Enabling wounded warriors | Gene Renuart | TEDxMileHigh

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Can wounded warriors return to their communities and live normal lives? Gene Renuart details the roles that can be played to ensure we honor veterans and enable them to play important roles in the community post their service in combat.

I'm going to talk about
a little bit different topic today.

We have listened to
some truly inspired citizens.

We have listened to stories
of optimism and enthusiasm.

We have listened to stories of vision.

By the way, I want to say again
how great it was to see Obura up here.

When you think of a young man
or a young woman

going off into the military,

and, as he said, we all have visions,
and you make an impression,

but it was awfully great to see
a great young man,

wearing the uniform
of our military service,

standing up here talking about
a vision of changing

a continent and a generation.

That's an impressive statement
for the education that we provide

to our young men and women.

(Applause)

Jim Hayes talked about a great generation.

He talked about, really, your generation.

And how you really are,
with your youthful enthusiasm,

and I'm sort of beyond
the youthful enthusiasm point,

but you're changing the world
in so many different ways.

And I want to talk about
part of that great generation.

We've all probably read Tom Brokaw's book,

and we are in awe of
our parents and grandparents.

My parents, and most of your grandparents,

who really took on

the weight of oppression,

of great difficult times
during the Depression

to grow up a nation
that really inspired the world.

We certainly have been a nation at war

truly since Iraq invaded
Kuwait back in 1990.

And that hasn't slowed down,

and obviously we are involved in
Iraq and Afghanistan today.

But what is interesting
is that in those times

we have had something called
the all-volunteer force.

We have not drafted,
as they did in my generation,

young men and young women now
to serve our nation.

We have asked them to serve.

We've asked them to step away from
the security of their families,

we've asked them to step away from
the comfort of modern conveniences,

we've asked them to go into strange places
to protect the values we have as a nation.

And what's amazing to me
is they've responded.

You have responded.

I can't see all the faces
and hands out there,

but help me a little bit.

How many of you know someone
who is serving in uniform today?

There's a bunch of hands out there.

How many of you know someone
who has been to Iraq or Afghanistan?

And there's a bunch of hands out there.

Our nation is producing a generation
of young men and women

who understand service to the nation.

They understand why it's important
for them to step away

from their comfort level,
and to go out and make a difference.

We've heard topics tonight
in a broad variety of areas,

about how we can make a difference
in our nation and in our world.

But these young men and women
are making a difference every day

in places like Afghanistan and Iraq,

in Japan, and many other places
around the world.

Young men and women wearing our uniforms

showing compassion that people,
quite frankly, didn't expect.

Young men and women who also understand
that there is a price to pay

for that commitment
to service and our nation.

Tonight I want to talk about
that special group of young men and women

who volunteer to serve our nation
in our armed forces.

And particularly those who suffer
terrible wounds,

and walk a very long and difficult walk

back into society
and into a productive life.

Make no mistake about it,

we are the home of the free
because of those brave.

Those brave young men and women
who serve for us every day.

(Applause)

Now, as you heard Alex say,

I have been around
the Air Force a long time.

I'm a fighter pilot by trade,

and I've had the honor, truly,
to lead young men and women in combat.

While I will say that was easy,

because I was trained to do that,
and I was able to adapt.

It became a very different
experience for me

when my son became a member
of the United States Air Force

as a flight engineer on our combat
search and rescue helicopters,

whose mission is to go behind enemy lines
and recover our wounded,

and bring them back to safety.

I have another son,
who is currently in Botswana.

He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal,

and then, he is in Botswana now
doing a pediatric rotation.

While he was in the Peace Corps,

he realized that the world
needs doctors quite substantially,

and so he decided to go to med school.

So I have these two sons,
one is probably more of Hick's party,

and one is probably
more of George W's party,

and their mom and I are caught in between.

But when you begin to think about

the gravity of sending
your son off to war,

or more importantly, you go to his mom
and say, "This is going to happen,"

it adds a whole different context
to the cost of freedom.

On September 11, 2001,
I was the director of operations

in Tampa, Florida, at US Central Command,

and responsible
for beginning the operations

in Afghanistan and then Iraq.

And so I was sending
my own son into harm's way

on those early days in 2001.

I sure hoped the plan was pretty good.

Fast forward to March 2003,
and we began operations in Iraq.

I sat in a video teleconference
with the President,

with all of our
senior military commanders.

And after the President gave
his final direction

to the military forces,

he went off the air.

There were 11 three- and four-star
general officers

on this video teleconference.

Eight of us were sending
at least one of our children

into harm's way that night.

So the reality of committing young men
and women to combat

is very personal to the leadership
of your United States Armed Forces.

And, as a result,
the loss of any of those,

or the wounding of any of those,
is a very personal experience.

In February 2007, a young Air Force
pararescueman named Scott Duffman

was killed in an aircraft crash
in Afghanistan.

My son knew some of the pararescuemen
that were good friends of Scott,

and asked me if I would be
the senior Air Force member

at the funeral in Arlington.

I said I would certainly do that.

I happened to be working for
Secretary Gates at the time,

and he was called to the White House
that morning of that funeral,

and I wasn't able to attend.

Fast forward to May of 2007,
and I was on the Mall in D.C.

at a ceremony honoring children

of men and women who'd fallen in combat.

