Profiles in Courage: Josh Fruen

My next installment in the PIC series features Josh Fruen who was injured in Iraq and drowned in a river. Notice that I didn't say that he almost drowned. He was revived by a Captain (what? an officer did something? ...kidding) and suffered severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of his accident.

Information from the WWP site:

Josh is currently enrolled in the WWP's TRACK program, which offers wounded warriors an integrated approach to address long-term needs for education and training, advocacy, and secondary rehabilitative care for the MIND, BODY and SPIRIT. This unique program offers participants a range of college classes and services customized to their needs, helping them build career skills, train in veterans’ advocacy, and continue recovery toward a more independent life. The warriors attend college classes as a group, with the ability to draw from their shared experiences. Each TRACK facility has three state-of-the art classrooms, as well as a gym, and individual workspaces for the warriors and instructors.

Days after Josh Fruen’s family had heard he was injured in an accident that killed one of his comrades; they finally got the call they were waiting for. It was Josh providing reassurance that he would be okay.

But their joy of hearing Josh’s voice turned to shock when he revealed there was a time during the mission when he was indeed dead.

As he shared his ordeal – the convoy to secure the perimeter around a supposed Saddam sighting, and his Humvee plunging into the river after an embankment collapsed – they were speechless at the details of Josh trapped in the water-filled vehicle.

“I remembered my training – find an air pocket. But there was none. As I’m drowning, my heart said, God, I’m in your hands. I’ve got a baby on the way back home. You do with me as you see fit.”

 

It immediately seemed like Josh would be a casualty of war.

“I remember seeing a white light at the end of a tunnel. I saw my grandmother and a few other dead relatives. I remember people, their arms around me, and I remember this beautiful being.”

The being had a message for Josh:  It’s not your time yet; it’s time to go back.

Josh continues, “I remember coughing and looking up, and there’s a guy in my face. I asked, ‘Are you God?’ He said no. He was a captain who had just resuscitated me right there in the water.”

Josh was alive. But the event triggered a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that led Josh to a moment after his medical discharge where he wished he were dead.

“I couldn’t sleep. And when I did, I dreamed of drowning in the submerged Humvee. I was hyper-sensitive to everything. I was having a lot of flashbacks. There were times when I would just space out, and other times when I would take my aggressions out on everyone.”

Although Josh returned home to Texas in August 2004, it wasn’t until three years later that he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury from the time spent unconscious underwater. Today, he still struggles with short-term memory loss.

“Things got so bad after we moved to Jacksonville in 2007, that I often considered jumping off the Dames Point Bridge. But it was around that time when I first came into contact with the Wounded Warrior Project. TRACK turned me around, big time.”

Josh says his attitude has changed, along with his outlook on life and the future.

“Being around the other guys helps. Many of them have different forms of PTSD. We can lean on each other. It helps to have that peer understanding.”

He’s doing well in school, and his future career plans include getting a degree in psychology.

“I want to be a counselor, so I can help people. And I want to be a good dad. I’ve seen death, and I’ve come back. Now I want to live life for my family.”

 

Josh, I doubt you'll ever see this, but just in case...thank you for your service and for sharing your story. Your courage is amazing.

Obstacle Two: The Killa Gorilla

So, the idea here looks to be to destroy your quadriceps. It's a hill that has partitions on it so that you have to run up and down the hill repeatedly in order to get through it. At first glance, this doesn't bother me so much; however, I do worry about the degree of mudness. In this video clip, it looks to be pretty messy--which will def mess with the legs. I also have to keep in mind that my race is November 19th--and in northern Indiana it could be snowing by then...

So to recap...to this point in the race I've charged down a hill screaming my lungs out while trying to avoid all the Type A personalities, followed by running up and down a hill covered with mud that appears to rival anything from Band of Brothers, the Currahee! episode. So far, I think I'm good :)

Training Update: Holy S*$t, I Ate What?

I came back from an awesome vacation last night to find that I had gained 4 pounds in 5 days. It's amazing how much eating bad shit can make you gain weight when you're used to eating healthily. I seriously ate the worst crap I could find when I was gone. My mother's homemade brownies, measured in at 591 calories apiece, made an appearance the first night of vacation. I think I ate 12 of them. Someone brought those little vanilla cookies and I ate a whole pack of those. I drank bourbon. I ate bread. I ate butter deep fried in a flour batter, dipped in chocolate. And....I gained 4 pounds in 5 days.

