AMBUCS Chapters Donate Trikes To Veterans During Lt. Dan Weekend

By Katherine Tandy Brown

Playing the role of Lieutenant Dan, who becomes a paraplegic during the Vietnam War in the movie “Forrest Gump,” made a lasting impression on Emmy Award winning and Oscar nominated actor Gary Sinese.

Since 2004, he and his Lieutenant Dan Band have been touring the globe, drawing attention to military personnel and their families to make sure they feel thanked and appreciated for their service and sacrifice. Each year, the 12-member band plays 30 to 40 performances, both free USO concerts and public concerts that benefit injured military veterans and bring awareness of their plight to the thousands of fans that flock to see the star and rock to his group’s diverse repertoire.

The weekend of October first, the not-for-profit Independence Fund, which provides assistance to severely injured vets, brought the musicians to Beaufort SC for a rockin’ Friday evening concert as part of a Lieutenant Dan Weekend that segued with the coastal town’s annual Shrimp Festival. The Fund also arranged for 50 wounded veterans to travel to Beaufort to attend the performance and participate in a Saturday morning 11-mile bike ride and race. Thirteen of these military heroes – 11 men and two women – received AMBUCS AmTrykes and 11 were able to pedal along with scores of their family members, military comrades and townspeople in the heartwarming event at the area’s Marine Corp Air Station.

Beaufort City Councilwoman Donnie Beer, who has an Army medic grandson stationed in Afghanistan, helped with the ride activities. “These vets are my heroes, every one of them,” she says, “because they’re willing to put their life on the line as a blank check for our country.”

Following are profiles of those remarkable 13 men and women. All were injured while serving their country. All struggle with physical and emotional challenges on a daily basis. And all express heartfelt appreciation for the positive changes new AmTryes will make in their lives.

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Meet James Howard

Injured in a 2008 freak diving accident while on duty in Iraq after eight years with the 82nd Airborne in Special Forces training, James Howard is a busy man today. Diagnosed as an incomplete quadriplegic, the 30-year-old Fayetteville NC resident serves as CIO for the Independence Fund (www.independencefund.org) and as advocate for numerous organizations that assist injured veterans, often traveling to Washington DC to lobby for such groups as the National Organization on Disability (www.nod.org), to symposiums on spinal cord injury research, and to fundraisers for “wounded warriors.”

Medically retired as a captain, Howard also is a tour docent at Fort Bragg’s Airborne Special Operations Museum and is starting online courses toward a civil engineering Masters degree. All with the help of “an amazing support network” of friends and family, and all from a wheelchair.

“My accident has been a blessing by misfortune,” he says. “I get to spend more time with my fiancée Anne (Hall). And it’s rewarding to know we’re playing a role in helping other vets who are coming back from injury.”
Though he currently has no use of his arms or legs, Howard has his hands strapped to his AmTryke’s hand pedals, which he then pushes with his shoulders. The  Lubbock (TX) Monterey chapter donated his Tryke, which this spunky vet pumped the entire 11 miles in Beaufort.

“I’ve been watching these events from the sidelines for awhile now,” he says. “Now I can get on and be competitive with myself.”

Meet Tim Squires

Fellow NOD lobbyist Tim Squires also was injured in a diving accident. On a day off in 2005, the Army staff sergeant and National Guard combat medic dived off a 30-foot board used to simulate diving from a ship at a Kuwait Navy recreation base, landed wrong and burst his spine on impact. As a result, he suffered a TBI and has right leg paralysis.

From their home in Nebo NC, Tim and his wife Agnes travel to DC often to lobby for several organizations that work for severely injured veterans’ rights. Because they encountered problems when she tried to emigrate to the U.S. from the Philippines, he is researching and writing a book about the immigration law system.
“Doing something we know has purpose,” he says, “gives us a good outlook on life again.”