I turned around, and there was
a young woman standing there

with a 4- or 5-month-old
daughter at the time,

and her name was Mary Duffman.

She said, "My husband was
an Air Force pararescueman."

It was the young man
whose funeral I was to attend.

She has become part
of our family since then.

And those stories have proliferated
across this nation

as young men and women serve and fall.

and more young men and women
are injured, and return.

Our nation owes a debt of gratitude

certainly to each of those young men
and women for their service,

and especially to their families,
as they deal with the loss of a loved one,

or the long, very difficult rehabilitation
of someone who is wounded.

You've heard stories
of great technology tonight,

and I'm watching the time getting close,
but if you think about the advancements

in rehabilitative
and reconstructive technology

that we have seen today.

Today, in battlefield, if you are wounded

and you are attended to
by a medic in the field,

within an hour, they can have you
back into the medical system,

and you have
a 97% chance of survival.

In Vietnam, that number
was probably 55%.

Today we see spectacular advances

in medical technology
and rehabilitative science,

and you see world-class athletes
being brought back to life

in the halls of Walter Reed Hospital
in Bethesda,

at the Brooke Army Medical Center
in San Antonio,

places where young men and women
compete with each other

to return to a whole life.

That's a difficult challenge,

and it's made even more so by the fact
that many come with injuries

that are not so visible.

The damage of traumatic brain injury
and post-traumatic stress syndrome

affects as many as 400,000

of our military men and women
who have served.

It's a challenge that requires
a commitment from society to help.

It requires a commitment
from each one of us to help,

to take time to get to know those families
that live in your communities.

They are active duty,
they are guardsmen, they are reservists.

In many cases, that wounded warrior

is not able to maintain
the bread-winner status in the family.

And so, it's a husband or a wife
taking on a very new role

in a very difficult situation.

And there are some spectacular programs
around our country

that help those young men
and women every day;

some of them here in Colorado.

Some of them need to be started
in towns close to your homes.

We talked about cycling just a moment ago.

There are two great programs
called Ride to Recovery,

and The Wounded Warrior Project
Soldier Ride.

The Ride to Recovery, for example,
just hosted a six-day challenge ride

with wounded warriors who rode
from San Antonio to Arlington, Texas.

There are projects like Healing Waters,

where a retired Navy captain,
who happened to be an avid fly fisherman,

went to visit Walter Reed,

and said, "Would you all
like to learn how to fly fish?"

He took wounded warriors
learning to use new limbs

out onto the front lawn
to teach them how to use a fly rod.

Today, Healing Waters fishing
meets all over the country,

and corporate sponsors raise
over 150,000 dollars a year

to provide that kind
of training and support.

Here in Colorado, a program called CAMO,

Challenge Aspen Military Opportunities,

reaches out to wounded warriors,
having been funded with anonymous grants,

and it offers a summer
and a winter camp with therapy

through seasonal sports for each of these.

The Hartford Ski Spectacular,
a Disabled Sports USA event,

has similarly brought wounded warriors
out onto the snow each year.

SnoFest, as many of you may know
here in Colorado,

Vail Resorts has been a great supporter.

We bring our military families
up to Keystone,

and programs like Aspen Adventure

put wounded warriors on snowboards
and skis for the very first time.

You can watch these young men and women

go from fear and apprehension
to success and triumph.

And if you don't think they are
as competitive as any Olympic athlete,

when they watch their buddy get on skis
for the first time, and they fall,

they are going to get back up
to be just as good as their buddy is.

These are the kinds of programs
that are helping

not only with the physical rehabilitation
but the mental rehabilitation.

There are some wonderful programs in art.

And art has been proven to be
one of the very calming methods

to deal with post-traumatic stress.

AspenPointe is a behavioral health group

that began a wounded warrior art therapy
program for soldiers at Fort Carson.

And today, at the Fine Arts Center
in Colorado Springs,

many of their pieces of art
are on display.

Colorado is a place
of cowboys and cowgirls,

we heard Hunter just a few minutes ago.

Equine therapy is also proven to be
a spectacular way

to help calm the concerns

of a young man or a young woman
recovering from PTSD.

At the Air Force Academy today,

the equestrian center has created
a Warrior Wellness equine program,

to assist those
with these kinds of diagnoses.

Being around the horses,
being on the horses,

has proven to be great therapy.

As some of those warriors begin
to transition into the civilian life,

and begin to move back
into the work place,

that same program has a farrier program.

They have now trained
seven wounded warriors

to become certified licensed farriers
here in the state.

So there are thousands
of these kinds of opportunities out there

that are all looking for your support
and a place to reside in your community.

We need to help these young men and women
who are trying to transition

from a very difficult time of their life
into becoming not-wounded warriors.

They want to become citizens
in our communities.

They need our help to do that.

So when you have the time,
and you can give the effort,

first stop and say, "Hello."

Second, ask how you can help.

Look for programs like these
in your community

that will allow you to touch the lives
of those young men and women

who are preserving our opportunity
to be at an event like we are tonight.

Our nation owes our young men
and women from many generations

such a debt of gratitude.

We see a free economy,
as tough as it may be sometimes,

with all the challenges
that we have right now,

we see the United States as a beacon
in the world for freedom,

for democracy, for market economy,
for economic development.

It's these young men and women
that give us that chance.

Let's give them a chance as well.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)