I did try to run when I was gone. We were staying just outside of Pigeon Forge, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to do some mountain running since its so flat here in Indiana. My 14 year old nephew runs cross country, so I thought, 'hey, here's some competition' as well as mountain running. I mean, surely I can run 7 minute miles just like he can, right?

We ran to the bottom of the mountain and I actually stayed with him. He was running, I was more like rolling down the hills, but at least I stayed up with him. We touched the bottom of the hill and turned around to run back up the mountain. The next time I saw him, he was walking out of our cabin with a vanilla cookie in his hand. At least I think it was a vanilla cookie. I had so much damn salt in my eyes from sweating in the 98 degree temps that it could have been my mom with a cookie in her hand for all I know.

Anyway, I ran two miles when I got home last night and re-started week 5 of P90X tonight. I'll be back on track soon. Weight as of this morning: 222 lbs.

Training Update: My Muscles Are Confused and Need a Vacation

Week 5 of P90X introduced me to muscle confusion, the basis of the whole plan. Everything I'd done up until this point is now out the window and I'm doing such wacky things as one armed push ups and push ups with a jump at the end. Its weird to think that 4 weeks go, struggled to hammer out 10 push ups.....I guess this crap really works after all.

Anywho--I'll be off the grid for a few days. My daughter and I are heading to Tennessee to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary! I'm really proud of them and excited for a few days with my family!

Thanks again for the donations, amazing words of encouragement, and blessings. See you in a few days!

Obstacle One: The Braveheart Charge

I want to take some time and delve into each obstacle on this blog. Not because I want to over think them and be woman-ly about it, but because...well, I have four months to get ready for it and I want to be prepared, dammit. Tough Mudder has the decency to pre-post the course map for each location and almost all of them have the Braveheart Dash as the first obstacle. I don't personally consider this an obstacle, I think its more of a balls to the wall beginning, but whatever. It looks fun.

Oh, wait. That must be the TM in NorCal because the people all have chain mail and are carrying swords and staffs (staves?).

I love how you basically have 3 groups of people running down the hill. The first group are the people that actually think they are filming the movie Braveheart again. These are your type A to the max people that will probably not finish because they blew out a hammy at the bottom of the hill or they carb loaded so much the night before that they blow out a colon about a quarter mile in. This group includes Rucksack Guy (bout the :20 mark) with his extra water, extra shoes, extra socks, extra gloves, a tent, an M9, wood for a campfire, signal flares, green smoke nades, nuclear fision flashlights, CPR mask, and a case of MREs.

The next group of people are the 'this is badass and I'm going to have fun today' group. I think I'll be in that group.

The last herd is the 'WTF am I doing out here, I hate you Steve for asking me to do this' group. They will finish because they will walk around all of the obstacles, declaring that they didnt come out here to get dirty. One thing's fo sho--they aint runnin down that hill...unless there's a box of Munchkins waiting.

But I digress. I think the key to this 'obstacle' is just to survive and hope you don't get ran over by any Type A jackasses while not tripping over the last group of people. Get to the bottom of the hill and get some room to stretch out the legs some so that you can start trotting along to the next obstacle, The Killa Gorilla!

Week 4 Training Update; Progress is a Painful Thing and Music Soothes

This week sees me making it to week 4 of the training regimen, which means 'Halle-frickin-lujah' in P90X terms. Week 4 is the week of Yoga, Stretching, and general laziness. No push-ups, no Pam the Blam jumping through the roof, or Heavy Pants til your shoulders detach. I have definately seen progress, even if my weight hasnt dropped. I weighed in at 221 this morning, but I've seen noticeable difference in my shoulders, triceps, and calves. Mostly, I've seen a huge difference in my waistline. I'm officially to my last notch on my belt and I noticed that even it was baggy on the golf course on Sunday. Running through the neighborhood has gotten noticeably easier, too. I'm doing 2 miles with relative ease now. Six months ago, I got winded driving 2 miles. Good stuff right there...

One day last week, I decided to run with my headphones on. Its amazing the difference it makes when you run with them on. Without them, I get so frickin bored listening to my feet slapping against the pavement that I just want to listen to something different. I made a Workout playlist several years ago when I went to the Y a lot and I just started running to that. A few songs that make me want to just keep running farther:

'Guerilla Radio' by Rage
'Lit Up' by Buckcherry (something about that dude screamin 'I love the cocaine' in my ear makes me want to run faster...no idea why)
'Are You Ready' by Creed
'Shout at the Devil' Crue...check out the circa 1983 video below

I also have several CDs that I got when I was in the guard that are recording of military cadences. The best ones are Airborne, IMO.