As does his AmTryke, donated by Duncan (OK) chapter of AMBUCS. Tim used to ride a 10-speed, and the Tryke, he says, gives him “another avenue of improving” his health.

Meet Dan Ramsey

South Carolina native Dan Ramsey was an avid cross-country bicyclist before being thrown from a speeding truck while “bugging out” of an operation while on Marine duty in Iraq in 2006. A broken neck resulted in his medical retirement. He and wife Catherine live in Columbia SC. Like Howard, Ramsey, who was first a Navy Seabee and then a Marine, is committed to helping injured vets and serves as director of strategic outreach for Hidden Wounds (www.hiddenwounds.org), a nonprofit that connects those with traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other post-war (any war) psychological challenges with no-cost help.

Told by doctors he might never walk again, the once-nearly-paralyzed Marine lance corporal proved them wrong by completing a 10K run (he jogged) in Charleston last April. Because of residual physical issues from his injury, he is unable to ride a regular two-wheeler.

In October, Ramsey accompanied fellow injured vet Dave Long, who would be receiving an AmTryke, to Beaufort to cheer his friend on in the bike ride. Turns out that representatives from the AMBUCS Resource Center happened to bring an extra trike on that sunny Saturday. Before the morning was over, Dan was the ear-to-ear grinning owner of an AmTryke donated by Mid Cities chapter of AMBUCS in Bedford, Texas.

“There’s no better freedom than being able to ride and push as hard as you can.” He smiles. “I won’t be going quite as fast, but I’ll be out there.”

Meet Dave Long

Ramsey’s regular workout buddy, Dave Long also lives in Columbia, with his wife Meaghan, a 15-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son. A 2004 mortar injury left him with a TBI and shrapnel in his leg and thigh when he was serving as an Army staff sergeant.
Since last February, Long’s constant companion has been Harry, a black Labrador retriever service dog he received from Puppies Behind Bars (www.puppiesbehindbars.org), a nonprofit which employs prison inmates to raise dogs to assist the disabled. Harry helps Dave through traumatic PTSD flashbacks. And the vet’s AmTryke, donated by AMBUCS Danville (IL) chapter, came equipped with a carrier, so Harry can be on duty “24/7, 365.”

“With shrapnel pain, I’ve been limited on exercise options,” Long explains. “The AmTryke opens a lot of doors. I call it ‘Harry’s Little Toy.’ Whenever we’re near it, he hops into his carrier. It’s a hint for me!”

Meet Joseph Rainey

Another vet with a canine companion is Joseph Rainey, a Marine lance corporal injured at Camp Lejeune in 1985 by friendly fire, resulting in disability issues with his knees, shoulder and hand. The 45-year-old Florida native now lives in West Palm Beach with his wife Donna and is the father of two grown sons, a grown daughter and an 8-year-old daughter, Sheridan.

Often his knees collapse, which presented a major problem until his service dog, Tanker, a Golden retriever, entered the picture earlier this year. Now Joseph and Tanker are both in training at Paws4Liberty (www.paws4liberty.org), an organization that provides service dogs to wounded vets. Though not even a year old, Tanker has a natural instinct for stability. Because of this, he can keep Joseph from falling. However, should the retired Marine lose his balance, Tanker can help him get back up.

Donated by AMBUCS Mile High chapter in Denver, Rainey’s AmTryke not only broadens his options for staying active but gets him on the road as a family man.

“My eight-year-old daughter has a bike but has had no one to ride with,” he says. “Now that I have a bike, we can ride together.”

Meet Paul Thurman

Yet another retriever owner is retired Army sergeant and Naval petty officer Paul Thurman, who suffered three separate TBIs, one while in SEAL training, one in Iraq and the third in a car crash. To date, he says, therapy through the Alabama-based Lake Shore Foundation (www.lakeshore.org), a nonprofit assisting the disabled to become more independent, has greatly helped his severe PTSD.

