Email   Print   Share By Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

Facebook Digg Delicious April 9, 2009 | Sports

RIGHT, Sgt. Nathan Hunt, (red helmet), formerly with the 4th Bde., 10th Mtn. Div., Fort Polk, La., and Lucas Goedert, a former 3-8th Cav. Regt., 1st Cav. Div. Soldier, lead the Road 2 Recovery Texas Challenge peloton onto the III Corps Headquarters driveway Thursday morning. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

Cliff Meade, 227th Avn. Regt., 1st Cav. Div., and about 11 other members of the post's Team Army cycling squad, planned to ride to Waco with the Road 2 Recovery Texas Challenge wounded warriors and their other supporters. The Fort Hood cycling team founder, Lt. Lt. Col. Michael Shenk, deputy inspector general for III Corps and Fort Hood,planned to finish the ride, which began Monday at Fort Sam Houston in San Antoni, in Arlington. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

Nick Lerma, left, and his fellow former Marine, Daniel, recently were released from the Wounded Warrior Center at Camp Pendleton, Ca. They paused Thursday morning at III Corps Headquarters with other members of the main peloton of the Road 2 Recover Texas Challenge. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

A friend helps Lucas Goedert, a former 3-8th Cav. Regt., 1st Cav. Div. Soldier, replace a snapped screw on his recumbent trike’s leg rest with a washer clamp as he and 34 other wounded warriors pause Thursday for a rally at the III Corps Headquarters. To his left, Sgt. Nathan Hunt, BAMC, was chosen to throw the first pitch in Saturday’s Rangers game. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

Road 2 Recover riders pause Thursday at III Corps Headquarters, where a rally was held at the flag pole. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

After 34 wounded warriors and supporters, including 12 members of Fort Hood’s Team Army cycling squad participated in a rally at III Corps Headquarters, the peloton left en route to Rangers Ballpark, Arlington, where the Rangers lost Saturday, 5-4, to the Kansas City Royals. Michael Heckman, Sentinel Staff

Meadows Elementary 5th graders cheer on the Road 2 Recover cyclist. The cyclist passed through Fort Hood on their way to Dallas April 2. Chris Haug, Sentinel Editor

Students, teachers and staff members cheered the wounded warriors as they passed Meadows Elementary School. Christopher Haug, Sentinel editor

Some have been on the road longer than others but a kindred spirit unites them.

They’re a band of brothers and sisters bonded by war wounds, the miles of asphalt and concrete that have passed beneath the wheels of their bicycles and recumbent trikes, and by a desire to show people along the way they have a lot still to give to a watching and waiting world. One of those who’s still giving is Mark Gilmore.

On May 19, 2007, his back and ribs were broken, his body was punctured by shrapnel and he suffered an open head wound when his tank was split in half by an anti-tank mine near Amariyah, Iraq.

He was given a 15 percent chance of ever walking again.

But Gilmore, 39, Co. A, 1st Battalion, Warrior Transition Brigade, beat the odds.

Despite initial treatment for his injuries at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and then at Fort Hood’s Carl. R. Darnall Army Medical Center, Gilmore struggled to get his life back.

He was depressed, dependent upon pain killers and other medications to get him through daily activities.

About a year ago, his wife, Nicci, a massage therapist who also volunteers at the WTU, told him he could do more for himself and for his children, Conner, now 6 and Mikaela, now 4.

“My first concern (when told of her husband’s injuries) was if he would ever walk again,” Nicci said Thursday morning in front of the III Corps headquarters building. She and hundreds of Soldiers and civilians had gathered to applaud Gilmore and 55 other riders, including 34 wounded warriors, as they paused for a rally around the III Corps flag pole along the route of the Road 2 Recovery Texas Challenge.

After starting the ride Monday at the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, the wounded warriors and their supporters were about half of the 1,000 miles between their start and the ride’s destination, Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

Chastised by Nicci’s prompting, Mark got involved in the Road 2 Recovery program last November. He went on a wounded warrior project ride with the Warrior Training Brigade in Houston.

“After about 23 miles,” Mark said, “I realized this is about the only sport that I could really take care of myself and at the same time get better.”

Because of his spinal injury, which led to surgery to fuse four vertebrae less than a year ago, he rides a leg-powered recumbent trike.

