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No matter how much you may dislike sports, you are going to like this diary. I promise. If you love sports, well, maybe you'll like it a little more. Regardless, as Sports Illustrated columnist Phil Taylor says in the July 4 issue,
Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite team.
Your new favorite team is a softball team. Softball?!? Nobody's favorite team is a softball team! The Bruins. The Mavs. The Packers. The Phillies. Your college alma mater. Those are people's favorite teams.
But this team is different. There's a special requirement to be on this team. It's the most demanding requirement I've ever seen for participation. No birth certificate required (long or short form). No dues. No, instead of those, the entry fee for this team is one of the following: a hand, a foot, an arm, or a leg. Or maybe a combination of those. Wanna play?
Well, the guys on the Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team (WWAST) sure as hell do. These fifteen guys (ten Army soldiers and five Marines) are currently barnstorming across the country, playing local teams of firefighters, policemen, students, soldiers, and even FBI agents (they beat the FBI 35-10). In Taylor's words, they are proving that, even though they had a part of themselves blasted away in Iraq or Afghanistan,
they are still the same focused, physically capable men they have always been.
These men are an inspiration not only to their fellow veterans and to amputees, but to anyone who has a disability. To the disabled, these soldiers are a reminder that life is still out there to be lived. And to those of us lucky enough not to be disabled, these athletes remind us to treat the disabled as the completely human human beings they are. There, but for the grace of God or the cosmos, go you or I.
Take Matt Kinsey, a 26-year old shortstop from Rockville, Indiana. This man lost his right foot to a land mine in Afghanistan. He underwent two full blood transfusions. Now, he wants to go into coaching. SI quotes him as saying,
It's a new normal. We're getting a second chance to be athletes, to do things that we thought we'd never Image courtesy woundedwarrioramputeesoftballteam.org
be able to do again.
And I think we're doing it at a pretty high level.
Whatever part of your body you lost, you're not going to grow it back. So we don't really sit around feeling bad about what happened to us. We chose to just get on with it.
Or Josh Wege, a 22-year old kid from Campbellsport, Wisconsin, who lost both his legs to a roadside bomb in Operation Enduring Freedom in 2009. He's a pitcher now, hurling on prosthetic legs. Writes Taylor,
Wege recalls feeling choked by dirt and sand after the explosion that cost him both his legs. "I Image courtesy woundedwarrioramputeesoftballteam.org was in shock, so the pain didn't set in right away," he says. "Then I looked down and saw that my legs were shredded."
Today, says his profile, he is "interested in getting to the Para-Olympic level."
This diary is not news to the DKos Military Veterans group. Way back in March during WWAST tryouts (200 applied, 20 tried out, 15 made it), DaNang65 sent a message to the DKos group. He shared a news item brought to his attention by Ed Davis, Commander, Arizona American Legion Post 132, Oro Valley, AZ:
For the first time ever, the Department of Veterans Affairs in collaboration with the University of Arizona, will field an all-amputee stand-up slow pitch softball team. All players are veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
This will not be just any ordinary softball team or game. A couple of the players are still in the service, a couple of the players are still at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, DC, completing their amputation rehabilitation and waiting for their medical discharge. The rest have now been discharged from the service and are veterans. Their ages range from 21 to 39 years old. There are 4 arm amputees, 3 above knee amputees, 11 below knee amputees, 1 bilateral below knee amputee and 1 Symes (foot) amputee.
On Independence Day weekend, these men give new meaning to the word independence. I hope you will read all of Phil Taylor's column. He says this much better than I ever could. And I hope you'll visit the WWAST website. Watch the slide show, read about these remarkable young men, become educated about prosthetics, and, if your heart and pocketbook allow, donate to help keep their dreams alive.
Image courtesy woundedwarrioramputeesoftballteam.org
I told you this would be your new favorite team.
Please remember to support our troops through the Daily Kos groups Netroots for the Troops, DKos Military Veterans, Military Community Members of Daily Kos, and IGTNT.
Learn more about dealing with disabilities at the KosAbility group page, and check out ulookarmless's magnificent poem in today's diary, KosAbility: July 4th Weekend Bonus Edition.
TOP COMMENTS
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Color boxes courtesy bronte17 |