Now living in Saginaw, Texas, the Californian resides with his wife Tanya, five children and, as of August, a service dog named Lucky, which he received from Paws 4 Liberty (www.paws4liberty.org); one of the nonprofit’s missions is to provide service dogs for vets. The yellow Lab is always with Thurman for seizure alert, night terror assistance and fetching needed items. 

Paul’s recumbent AmTryke, donated by Irving, Texas chapter of AMBUCS, is low to the ground to allow for better balance, and the vet is ecstatic over his new bike.

“I love riding bikes so much,” he laughs. “I have “Schwinn” tattooed on my shoulder!”

Meet Laura Sellinger

A recent convert to the joys of cycling, Laura Sellinger served in intelligence for the Air Force in Iraq, sometimes posing as a burka-clad Iraqi woman on a local street to collect important information. On active duty in 2006, she suffered a TBI when the Humvee she was riding in went over a bomb. Shortly thereafter, she was inadvertently hit in the face by the butt of a gun when a fellow soldier trying to keep a detainee from trying to hurt her, missed because the detainee ducked, and the guard hit Laura instead.

Now 26, she lives in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, with her high school sweetheart, husband John, an Air Force staff sergeant. Though she has numerous residual physical issues, Laura is a national spokeswoman for injured vets, and as an artist, has curated a poignant traveling art exhibit, “BattleDress: A Woman’s View,” which appeared at Beaufort’s Charles Street Gallery during Lieutenant Dan Weekend.

The Grapevine (TX) Heritage chapter of AMBUCS sponsored the AmTryke Laura pedaled for the entire 11 miles of the Lieutenant Dan bike ride. The successful effort left her ebullient. “I was having complications from a miscarriage and had been on bed rest before the race,” she explains. “Both my husband and mother said, ‘Don’t do it.’ But I did it anyway. I figured I’d stop if I didn’t feel well, but I did it!

“Because of my brain injury, I can’t have a driver’s license, so the AmTryke is my one ticket to freedom!”

Meet Sean Phillips

Sean Phillips knew he wanted to be a Marine by the age of five. When 9/11 occurred, though he’d completed only one year of college, the determined young man immediately joined up, serving as a grenader until being shot in the head by a sniper while courageously covering a number of fellow Marines trapped by crossfire in Iraq in 2004. A TBI left him unable to speak (at 27, he’s now relearning) or write and with paralysis on his right side.

An Air Force brat, Phillips lives with his dad Terry and mom Sharon in Montgomery AL, likes to deer hunt with his brother and has attended several Wounded Warrior hunts, and spends therapy time at a VA facility in Birmingham, where he’s training to receive a “talking computer.”

“We just received our first email from Sean in five years,” Terry says, with a broad smile.
The Greater Birmingham (AL) AMBUCS chapter sponsored his AmTryke, which Sharon hopes will give her son some independence and the freedom to leave the house on his own. The Beaufort bike ride proved a milestone for the scrappy vet.

“Before the ride, Sean told me he was only going to ride a mile,” Sharon says. “But in the race, he couldn’t find a place to turn around, so he just kept going the whole 11 miles. He is so proud, and so are we!”

Meet Pablo Barrios

Born in Miami, Beaufort SC resident Pablo Barrios, a Marine for 14 years trained in intelligence at Camp Lejeune, was serving as a staff sergeant last February on his fourth tour in Iraq when an IED explosion ripped through both arms. Twenty-plus surgeries saved his arms, which were, as he puts it, “shish-kebabed,” and dealt with numerous severe internal injuries. His current “job,” a tough one, is daily physical therapy. His wife and three daughters, aged four, five and seven, help in the emotional support department.
On October 21st, Barrios, who was not able to attend the bike ride, received his AmTryke at a meeting of the Beaufort Kiwanis Club, as his particular Tryke was the 200th put together by these Kiwanians for the Little Red Dog  Chapter in Beaufort, SC.

