Army Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Wasil Did Know She Broke Record

Aiming For Rio Paralympics, U.S. Army Sgt. Elizabeth Wasil First Seeks Redemption
Team USA
Karen Price
March 3, 2016

Elizabeth Wasil gets disoriented when she swims, so when she was first helped out of the pool at the Jimi Flowers Classic meet in January in Colorado Springs, Colorado, she had no idea what all the yelling was about.

“I don’t know where I am when I’m done swimming and my teammate, Reilly Boyt, was screaming, ‘You got a world record,’” Wasil said. “I was like, ‘Who are you talking to?’”

Wasil highlighted the Jimi Flowers Classic back in January with a new world record in the SB7 50-meter breaststroke.

Boyt was talking to Wasil, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, who has gone from newcomer to Paralympic hopeful in just four years. Just days after being named to the U.S. Paralympics Swimming National “A” Team, Wasil broke Jessica Long’s SB7 world record in the 50-meter breaststroke with a time of 41.21 seconds. This September, she hopes to represent her country at the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Paralympic Games, which has been her goal, she said, since the very start of her Paralympic swimming career.

“As soon as I found out that there was a chance that I could become a member of Team USA, I wanted it,” she said. “That was my sole focus and drive in every practice, every weight session, every competition.”

Wasil isn’t comfortable discussing the specifics, but the bilateral hip injuries she suffered while serving as a medic in Iraq in 2010 led to multiple surgeries and the loss of function in her lower left leg. Though she was never a swimmer growing up, her desire to return to active duty led her to the pool in January 2012.
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Amputee Iraq Veteran Focused on Her Journey to Beijing

Amputee Iraq veteran hands triathlon challenge to Fort Carson troops
Colorado Springs.com
By Tom Roeder
Published: January 24, 2016

"It is all about going from Baghdad to Beijing and realizing it's the journey that really mattered."Melissa Stockwell

Iraq war veteran Melissa Stockwell shows her prosthetic leg while speaking with members of Ft. Carson's Wounded Warrior Transition Unit and others about her experiences Wednesday, January 20, 2016. Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

Iraq amputee Melissa Stockwell told a group of wounded, injured and ill Fort Carson soldiers that triathlon training saved her life after a bomb took her leg.

"It healed me from the inside out," Stockwell said last week during a breakfast gathering that urged the troops to join the Southeast Armed Services YMCA's new triathlon training team.

She's widely considered a triathlon medal contender at the Paralympic Games this summer in Rio De Janeiro.

Stockwell was a lieutenant in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division when her Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb in 2004.

"I looked down and there was blood where my leg should have been," she said.

She was evacuated from Baghdad to Germany and then sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment.

"Nobody told me my leg was gone," she recalled.

Stockwell, though, didn't have time to mourn her injuries at Walter Reed.

"I looked around and saw so many soldiers who were worse off than I was," she said.
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Double Amputee Afghanistan Veteran Earns Pat Tillman Award

Josh Sweeney earns Tillman Award
Associated Press
June 25, 2014

Joshua Sweeney
Dennis Grombkowski/Getty Images
Sgt. Josh Sweeney (center) will receive the inaugural Pat Tillman Award for Service at the ESPY Awards on July 16.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- When retired Marine Sgt. Josh Sweeney recounts his inspirational journey following an explosion that took both his legs in Afghanistan, he leaves out an important detail: His gold-medal winning goal.

Sweeney played on the U.S. Paralympic sled hockey team that beat the Russians 1-0 earlier this year in Sochi. He shot the game's lone goal in the second period at Shayba Arena, giving the Unites States its second straight gold medal in the event.

Chided about omitting the detail, Sweeney laughed.

"I still feel pretty lucky to be able to have done that," he said. "I try not to take too much credit for it."

He also doesn't mention that he's been honored with a Purple Heart for his service in the Marines.

Sweeney will receive the inaugural Pat Tillman Award for Service at the 2014 ESPY Awards on July 16. The award is being presented in conjunction with the Pat Tillman Foundation, which invests in military veterans and their spouses through educational scholarships.

Pat Tillman died in action in Afghanistan in 2004 after leaving the NFL's Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the U.S. Army with his brother Kevin.
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ABC Tribute to Iraq Veteran Paralympic Athlete

ABC Pays Tribute to Iraq War Amputee Turned Paralympics Hockey Athlete
News Busters
By Matthew Balan
March 14, 2014

ABC's World News named Rico Roman, a member of Team U.S.A. in the Sochi Paralympics, its 'Person of the Week' on Friday. Roman, an Iraq War veteran who lost his left leg after his Humvee struck an IED, is now the "the star forward of the U.S. Paralympic hockey team." Amy Robach spotlighted how the Oregon native "discovered sled hockey – an outlet from the confines of a hospital room."