Look for more posts as the week goes on. I want to start delving into the obstacles that we'll be attacking during the race. Also, Tough Mudder will be selling spectator tickets to the race if anyone wants to come along. There's a band (maybe 2) playing at the finish line and I know they'll have beer for sale. It would prolly be fun to camp out at one of the rougher obstacles and get pics. The spectator tix are $15 apiece.

Also want to thank Tina (Lane) Bullard for being the first to donate and to comment on the site! Thanks, Tina--the money goes to an amazing cause and I really appreciate someone having the balls to donate! HA!

Thanks for reading, y'all. Have a great night...

Training Update: July 4th Edition

I realize that this post is a couple of days late, but I've been a little busy with work, my daughter at the fair, and every guy's focus this time of year: baseball. I'm smack dab in the middle of week 3 of P90X and am definately seeing results. My shoulders and arms are starting to bulk, which is not a good thing. I need to gain strength without gaining bulk. Bulk=weight and weight is not your friend on a 10 mile obstacle course. I've upped my running (yes, running and P90X) to about a mile and a half per night and my endurance is definately improving.

My weight is around 224 now---I know that I didnt lose as much as I could have last week because of the 4th holiday. There was a lot of stuff at our neighborhood partay that I shouldn't have eaten, but I ate it anyway (chocolate pie, chocolate cookies, chocolate ribs, etc), plus I took my daughter to the Indianapolis Indians game on the 4th (hot dogs, peanuts, nachos). I got through the holiday without losing my exercise mojo at least...but I'm thinking my calorie intake was well over 3,000/day for most of the weekend.

I've picked up 2 people to run the race with me, a guy I work with and my next door neighbor. I have a couple of other people that are interested, so maybe they'll come along, too. The more, the better, I say.

I've learned that more people are reading this than I originally thought. Thank you all for your positive emails and words of encouragement. Dont forget the donation link to the right (hint hint). Also, spectator tickets are available for the event for $15. Come on out and make fun of us!

Profiles In Courage: Nancy Schiliro

From time to time, I want to highlight some of the success stories of the Wounded Warrior Project so that you understand how great this organization is. I mean, if I'm going to ask you to donate money to them, its important that you understand where it goes, right? All of these people are heroes, but I wanted the first one to be extra special. For my first PIC, I chose Nancy Schiliro from the Marine Corps. Why? Because people generally think of people that are helped by the WWP to be these salty grunts that get shot or hurt in some kind of glorious battle. Not Nancy--she was injured while assigned as an embarkation specialist (I assume thats Corps jargon for a transport officer/logistics?) working near Al-Asad, Iraq.

Her story, from the WWP webpage:

Nancy clearly remembers the February day near the end of her deployment when she was injured. She and a partner were just chatting near one of the base’s large diesel fuel bladders when a mortar round went off. 

“I blacked out and don’t really remember much after that. I woke up and my hand was cut up. My face was cut up, but I didn’t feel anything. My partner looked at me and said ‘are you all right?’ I’m like yeah, I am, I feel fine.”

At the time, what upset Nancy most was the black smoke billowing from the ruptured fuel bladder. She was afraid the enemies would think they accomplished something. 

It wasn’t until Nancy returned home in March that she began having headaches and developed problems with her eye. A sonogram indicated her retina had been shattered in her right eye and was overcome with infection. 

After four surgeries couldn’t stop the infection from spreading to her left eye, doctors were forced to remove her right eyeball. The emotional pain of having a prosthetic eye was worse than losing her sight. She went into isolation. 

“I stayed by myself. I didn’t want anyone to look at me. I wanted my eye back and I was mad at the world.”

A counselor and friend of Nancy’s coerced her into attending Project Odyssey, a Wounded Warrior Project program to help injured service members deal with combat stress. She had no interest in going, but agreed to go only because her counselor accompanied her.

As soon as Nancy began to meet other female warriors with similar experiences, her walls began to come down and confidence was building. 

“I have to say it saved my life. It really did. Instead of being what I thought was a disappointment to my family, I ended up being their inspiration,” says Nancy. 

The transformation that began at Project Odyssey led Nancy to a career with WWP as a benefits liaison in 2009. “Now I work strictly with Odyssey to make sure I give other men and women the same experience I had by participating in Odyssey,” says Nancy.

 

“The only regret I have in my life is that I wasted almost three years in depression,” Nancy laments. “If I can give any veterans out there advice, I try to get them help as early as possible, because I don’t want them to suffer the way I suffered, and waste the time I wasted.”

 

It truly is an inspiring story. Thank you, Nancy, for your service.