“Because of medications I have to take right now, a regular two-wheeler is not an option,” Barrios said. “The three-wheeled AmTryke will be perfect to get me on the road. I appreciate everything that Little Red Dog Foundation has done for me.”

Meet Mark Brogan

Medically retired as an Army captain, Mark Brogan was seriously injured in 2006 by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Suffering a spinal injury and the same type of head injury as journalist Bob Woodruff (whom he has met), the 30-year-old has post-traumatic epilepsy, is nearly deaf and has shrapnel in one hand. Brogan, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, is married to his “best friend from high school,” Sonny; is looking forward to pursuing his Masters degree in the future (“…as soon as my poor old brain will let me,” he says); and is delighted with the recumbent AmTryke given to him by the Savannah (GA) AMBUCS chapter.

“My balance system is way off,” says Brogan, “and being low to the ground keeps me from falling over. It’s exciting to be able to bike again, plus it gives me a safe way to do athletics.”

Meet Justin Clark

When Justin Clark was 17, he, like so many military personnel, joined the Army to “keep our country safe.” Just three years later, he first was hit with shrapnel from a mortar round. Shortly thereafter, he was electrocuted while repairing a generator and fell 25 feet onto his head. In addition to a TBI, Clark suffers from severe PTSD, as do many injured vets. Now medically retired as an E4 specialist, the North Carolina native lives in the town of Edenton with his wife Audrey, five-year-old niece Kayla and their chocolate Labrador retriever, Bentley.

Donated by the Lubbock (TX) Caprock chapter, Clark’s AmTryke is a recumbent with exercise pedals that will lead him, he says, “to a more active lifestyle.”

Meet Danielle Friedericksen

The victim of a hate crime while serving as a specialist with the Army in Iraq, South African-born Danielle Friedericksen was pushed off a tank and fell 10 feet down an embankment. As a result, the 28-year-old mother of six-year-old twins suffered a TBI, knee and hip damage and a fractured coccyx.

Friedericksen joined the military in 2006 to provide financial stability for her boys and to get an education on the GI Bill. “Attending college here is a dream come true for me,” she says, “There’s so much poverty in South Africa, and it’s hard to find a good job there.”

Now a criminology major at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, Danielle is looked after by her fiancée Damon Sevy, and is stationed at Fort Carson, where she’s on 100 percent disability in a Wounded Warrior unit.

“Our job is just to heal,” Friedericksen explains, “to attend our daily therapies and doctors’ appointments.”
The Southwest Amarillo (TX) AMBUCS chapter donated her AmTryke, in which she amazed herself by pedaling the entire 11 miles at the Lieutenant Dan bike ride.

“I was in heaven,” she said. “Because of memory loss, I don’t even remember what it felt like to ride a bike. Getting to ride again made me feel not so incapacitated by my injuries. Now I can’t wait to go biking as a family with my kids.”

Meet Rodney Price

Family man Rodney Price, now 47, spent two years with the Army in the mid-1980s and six in the Army Reserves through 1991. Because of the 9/11 attacks, Price finally re-upped in 2004. “I was so old by then,” he says, “my platoon called me ‘grandpa’!”

Deployed to Iraq, he was injured in a 2006 mortar attack. Though he still has shrapnel in his heart and lungs, residual shrapnel in his legs is his most disabling injury.

These days, he lives in Gardner, Kansas, with his wife Tracy, who is working toward a degree in social work, and three children, ranging from 21 to 13 years old. The Wounded Warrior Project’s Project Odyssey (www.woundedwarriorproject.org) has helped jump-start Rodney’s recovery through adaptive-type sports. With his AmTryke, thanks to AMBUCS Salina (KS) chapter, he looks forward to trimming off excess weight he’s gained from not being able to exercise regularly.

“Pedaling forward instead of up and down feels great for my injured leg,” Price says. “This bike is like sitting in a lawn chair it’s so comfortable. It gives me a great cardio workout, and now I’m looking forward to attending more soldier rides.”