5th Annual Wallis Independence Ride
by Cathy Carter Harley
Searching for the burn of a good workout by pumping the rear pedals of a tandem bike brought retired Sgt. Major Jesse Acosta a little closer to physical freedom. Under his dark sunglasses, his prosthetic eyes saw nothing of the blue sky filled with white clouds, but he welcomed the wind and warmth of the sun against his face. For the fifth year, Acosta joined about 50 other severely wounded Purple Heart recipients on the Wallis Independence Ride near Houston, Texas. The 66-mile route offered wounded veterans a chance to find a physical recreational outlet, challenge their physical boundaries and renew their spirits. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, veterans who might have lost their lives in previous wars without today’s medical technology have come home to face the battle of a lifetime: coming to terms with severe injuries.
Sgt. Major Jesse Acosta
Three miles into a training mission with his troops in Iraq Jan. 16, 2006, Acosta was left blind when a mortar round blasted through the left side of Acosta’s face and exited on the right, and another shelling permeated his brain and went out through his left eye.
Acosta is one of the highest-ranking, non-commissioned officers with the most severe injuries. Shrapnel remains in his legs. His face was reconstructed using wires, Teflon and pig skin, his jaw was bone grafted, and implants were installed for new teeth. He also suffered some hearing loss, and the cartilage was blown out of his knee. His calf muscle was left herniated.
The former runner, cyclist, weightlifter and softball player now depends on his 120-pound German shepherd, Charlie Boy, and a white cane for independence. Four or five times a year, Acosta gladly trades in his daily routine at home on a stationary bike, weightlifting and fast paced walk on a treadmill for a tandem bike at the Wallis Ride and the Lt. Dan Weekend Ride in Beaufort, S.C. In complete darkness, he puts his faith in his captain this year, Robert Martin, to steer him to a safe path of freedom on the open road.
Rides like this help the veterans discover camaraderie and strength for breaking barriers erected by their handicaps.
“When I was first introduced to the Indy fund (The Independence Fund) for the first time and rode a bike, I was free once again,” Acosta said of his first ride on a tandem bike at Wallis, 16 months after he was injured.
“I was eager and I was anxious to get back into the game.” Acosta said: “I was in my element, I could push myself like I use to providing that my captain can hang with me.”
He has rediscovered the good burn of a workout through tandem cycling.
“I have been very fortunate that it has all come together for me in that sense,” Acosta said. “I feel like me when I ride. I only wish I could do this every week for about 20 to 30 miles so that I feel burned out and good inside.”
Acosta now fights another, more personal war, a battle to help severely wounded veterans get the benefits they were promised or obtain help through other nonprofits. Acosta credits The Independence Fund’s founder for his liberation.
“I’ve been blessed to come across Steve Danyluk (founder of the Independence Fund) and its supporters who help us out,” Acosta said. “I am truly blessed.”
Now a member of the Independence Fund Board, Acosta’s mission is to help other wounded vets find that same freedom. The fund sponsors two weekend events to help wounded warriors recently released from hospitals or ready for rehabilitation. These weekends include seminars on becoming independent as well as activities and counseling for their caregivers, spouses and children.
For the second year in Beaufort, the group has been treated to a concert by “CSI: New York” TV star Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band.
In his travels to visit wounded warriors and those fighting overseas, Sinise, was recognized by many wounded vets as the double amputee Lt. Dan from the movie “Forrest Gump,” filmed partly in Beaufort. With more than a dozen musician friends, Sinise started the band to entertain the warriors. He now plays concerts for The Independence Fund with his “Lt. Dan Band” in Beaufort to help raise money to help these vets reintegrate into society and become independent through the purchase of cycles, iBOT wheelchairs and help with home conversions not covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
U.S. Army Specialist Qwen Kendle
The rides are more than just one person, one cycle. More than 500 people including Wallis locals, and cycle clubs from across the United States and more than 70 volunteers joined these warriors in the fifth annual ride across the Wallis countryside in October.
Metal plates and screws held U.S. Army Specialist Qwen Kendle’s ankle together as she pedaled a 10-speed bike.
"The Wallis Ride was about being a part of something that really matters for other people and not just about yourself,” Kendle said.
One of only two female wounded warriors at this event, and a transportation operator, Kendle severely broke her ankle while on duty in Afghanistan.
Her journey to her first ride in Wallis was a long one.
Initially, she was transferred to Germany, then Aviano, Italy, where the metal plates and screws secured her ankle during her first surgery. She received physical therapy and continued to work using crutches. She came home in December 2010. By August 2011, Kendle was transferred to Brooke Army Medical Center’s Wounded Transitional Unit (WTU) in San Antonio, Texas.
"This is where you do therapy and concentrate on getting better,” Kendle said. “If you cannot get better within six months to one year, they (the military) release you.”