He pedals with his legs extended in front of him and sits in a canvas seat.

“He’s come an extremely long way from being in back and neck braces,” Nicci said.

Riding with other wounded warriors has changed Mark’s perspective about his injuries and abilities.

“You realize you’re not the Lone Ranger anymore. It’s not about winning the race, it’s about completing it,” Mark said, waiting for the main group of riders to arrive.

Since becoming involved in cycling and the R2R program, he added, he is almost free of pain killers and other drugs and is no longer depressed.

Despite a chilly, 35-mile-per-hour northwest wind, he planned to ride at least to Waco and beyond.

However far he goes, when he returns, Mark will continue working with other wounded warriors. He teaches Thai Chi for pain management at the Recovery and Resilience Center on post.

As the Road 2 Recovery peloton, including 12 Team Army cyclists from Fort Hood, approached the corps headquarters building, Soldiers saluted and civilians cheered.

Of the continued dedication and service of wounded warriors such as Gilmore, Command Sgt Maj. Neil Ciotola, III Corps senior enlisted member, said, “It speaks of the spirit and potential born out of adversity. They are precisely the people I want to keep close to this institution because they know precisely the essence of service, so I want them to stay here.”

As he concluded his address from a podium near the flag pole, Ciotola said, of the Vietnam War veterans who had joined the ride “There is a group of people here today represented by three riders that never received the affirmation they deserved, that never received the welcome home we do.”

The audience responded and cheered for the Vietnam veterans. One of those veterans, Wayne Wagner, of Phoenix, Ariz., insisted he does not have a disability. His road to recovery began in 1969 when he lost both of his legs in Vietnam.

“I have an inconvenience,” Wagner said. Having to put his legs on to walk or ride a bike is no different than having to put his glasses on in order to read, he insisted.

Unlike most of today’s wounded, Wagner rides a standard bicycle instead of a hi-tech modified two-wheeler. Regardless, he averages 12,000-15,000 miles a year in support of wounded veterans.

“I’m doing this to show people life goes on after an amputation,” he said.

His resiliency is intact.

About three months ago, during an R2R ride from San Francisco to La Jolla, Calif., he broke three lumbar vertebrae when he crashed his bicycle. A month later, he was riding again.

“It’s no big deal. I’m just a white man with black legs with American flags on them,” he insisted.

A younger man without legs, Lucas Goedert, has been riding a hand-powered cycle for more than two years. His first R2R ride was in February 2007.

The former 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cav. Div. Soldier, who lost his legs in an improvised-explosive device explosion in Iraq, said of the R2R program, “It’s meant a great deal. I lost a lot of interest in the things I used to do. It’s my one way to get out and meet new friends.”

Under the shade of a canopy erected over the headquarters driveway, Goedert and fellow riders replaced a snapped screw on his leg rest with a washer clamp. Of the makeshift repair, he added, “Hopefully, it will work well enough to let me finish this leg of the ride.”

A friend who also receives treatment and rides with Goedert at BAMC, Sgt. Nathan Hunt, formerly with the 4th Brigade, 10th

Mountain Division, Fort Polk, La., was invited to throw out the first pitch Saturday before the Rangers game against the Kansas City Royals in Arlington. He was excited.

“I havent done anything like that since I got hurt. It was a surprise; they told me last night,” Hunt said. Minutes after leaving III Corps headquarters, winding along a route that would exit the post’s east frontier en route to Waco and, by Saturday, Arlington, the peloton passed Meadows Elementary School.

According to Meadows principal Karol Carlisle, 729 students and about 100 teachers and other staff lined the streets adjacent to the school.

“That was a fabulous display of courage and dedication to our nation coming down the street,” Carlisle said. “Soldiers don’t get the response from all layers of the community from the youngest tots in Pre-K to the adults and we wanted them to get that loud and clear.”

Carlisle said assistant principal Beth Funk took the lead on the event ordering American flags for students and staff and making sure everyone was in place along the route.

As the peloton passed, children yelled “Go USA” and other chants.

Antoinette Bailey, a fifth-grade student, said, “I think this is cool; they rock because it takes a long time to ride such a distance on bikes. They’ll get stiff and tired and it hurts your legs.”