Waves of joy
The Wounded Warrior Program offers adaptive sports to boost veterans' morale and aid their rehabilitation
Out on the horizon, where murky water met clear sky, Mark Mix lay facedown on a surfboard. His body was pointing toward the beach, but he was looking back at the sea, at that invisible place where waves are born.
On a cue only he could feel, he began to furiously paddle with his hands. A wave caught him, and he sailed through the ocean, landing on Hampton Beach.
Two surf coaches threw Mix's arms over their shoulders and carried him, dripping, to his wheelchair.
Four years ago this summer, a mortar blast paralyzed Mix, 37, from the waist down while he was serving in Baghdad.
But Friday, he and four other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars let their disabilities and injuries slip away as they rode the ocean's white crests.
"I'm game for anything," said Mix, whose right bicep is tattooed with an eagle, pieces of the US flag, and the words "Operation Enduring Freedom."
He was a natural on the surfboard, the coaches told him.
"I just pick up things easily," the Warsaw, Ohio, resident said. "The military taught me to follow orders."
When Mix returned from Iraq in 2004, he was broken physically. His mind could have followed, were it not, in part, for the Wounded Warrior Project and the programs it offers, he said. "If it wasn't for them, I'd be sitting at home depressed and just withering away."
The Wounded Warrior Project offers adaptive sports to veterans nationwide through a partnership with Disabled Sports USA, a nonprofit based in Maryland. The program started in 2003 as a way to supplement rehabilitation, said Kyleen Davis of Disabled Sports, and has grown since.
"A lot of this population was very active before they were injured," said Davis, who came along on the trip.
Friday's surfing was part of a three-day program, which included water skiing and golf, that wrapped up yesterday, The program hosts the veterans and pays all expenses, including airfare, Davis said.
Hampton surfers stepped up to make the Friday event possible, said Michael Taylor, a surfer who helped organize it. Nearby surf shops donated equipment and suits. Two certified lifeguards and more than a dozen instructors donated their time. Others came out to help however they could, serving food or keeping watch in the water.
"This is like our living room," Taylor said. "We wanted to share it with some folks who wouldn't usually get to try it."
Taylor had heard about the adaptive sports program a couple of years back and had been pushing for a while to bring it home, he said. He thought that surfing, which the group had not done in New England before, would be a good choice for the veterans.
"Just getting people in the ocean is liberating," he said.
Taylor asked Ralph Fatello, a local surfer who is commander of the American Legion Post 35, to help him organize the event.
"I'm a surfer and a veteran," Fatello said. "I couldn't say no to that."
Fatello, 58, had his own ideas about why surfing might be therapeutic.
"For me, surfing is like this cleansing of my soul," he said, his face contemplative. "You're here to meet this wave at the end of its life. That's magical."
Fatello went back to the water to work with Nicolette Maroulis, a 30-something veteran who was injured in an explosion in 2003 and spent three years in a wheelchair before she learned to walk again through rehabilitation.
Maroulis paddled out into the ocean; Fatello floated alongside her. They chatted for a few minutes before she left him behind as a wave began to push her toward the shore. She started to lift herself up, but the board tumbled sideways.
Wipe out!
Her mother, Laura Leigon, who has a freckled face like her daughter's, watched from the beach, trying to snap photos. Leigon had come for Las Vegas, and her daughter from Fort Benning, Ga., to join the other veterans.
When Maroulis came home injured, Leigon thought she might never walk again, much less surf. "It has been an amazing journey," she said. "I'm just very grateful that she's whole."
She's also grateful, she said, for this program.
"When we drove up in the van today and we saw all the people waving, I was so touched," Leigon said. "It was amazing. It does more than help them physically. It lifts their spirits. And it lifts my spirits."
Maroulis slid back into the beach on her surfboard. This time, she was standing. She stepped gingerly off the board, grinning, as someone might step out of a limousine.
"I want to take a picture," Leigon told her.
"Be quick, be quick!" Maroulis said. She wanted to get back into the water.
This program, Maroulis said, is a godsend for so many reasons. She got to connect with other wounded soldiers and swapped war stories with a Vietnam veteran as they bobbed up and down in the water. She made friendships she hopes will last long past this week. She also got a little perspective.
"You are out here, and you just look out," she said, "and there's just no end."
Maroulis looks strong now. But Leigon said her daughter is still in pain.
"I think a lot of people don't understand that however much you've healed from your injury, you always look back at what you could do before," Maroulis said as waves rolled in over her feet.
With surfing, she said, she does not need to compare then against now. On Friday, there was no then. It was her first time out on the surf, and, she said, "I am so much more than an injured soldier." 