Through her therapy at WTU, Kendle discovered cycling through the adaptive sports program to be therapeutic in her fight to heal her ankle, and as a way to fight Post Traumatic Stress disorder, depression and weight gain.
By mid-September, Kendle had joined Team America, the WTU’s cycle team, and by October, she took her first ride at Wallis.
Her constant pain during the 22-mile ride was relieved by the inspiration from other riders.
“It was awesome,” she said of the ride. “There are other vets out there who are missing a limb or have these metal things on a limb, and they are riding their hearts out.”
Other riders gave her a positive outlook on her own life.
“I was excited to hear the other riders’ stories,” Kendle said. “It was rewarding to be a part of something to help the greater good of people. There were guys who lost part of their legs who were encouraging us and sharing their stories about what they went through and their experience. It was very uplifting, and makes you grateful. I’m not missing a limb.....I can walk.”
Prior to her injury, Kendle ran 20 minutes a day and took cycle classes, but she has found the outdoor cycling more rewarding.
“It is like you and the road,” she said. “It is very rewarding, and you are accomplishing something, You are pushing your legs to get to there. It feels so good to start it off and end it.”
Cycling also offered her one way to get a cardio workout because she could no longer run. She hopes to soon move into rowing and water aerobics as alternative workouts.
Joining the military at age 30, Kendle sought a career move from being a customer service representative to one with substance such as the Army.
“I wanted more meaning to my life,” she said of her service in Italy and Afghanistan where she dodged rockets and rocket propelled grenades and where one of her fellow trainees lost his life.
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Oliver Hughes
One of Kendle’s inspirations is another Team America rider, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Oliver Hughes, 35, of Colorado. Hughes’ left leg was lost in a blast during his second tour in Afghanistan April 13, 2011. Hughes was riding second in convoy of a seek and destroy team and working as a scout while training another soldier to take over his position.
An IED exploded on Hughes’ side of the truck making the floorboards meet the dash boards. “It pinched both legs between,” Hughes said. “When I tried to free my left leg it tore it off and my right leg was like an ‘s’ shape. It took two guys, a crowbar and a 2x4 to get me out with my right leg.”
He remembers making jokes in the medical helicopter and lost consciousness for the first time when he reached the hospital.
The explosion happened four months into his second tour in Afghanistan when Hughes was 19 days short of heading back to the states to attend the Army’s physician assistant school. Instead he became a patient.
“I was planning to come here for physician’s assistant school,” said Hughes now with Team America, which participates in rides for nonprofits. “The injuries have put my career and life with the Army on hold.”
Daily routines of physical therapy five days a week for more than two hours a day, as well as the hustle and bustle of constant doctor’s appointments have come routine in the life of the father of four.
For now with his prosthetic left leg and an aluminum hexapod that is drilled into his right leg, Hughes said he can walk for a short amount of time until the pain takes over and “I have to sit down.”
To complete the 22 mile ride on his recumbent cycle, Hughes had to use a tray to hold his right leg which is encircled by the hexapod shaped Taylor Spatial Frame that was surgically implanted in May. The metal frame encircles the entire lower leg with screws drilled into his bone to keep them in alignment. “They have to stay in proper alignment so everything grows straight when it mends itself. I started with an external fixator in April, it was bigger,” Hughes said.
For each bump, there was pain but Hughes drive to enjoy a ride in the Texas cow-scattered countryside was even stronger.
“I took my meds, got on the bike and rode,” Hughes said.
Like Acosta, Hughes too enjoyed the chance for physical exertion during the Wallis ride.
Amazed at the number of riders, Hughes found satisfaction during his first long ride while being with others who shared his disability and were figuring out how to ride.
“I enjoyed being with people of like minds,” Hughes said. “The guys I ride with share a lot in common, both on the military side and the fact that we are all injured and learning a new way of cycling together.”
Hughes is currently a part of Operation Comfort and the Center for the Intrepid, which offers rehabilitation and occupational therapy for the military in San Antonio.
He volunteered to ride the recumbent bike as an option during his therapy. When his Taylor Spatial Frame is removed, Hughes plans to move to a regular mountain bike.
“I enjoyed the ride itself, that was the best part. It was awesome and all going to a good cause,” Hughes said.
“It keeps us active,” he said. “and it is in another sense of being able to do whatever we can do in which we don’t need anybody to support us to do cycling.”
Hughes journey to healing continues. He still hasn’t made it home to Colorado. He’s happy for life and continues to work toward acceptance of his injuries.
“When I finally had gotten to where I was around my family at Walter Reed, I felt winded and relaxed at the same time,” Hughes said. “I knew I finally wasn’t going to die. That gratitude that I hadn’t washed over me like the warmth of an adrenaline rush.
