WOUNDED WARRIORS AT THE BUSCH CLASSIC

Aspire to inspire: Military amputees play able-bodied game

Tim Horton of the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team make contact during their exhibition game Friday, July 1, 2016. Branch of service: Marines
Tim Horton of the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team make contact during their exhibition game Friday, July 1, 2016. Branch of service: Marines

Cody Rice was sitting in a hospital room at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland in the summer of 2012, wondering what was next.

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Cody Rice of the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team stretches for a catch near the fence during their exhibition game Friday, July 1, 2016. Branch of service: Army

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Bobby McCardle of the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team readies a throw to first after digging out a ground ball during their exhibition game Friday, July 1, 2016. Branch of service: Marines

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Manny Del Rio of the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team beats the throw for a stand up triple during their exhibition game Friday, July 1, 2016. Branch of service: Navy

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Chris Paulsen of the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team pitches during their exhibition game Friday, July 1, 2016. Branch of service: Navy

Rice, 30, served six years in the United States Army with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Italy. He lost his right leg on Aug. 11, 2012, during his second tour in Afghanistan. He said he and his crew were observing for indirect fire, i.e. rockets and missiles.

Wounded Warriors Softball Team

(Players in Arkansas)

NAME;BRANCH;WAR

Nick Bradley;Air Force;Iraq/Afghanistan

Tom Carlo;Marines;GWOT

Manny Del Rio;Navy;GWOT

Justin Feagin;Army;Afghanistan

Tim Horton;Marines;Iraq

Bobby McCardle;Marines;Iraq

Chris Paulsen;Navy;Desert Storm

Cody Rice;Army;Afghanistan

Jeremy Sabin;Air Force;GWOT

Josh Wege;Marines;Afghanistan

NOTE GWOT stands for Global War on Terrorism

Once he received his prosthetic leg, Rice had some hope again. Eventually, he wanted to play softball.

Enter the Wounded Warriors Amputee Softball Team, founded in 2010 after a grant from the Veterans’ Administration. The organization gives wounded servicemen the opportunity to compete and serve their country beyond the battlefield.

The team is competing in this weekend’s Busch Softball Classic at Sherwood Sports Complex.

“I was a good athlete,” said Rice, who is in his second season with the team. “I called this team up and said, ‘I want to play.’ It’s been incredible. We get to inspire people. I get to go out and hit bombs, because I’m a big boy. They love it. I’m a big boy, I have one leg and I can still run faster than a lot of guys.”

Josh Wege says he’s lucky to be alive.

Wege, 26, of Estero, Fla., was in the U.S. Marine Corps for 3½ years and retired as a lance corporal because of his injuries.

He was 19 on his first deployment in Afghanistan on Oct. 4, 2009, when his crew’s armored vehicle went over a 200-pound improvised explosive device. Wege lost his legs in the accident and is a double below-the-knee amputee.

Wege credited a U.S. Navy corpsman who was with his crew at the time with saving his life.

“He patched me up and made sure I didn’t bleed out,” Wege said. “ He got me out. I suffered some lower-back injuries and whatnot. All in all, I was pretty lucky.”

Rice was left without his right leg and his life was at risk, just 3½ years ago.

“My knee blew up out of nowhere,” Rice said. “I stepped on a mine. It blew off my foot instantly. The only thing that was left was the back of my heel, like a sliver of it. I put my tourniquet on. My team leader came up to me and said, ‘Oh, wow.’ I was like, whatever. He tightened it a little more.

“They tried to carry me out. I’m a big guy. They dropped me about 3 feet later and I was yelling at them. Look, I have one foot. Give me a shoulder on each side and I can hop out. We just had to get through that danger area really fast. It was really open on that side of the mountain.

“I was a tough guy, because I was a leader. I didn’t want to show my guys that I was crying. I toughed it out. But it hurt like a b****.”

On Friday, the Wounded Warriors played an exhibition game against two teams over six innings — the Piggyback Smokers from Jackson, Tenn., and the LTL Duke Trucking team from Jonesboro. The Wounded Warriors were outscored 19-1 in the six-inning exhibition — the two opponents played three innings apiece — but they were still showing their humor in the dugout.

“The defense is incredulous,” Rice said, jokingly.

Said Tim Horton, who served in the Marines: “Swing the bats enough, so I can get a drink of water.”

Manny Del Rio, who served in the U.S. Navy, had the Wounded Warriors’ only RBI Friday night, with a run-scoring single that brought Rice home in the second inning.

The Wounded Warriors got their offense going Saturday morning while competing in the 34-team E Division of the Busch Classic, losing 20-9 in their first-round game to Memphis-based Grace Trailer before entering the losers’ bracket later in the day.

The atmosphere in the dugout and on the field is similar to what the men faced in the military, Rice said.

“You build this camaraderie because you’ve gone through certain things together,” said Rice, who is a student at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif., and has his education paid for by the G.I. Bill. “In the Army, we went through so many things together. Out here, we’re going through different stages of life together. I’ve learned a lot about my prosthetic through these guys. What works best? Oh, this hurts, what do I do? Some of these guys have been amputees for 8, 9 years — they know. I’ve only been an amputee for 3 years.”

When asked what it meant to be part of the Wounded Warriors softball team, Wege said it was a humbling experience to be a member of a team in which every player is an amputee and must make the squad.

“When we first started this team, it was to give back to each other,” Wege said. “We were able to get out of the broken state of the hospital. We got out on the field of play with each other and forgot the amputations and missing limbs. We really had something special. We had some really good athletes here. We were able to compete again.

“We then found more purpose to it and it was spreading the message of inspiration and hope in this comeback story that each and every one of us has. I have mine. My teammates have theirs. None of us have the same injuries. We’ve bounced back. We have different backgrounds. We all have this drive to keep going. That’s what we want to share with the country. That’s what makes it special.”

Tom Eisiminger, a board member of the Wounded Warriors softball team, said being part of the organization is inspiring.

“That’s why I’m here,” Eisiminger said. “Earlier, I gave a business card to a woman and said, ‘That’s how I make my living.’ This is what I do to inspire me. This is what I do for fun.”

The Wounded Warriors hold an annual Kids’ Camp in the Washington, D.C., area, which is an event Wege is proud to be a part of.

“We’re able to teach them the game of softball, but more importantly, the game of life and how to overcome adversity and the injuries that they have,” Wege said. “At the end of the camp, they flourish into a new kind of person. That’s how we give back. We do that through the game of softball.”

Along with the Kids’ Club, Eisiminger said the Wounded Warriors partner with the Johnny Mac Soldiers Fund, which assists with the college education of fallen veterans’ children. More information on the fund can be found at johnnymac.org.

Also, the Wounded Warriors are involved in Heterotopic Ossification (HO) research. The organization’s support of the research fundraising, according to its website, woundedwarrioramputeesoftballteam.org, enhances the health of all wounded warrior amputees, as well as other amputees.

Wege, currently a student at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Fla., said it’s been a hell of a ride over the past five years since the Veterans’ Administration provided a grant to finance the team, which barnstorms the country playing up to 30 tournaments a year.

Rice agrees.

“We just like to joke around,” Rice said. “If we have a guy like Greg Reynolds in the outfield — he’s a great outfielder — and he has one arm, somebody will hit a pop fly to him and he’ll catch it. We’ll go, ‘Hey dude, two hands, man.’ Everybody’s like, what? It’s clever. But that helps us adapt back into civilian life. It’s been great.”

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