Tag: Military

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Cyclist Ride 2 Recovery

June 9, 2010
By Christen N. McCluney

Early Tuesday morning of last week, hundreds of cyclist and volunteers gathered outside of a hotel in Manassas, Va. to prepare for day two of the Ride 2 Recovery Memorial Challenge. The event is a six-day, 350 mile ride from The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to Virginia Beach.

The challenge supports the physical and mental health of injured veterans through cycling, which is an activity that almost all patients with mental and physical disabilities can participate.

The participants in the race, which included servicemembers, veterans and family members, came from all walks of life from all across the country to participate in this challenge.

Army Staff  Sgt. Anthony Lemaitre became involved in the race because some of the soldiers he supervises went on the last ride. “I figured that other than supporting them at the unit this was another way to lend my support,” he said. After this he will also participate in two more rides in Colorado and Florida.

Terry Cleveland, who recently retired from the Navy after 31 years, was a first time rider in this challenge. “It’s my little way to support the vets overseas that have been wounded.”

When asked how he felt after the previous day of cycling he said he was happy that he could actually stand up and feel his legs but it was for a good cause.

Delvin McMillian, a retired airman from Bessemer, Ala. and quadruple amputee participating in Ride to Recovery, June 1. Photo by Christen N. McCluney

The cyclist who were escorted by local police and The American Legion Riders, were greeted with cheers on the side of the road as they set out on a 55-mile trek from Manassas to Fredericksburg, Va.

Employees from the Defense Contract Management Agency, who have an office nearby, decided to stop on the road and lend their support to the cyclist. “We we were doing our morning wellness walk and saw them getting ready to leave and decided to support,” said Sandra Smith, a DCMA employee.

All throughout the ride, which took the cyclist through  historic battlefields and scenic countryside, people from the community and local military organizations were on the route lending their support by waving flags and cheering the riders on as they passed.

Members from  American Legion Post 290 and the USO also provided a rest stop for the riders halfway into the trip for them to take a break and refuel.

Army Spc. Gilad Afridonidze, a member of the Warrior Transition Unit, who was also a first time rider said the trip was pretty difficult and hot, but one of the biggest lessons he learned from this entire journey was to be patient and keep moving on.

The bicycle ride began May 31 and ended June 5 with a party and concert sponsored by the USO.

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Joint Task Force Haiti Prepares for ‘New Horizon’

By Christen N. McCluney
Emerging Media, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, May 13, 2010 – Joint Task Force Haiti is preparing to stand down its disaster-relief mission in Haiti at the beginning of June, nearly six months after a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated the country.

“We will stand down the joint task force on the first of June,” Army Maj. Gen. Simeon G. Trombitas, the task force’s commanding general, said during a “DoD Live” bloggers roundtable yesterday. “That is when I will take the last elements of United States Army South home and send those sister-services personnel back to their home stations.”

More than 22,000 U.S. servicemembers were in Haiti at the height of the mission. Of those, about 14,000 were in ships at sea, while 8,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen were on the ground at any given time during the height of operations, Trombitas said.

The mission remains to save lives and alleviate suffering while transitioning into mitigating the ill effects of weather, the general said.

Currently, there are about 850 servicemembers on the ground in Haiti. Once the joint task force stands down, eight people will stay in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince to work with a traditional military liaison office. Their job will be to coordinate humanitarian missions with the U.S. Agency for International Development — the lead U.S. federal agency in the effort — and the Haitian government during an already-scheduled theater security cooperation exercise called “New Horizons.”

The exercise will bring in about 500 soldiers, mainly from the Louisiana National Guard — along with soldiers from the Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Puerto Rican and Virgin Island National Guards — to conduct engineering activities and medical readiness training exercises around Gonaives, which is north of Port-au-Prince. The group will work on engineering projects that include rebuilding three schools and building a fourth. They also will receive training to become culturally aware of the activities in the country while bringing medical help to people in need.

When asked to measure the success of Joint Task Force Haiti so far, Trombitas said he doesn’t believe that success can be measured in numbers.

“Our first success was the incredible flexibility of our military,” he said. Success is measured, he added, in how the Haitian people see the U.S. effort.

“Our success is measured and will be continued to be measured in those things that we have done here and how the Haitian people remember us,” the general said.

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**Note this story is something I wrote that got more coverage for me then I would have ever imagined. It was a great piece to write**

Walter Reed Patients Test Next-generation Prosthesis
By Christen N. McCluney
Special to American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10, 2009 – Wounded warriors at the Military Advanced Training Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center here are testing a new microprocessor-controlled prosthetic knee.

The X2 microprocessor knee by Otto Bock HealthCare is the result of a medical research project funded in support of the Military Amputee Research Program.

This project, administered by the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center, had the goal of developing “an electronically controlled prosthetic knee joint that meets the specific demands of military staff in real world activity,” said Troy Turner, Advanced Technology Research Program manager at TATRC.

He added that in 2005, officials recognized that even the cutting-edge prosthetic devices weren’t good enough.

“Otto Bock had the C-Leg,” he said. “It was the best that was available, but not the best needed.” Soldiers needed a prosthetic knee with a longer battery life that would enable them to walk and run backward and forward and go up stairs foot over foot.

Otto Bock developed a proposal that later was funded and has developed a new knee that has more durability and functionality, extended battery life, remote-control functions and can handle higher weight loads.

Adele Levine, a physical therapist at the center, said many patients were dealing with knee and joint pain with the C-leg, and saw relief almost immediately once they began wearing the new X2.

“Once I got the confidence to trust the leg that it would do what it was supposed to do, I almost got immediate relief,” said Marine Corps Gunnery Sgt. Marcus Wilson, one of the three patients at Walter Reed testing out the microprocessor knee. “No knee pain [or] hip pain. Everything evened out.”

The leg enables him to stand in any position and rest on the amputated side, relieving pressure on his intact leg, he said. He also can run again without having to switch to another leg.

“With the old C-Leg, you can’t run,” he said. “Now, it’s as simple as getting a remote and putting it in running mode and going. As fast as you can go, the leg will keep up with you.”

Army Staff Sgt. Alfredo De los Santos has been using the new X2 microprocessor for a little more than two weeks. “Ever since I got this leg, it’s been heaven,” he said. “I went to Busch Gardens. I walked all day long. I only take it off when I go to sleep at night.”

De los Santos, who works out two or three times a day and recently participated in the Army Ten-Miler and the Marine Corps Marathon using a hand-crank chair, said that before using the X2 he occasionally would use canes to alleviate some of the back pain he was having because he enjoys being active. “Now, I can jump and mostly do everything,” he said.

Levine said that with the X2 De los Santos has alleviated a lot of his previous concerns about the pressure he was putting on his intact side and his concerns with quality of living.

“He is so much happier. He tells us this at least 20 times a day,” she said. “He’s always concerned about the future and his condition in 20 years; this gives him a lot of hope.”

The knees are currently being fitted on 30 wounded warriors at Walter Reed and at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and are expected to be widely available in 2011.

“It’s what you make out of it,” De los Santos said when asked about his hope with the X2. “If you can do this, you can do anything. You can accomplish anything, and you have to make the decision to make it work.”

(Christen N. McCluney works in the Defense Media Activity’s emerging media directorate.)