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress
disorder and sent to Walter Reed for psychiatric help and therapy on his back.
So much of soldiering is physical, Hall said, and to have
that taken away was tough, especially since he served as a platoon sergeant.
His physical therapist recommended the sitting volleyball
team because there's no jumping -- a major rule is that one butt cheek remain
on the playing floor at all times -- and that's tough for someone to do who has
all their limbs, he said.
"I was able to make the cut and excited to have the
opportunity to play alongside some of my brethren who are lower-extremity
amputees, but the biggest complication I had was learning to scoop the ball at
the floor and to remain on the floor when going for the ball," Hall said.
"Being part of a team is really big to me and being able to stay active is
also extremely important and gives me the chance to show my fellow soldiers who
are amputees that we're in this fight together. I'm just glad to be part of the
team."
Army Spc. Samuel Walley lost his right leg and left arm to a
remote-controlled improvised explosive device in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in June
2012. He said there was never any time to be depressed or sad over his bad
fortune, though he did get a little down when he was worried about his buddies.
As a member of the Warrior Transition Unit at Walter Reed
National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the 21-year-old Georgia
native said when he meets people at Walter Reed, they talk like the patients
are depressed and sad, "but if they could hang around for a bit, I think
they'd realize we're just the opposite, we're basically the same people we
were."
He plans to continue in the Army after he's through therapy
and found fit for duty again. Meanwhile he loves playing on the sitting
volleyball team, especially the physical fitness part of it.
"There are a lot of things by having two limbs missing
that I can't do just going to the gym, but this really gives me a good cardio
workout. That's the main portion of it, and also because I'm competitive in
nature, so I love getting out here and competing with the other branches,"
Walley said.
While Brent Petersen hasn't served in the military, he's
been coaching the Marine Corps sitting volleyball team for three years and the
Marines keep asking him back. He knows all his players' stories. Recently he
was talking to one of his guys who kept resisting doing something productive,
but eventually he came around and started volleyball and now he's surfing and
doing all sorts of things that before he didn't even want to try.
"Adaptive sports re-validates these guys, and rather
than a disability, I call it a re-ability because they're re-enabling their
bodies to do something different and it puts them back into a unit, back onto a
team and gives them hope for the next day," Petersen said. "Hopefully
it encourages them to encourage others to be ambassadors in helping get guys
out of the darkness."
In the double-elimination battle, the Navy was knocked out
of the final competition for the trophy, which the Marine Corps team in red won
by defeating Air Force in blue in two of three games. Army in black was upended
by Socom in white for third-place honors.
In the end though, the tournament was about showing the
strength, togetherness, character and resilience of America’s wounded, ill or
injured service members.
November was designated Warrior Care Month by the Defense
Department in 2008 to keep service members, their families and communities
up-to-date on programs and initiatives being provided through the warrior care
system.
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