The correspondent also pointed out how a significant percentage of the American Paralympics team come from the military: (watch video)

Anchor Diane Sawyer introduced the segment on Roman by noting how "the Paralympic Games are underway in Sochi – Team U.S.A. including more of America's armed forces than ever before, showing every person in this country how you fight to win – and then, you win again."

Robach led by trumpeting how Roman does "the equivalent of three able-bodied athletes at the pinnacle of their game at once. He's skates on a metal sled at speeds up to 30 miles per hour; navigates across the ice using poles, with the same techniques as an expert cross country skier; checks opponents with the same velocity of a car crash.
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Wounded Veteran Trades Wheelchair for Skis

Colorado veteran gets second chance to serve US in Paralympic Games
9News Colorado
Taylor Temby
March 2, 2014

DENVER - Americans choose to serve their country in different ways, but few of us are given an opportunity to serve like Coloradan Joel Hunt.

Hunt is an Iraqi war veteran who will be competing as an alpine skier in the Sochi Paralympic games this week, but his journey to skiing was rather unconventional.

Hunt joined the U.S. army back in 1998. He served for almost 10 years including three tours in Iraq. During his service, Hunt says he was hit with several roadside bombs. When he finally came home, he was bound to a wheelchair, suffering from a traumatic brain injury, paralysis in his leg and PTSD.

"I came home [and] found myself confined to a wheelchair in 2007 after I retired," he said. "I was confined to a wheelchair more for my traumatic brain injury, my dizzy spells and blackouts."
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Loss of VA grant imperils skiers’ paralympic hopes

Loss of VA grant imperils skiers’ paralympic hopes
Stars and Stripes
By Matthew M. Burke
Published: November 27, 2013

Aspen’s snow-covered mountains are Joshua Elliott’s sanctuary, a place where the double amputee can be free and feel closer to God.

But Veterans Affairs’ decision to withhold an annual grant for adaptive sports that keeps veterans like him on the slopes threatens to derail Elliott’s dreams for Olympic gold and to leave the retired Marine sergeant without a mission.

The Aspen Valley Ski/Snowboard Club’s adaptive program — one of the country’s pre-eminent programs for wounded veterans and a feeder for almost half of the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team — faces a $300,000 shortfall and might have to shut its doors Friday if funding isn’t secured for this year’s competitive season.

A number of Olympic dreams are on hold as Elliott, 32, and his teammates scramble to find money to keep the program going, even if just for one more month.

“[After my injury] I was afraid this was lost,” Elliott said last week from Aspen, where he is training. “I was questioning a lot of things. I was a little scared with this crazy life change … Now, here I am, competitive, looking at the Paralympics.”

The AVSC adaptive program was founded with wounded veterans like Elliott in mind but since has expanded to include a number of nonveterans as well, according to the AVSC website. Each year, the VA provides the U.S. Olympic Committee with grant funding for adaptive sports programs, Elliott said. About $500,000 goes to AVSC’s adaptive program.
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Amputees aim for archery wins in Bangkok

Iraq War veteran aims high despite loss of arm
Stotts City archer heading to world championships
News Leader
Written by
Wes Johnson
October 28, 2013

When Lance Thornton was 7, he used all of his birthday money to buy his first bow and arrow.

“I grew up bowhunting, being out in the woods,” said Thornton, now 28. “To me there’s just nothing cooler than being able to shoot a bow and arrow accurately.”

This week, the rural Stotts City hunter is on his way to Bangkok to put his archery skills to an ultimate test. Thornton is one of 15 U.S. archers who will be competing against dozens of top archers from 29 countries.

It’s a huge step up for Thornton, who began shooting competitively less than two years ago. He has risen fast through the competitive ranks, drawing on his deeply ingrained hunting skills to put carbon fiber arrows precisely into a bull’s-eye at 50 yards.

And he does it without a right hand.
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Local Paralympic Star Set To Compete On The World Stage Again
Local Double Paralympic gold medallist and reigning three-time Paralympic World Champion
Danielle Brown is going after her fourth World Title in Bangkok.

Double Paralympic gold medallist and reigning three-time Paralympic World Champion Danielle Brown

Archery GB has announce the archers who will be representing Great Britain at the Paralympic Archery World Championships in Bangkok between 1st and 7th November.

Following two selection shoots in April and June this year, seven male and three female archers have been selected to compete in Bangkok. Double Paralympic gold medallist and reigning three-time Paralympic World Champion Danielle Brown is amongst the archers and she is hoping to make it her fourth World title in a row. Mel Clarke, Paralympic silver medallist at London 2012, and Sharon Vennard complete the female archers.

The male archers taking aim in Bangkok are John Stubbs (2008 Paralympic World Champion) Richard Hennahane (Team World Champion in 2011), Paralympic record holder Kenny Allen, Frank Maguire, John Cavanagh, Phillip Bottomley, and Paul Browne.
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