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April 03, 2007
On Duty
Aspen Daily News
Christine Benedetti - Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Tue 04/03/2007 11:01AM
Jim Scott, of California, rides down the Velvet Falls run in a monoski at Snowmass Ski Area on Monday.Veterans gather in Snowmass for Winter Sports Clinic
On Monday afternoon, the vehicle loading area at Snowmass' Silvertree Hotel was more of a stage. Different groups of people clustered around the center cheering and jeering those who took on the 25-foot climbing wall erected in the middle.
"You can do it, you're halfway there!" shouted one woman.
Only to be reinforced from another section with a, "You go girl, boys drool and girls rule."
Still, there was some taunting and "friendly competition," as one person called it, but the one common thread was that each participant, or audience member, was there for the same reason: the 21st National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic.
Coming from around the country, 365 veterans are meeting in Snowmass for a week on the slopes, sipping cocktails in the lounge and finding support from others going through similar experiences.
"Everyone knows how everyone feels," said Buddy Hayes, a 48-year-old Army veteran who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis four years ago and is in a wheelchair. "It's unspoken."
Hayes, the one with the go-get-'em-girls attitude around the rock climbing wall, is back for her second year.
Not only does she shred snow in the mornings and shimmy up the climbing wall in the afternoons, but this active woman won two marathons and two half-marathons after the 2002 diagnosis.
"You've only got a week here, and you don't want to waste time sitting on your butt," she joked.
Over on the slopes, flush-faced Stephen Stratman, from Edwardsville, Ill., is fresh off the hill. An on-the-job spinal injury left him with minimal function below his chest and he says it always feels like that half of his body is "next to a bonfire."
"I've never had a chance to do anything with paralyzed vets, and I just wanted to be with the people," he said. "Just because you have an injury doesn't mean you can't leave home."
Because he has a ski background, Stratman said he picked up the bi-ski -- two skis under a bucket chair -- more quickly. This is his first year at the Winter Sports Clinic, and besides skiing he and his wife are partaking in some of the other organized activities like trap shooting and gondola rides.
More than 450 volunteers show up for the week, and 200 of these are ski instructors. Beyond the coordination between getting people on the slopes and to different activities, there's the task of organizing the equipment -- 250 units from mono-skis and bi-skis to snowboards and three-track skis. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of ski equipment is loaned out and monitored by officials who are veterans themselves.
"Let's give freedom back to those who fight for it,' said R.W. Wright, who heads up the equipment department. "We'll do anything to make a difference in their week ... sometimes they think their lives are over."
For others, it's about perspective.
Up by the pool, some veterans are learning to scuba dive, and just like the rock climbing wall there are groups of people watching. Four young men sit together on one side, all in wheelchairs.
Two men, Chris Sullivan and Dallas Chambless, were stationed in Iraq. Sullivan, 23, was shot on duty and Chambless, 23, was in a motorcycle accident two days after returning from Iraq. They are both paralyzed from the waist down.
Chambless, an Army veteran, served in Iraq on two different occasions and previously told officials that he wished he could return.
"I wish I could go back a third time," he said. "I miss being a soldier -- I found joy in doing my job."
He has skied before, but said he was eager to get out there again.
"I'll give anything a try once," he added.
Hayes said there's no one-time visit for the Winter Sports Clinic.
"You try it one time and you want to come back," she said.
For more information on veteran's week, please visit www.stayaspensnowmass.com
Posted by Dina at April 3, 2007 07:54 AM