“I’d dealt with the medical certainties of my condition during the 14 hour flight from Germany. The acceptance of what my life was going to be like from those days on... that was what my life was like when I returned home.”
Even routine tasks are being learned again.
“My life was all about learning how to do everything, e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g, all over again without my leg and without the immediate use of my mangled leg,” he said. “My life was about learning to accept my sacrifice and learning to adjust to my new self image. To be entirely honest, I still haven’t adjusted to as much of all that as I would like to have by this point in the frame of things.”
Small successes as being able to wear a shoe for the first time are appreciated. “It was at one time kind of big and at the other kind of silly,” he said.
“It is another step forward,” Hughes said.
Husbands and wives
U.S. Air Force veteran Jason Ellis, 36, of Tampa, Fla., was wounded by a roadside improvised explosive device in 2003. In addition to losing the hearing in one ear, both of his knees have been replaced, and he underwent back fusion and a trial stimulator implanted in his back. Two more knee replacements are planned.
The Wallis Ride was Ellis’ second ride in as many months as he attended the Lt. Dan Weekend in Beaufort in September.
Discovering the recumbent cycles, which allow riders to sit reclined and use their hands for pedaling, are a blessing to Ellis, a former basketball player for Oklahoma State.
“It keeps him active, and he gets to meet new people and it helps to fight depression,” said his wife, Angelica, a registered nurse who helps stabilize the wounded veterans at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital in Tampa.
“It is heartbreaking to see these 19- to 20-year-olds come in,” Angelica said.
“They take it one of two ways,” she said of their severe injuries. “A lot of them feel they are lucky. Most of the guys you see say they would go back.”
Supporting wounded veterans
These vets are among more than 60,000 military service members who have returned home from the war on terror with severe injuries. But with the help of groups such as AMBUCS and the Independence Fund, these wounded warriors are finding the tools — robotic wheelchairs and special therapies and guidance — to continue pursuing independent, productive and satisfying lives.
By New Year’s Eve it is anticipated that almost all of those serving in Iraq and 10,000 in Afghanistan will be coming home with another 23,000 returning from Afghanistan in September. At least a third of those 72,000 are expected to suffer from PTSD.
The Independence Fund was founded by Steve Danyluk, a U.S. Marine Lt. Col. and Marine Corps active reservist who served in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. When he returned stateside, he was assigned to the Pentagon to assist severely wounded veterans. When he saw what was lacking, he started The Independence Fund, a nonprofit foundation to help the severely wounded veterans get the assistance they need to become independent. Since 2007, the fund has raised more than $1.5 million part of which brought about 700 wounded warriors and their caregivers to the two Lt. Dan Weekends and the five Wallis Rides. The Independence Fund has since purchased 20 iBOT wheelchairs ($25,000 retail cost), before Johnson & Johnson, the iBOT’s parent corporation ceased production due to lack of sales. The fund has also provided other tools such as adaptive sports equipment, specialized hand-crank bicycles and adaptive SCUBA gear to allow these vets to get back into regular physical activities. The fund has also assisted veterans in obtaining proven alternative therapies and helped place qualifying veterans in world class therapeutic programs at places like the renowned Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Ga., for injuries unique to this war and treatments not currently available within the DoD/VA Healthcare system. Other events that Independence Fund veterans have benefited from include the DVA Winter Sports Clinic in Aspen Colo., and the World Team Sports, 110-mile bicycle rally from Gettysburg to Washington D.C. In December, 2007, the Schlumberger Cycling Club in Houston Texas sponsored the first Independence Ride, which raised nearly $60,000. In October, the Schlumberger Cycling Club and ride partners, the ConocoPhillips Cycling Club and the Chevron Cycling Club, hosted the fifth annual Independence Ride in support of disabled veterans through the Independence Fund.
Danyluk is now coordinating Lt. Dan Weekend 3 on Sept. 13-17, 2012 in Beaufort.
The AMBUCS’s Veteran’s Initiative started in the fall of 2010 focused on adapting equipment especially for the veteran’s population. AMBUCS partnered with the Independence Fund to provide tricycles for the 14 veterans with traumatic brain injuries, along with amputees and paraplegics. For the first time many of the severely wounded vets took a spin around the 11-mile route around the Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station in the first annual Lt. Dan Ride in 2010. The AmTrykes were donated by the National AMBUCS and coordinated by the Little Red Dog Foundation’s AMBUCS chapter, founded by Anne Guthrie of Beaufort.
Local AMBUCS then began to identify more veterans who needed their cycles. Currently about 50 veterans have received AmTrykes.
The first Vet bike Ride was held at the Memphis Conference in the summer of 2011 and 22 riders receive tricycles sponsored by AMBUCS’ chapters.
