Veterans heal through Warfighter Scuba program
Courtesy Photo Warfighter Scuba participants and volunteers are seen at an underwater wreck in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS) waters in this photo provided by Warfighter Scuba.
ALPENA — Warfighter Scuba, a nonprofit of divers who help combat-wounded veterans heal emotional and physical wounds, is working with a group of Purple Heart recipients at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS).
Veteran Nick Powers founded Warfighter Scuba in 2017.
Community members learned about Warfighter Scuba’s mission on Wednesday evening in a lecture by Kevin Sheard, a member of the Warfighter Scuba board of directors. The lecture was held at the NOAA Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center in Alpena.
Sheard explained that Powers created Warfighter Scuba after transitioning out of the military. Sheard said Powers struggled with acclimating to civilian life and found peace and purpose while scuba diving.
Sheard said Powers experienced a lot of distractions, including “some problems within his marriage that were caused by some of the stresses and the burdens of war. Then he moved to Roatan, Honduras to shut out the noise, and he started scuba diving.”
News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz Warfighter Scuba participants and volunteers are seen at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center on Wednesday night, presenting the mission of Warfighter Scuba.
Sheard said Powers discovered that scuba diving helped him focus and forget about some of the burdens he had been carrying.
“He realized that through scuba diving, his 99 problems that he can come up with above the surface, went down to, ‘I need to breathe, and I need to enjoy myself, and I need to take a look around.'”
Warfighter Scuba brings camaraderie and community to veterans who struggle to find support systems who understand their unique burdens, Sheard said.
According to Sheard, Warfighter Scuba had 100 veterans go through their programs last year. Currently, they have a 450-person backlog of combat-wounded veterans waiting to join the program.
“We’re only restrained by budget,” Sheard said. “If we had more people and more money we could get more through.”
The Warfighter Scuba programs offer combat-wounded veterans five to seven nights in a hotel, roundtrip flights, seven days of meals, and veterans leave the program certified to scuba dive.
Sheard said every penny of donated money goes toward the wounded-veteran participants, and the board of directors and instructors are all volunteers.
Kyle Maddux-Lawrance, a film maker, was inspired to film Warfighter Scuba’s time at TBNMS for a future documentary. Maddux-Lawrance said the loss of his brother, a veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, has prompted him to tell the Warfighter Scuba story through film.
Sheard told Maddux-Lawrence the biggest struggle that Warfighter Scuba has is getting their story “out there.”
“I said, ‘I can do that. That’s what I do,'” Maddux-Lawrence said. “My life is about story … I build human connection and hope through storytelling. Because that’s what I lost. That’s now what I seek.”
Jon Simons, Warfighter Scuba volunteer instructor, noted the benefits of scuba diving for combat-wounded veterans.
He said being weightless in the water provides freedom that they might not have above the surface, especially if they are an amputee. He also described another program of theirs that allows spouses to accompany their veteran through the program and become scuba certified, as well.
“They both get certified and learn the skill, and then they have something to do back home,” Simon said. “That’s also therapy for that veteran.”
Ethan Nagel, a Warfighter Scuba volunteer instructor, explained the unique therapeutic benefits of scuba diving. In addition to the emotional benefits, he also noted that salt water can be beneficial for burn victims.
Brian Pacelli, a participating veteran, explained that although he has always disliked the water, he recognized the benefits of the Warfighter Scuba program. He chose to participate to encourage other veterans to try a different mode of therapy.
He said that though scuba diving is beyond his comfort zone, he hopes his story will encourage other veterans to give it a try.
“This opens up the world … it just opens up about 70% of the world to you,” Pacelli said.
Jonathan Warren, a combat-wounded veteran, told the audience at TBNMS that he was wounded in Iraq just six weeks into his deployment in 2006, at 24 years old.
Warren explained that he went through several rounds of experimental therapy for his emotional and physical wounds, which he said included “experimental shots in my neck to try and reset my sympathetic nervous system,” and others.
He said that he wanted to try Warfighter Scuba because he recognized the “importance of raising awareness and how that could help raise funding that is necessary to make these programs more readily available for the guys who need it.”
Rey France, a paratrooper who was deployed on Sept. 12, 2001, said he had wanted to be a paratroopper since he was a boy.
“The American soldier and the American vet were my heroes,” France said. “I grew up believing and knowing that we lived in the greatest country ever known to man. I thought being a soldier was the greatest thing that I could ever accomplish.”
France said that after he was wounded and returned to civilian life, he realized America was “woefully unprepared to go to war and bring all these veterans back.”
Like Warren, France said that he was treated as a “guinea pig” through experimental procedures to treat his physical and emotional wounds.
France said at one point he considered suicide to be his only option as he did not see any avenue toward recovery and refused to be medicated his entire life. He explained that when he found himself in a Bass Pro Shop one day, his life changed trajectories. He found peace in nature.
“People ask me all the time why I think I was in there. I don’t. Maybe to find what I needed to end my life … God used fishing to save my life,” France said. “It wasn’t just fishing, it was about water … being on the water.”
France said that when he got the offer to join the Warfighter Scuba program, he ignored the invitation at first. However, he decided to take the challenge on.
“I started thinking, ‘What if no one else signs up for this?’ … ‘What if no one signs up for it and they can’t complete their story?'”
France was impressed with the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and told the audience he can’t wait for the opportunity to bring his son back to experience the sanctuary as well.
At the end of the presentation, Sheard shared with the audience that his hope for the Warfighter Scuba organization is for it to grow and continue helping combat-wounded veterans.
“My hope for the future is that we don’t have a backlog,” Sheard said. “And that one of these guys continues on spreading that great word and then lets their buddies know about it so that we have the ability to expand that network, that community, and that outlet to be able to take it to more people that don’t even know about us.”
Kayla Wikaryasz can be reached at 989-358-5688 or kwikaryasz@TheAlpenaNews.com.
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- Courtesy Photo Warfighter Scuba participants and volunteers are seen at an underwater wreck in Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary (TBNMS) waters in this photo provided by Warfighter Scuba.
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- News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz Warfighter Scuba participants and volunteers are seen at the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center on Wednesday night, presenting the mission of Warfighter Scuba.
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