Married six days before deploying

Snow-boarding Wounded Warrior Refuses to Be Sidelined

04/02/2013 11:21 AM CDT                     Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 9:03 PM

By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service SNOWMASS VILLAGE, Colo., April 2, 2013 - Eight and a half months ago, Army Sgt. Kristian "Dino" Cedeno was on the top of the world -- married six days before deploying to Afghanistan with the love of his life and soldiering with his band of brothers from the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade. Army Sgt. Kristian "Dino" Cedeno, who was severely wounded in Afghanistan, center, gets his ski boots adjusted by adaptive ski instructor Jill Reifsnider, right, and another instructor at the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic at Snowmass Mountain, Colo., April 1, 2013, as his wife, Gwen, left, looks on. Cedeno snowboarded at the clinic for the first time since being wounded, another step in his impressive rehabilitation. DOD photo by Donna Miles  Life changed in an instant when Cedeno stepped on an improvised explosive device during a firefight in Kandahar. His right leg was blown off just above the knee, and his left leg was so burned and peppered with shrapnel that his wife, Gwen, said it looked like a shark had chewed it away.Cedeno begged Gwen to divorce him, fearing he had let her down and could never be the husband she deserved. But Gwen, a fourth-grade teacher at the Department of Defense Education Activity school at Fort Stewart, Ga., assured him that she knew what she was getting into when she married a soldier. "I told him, 'You are mine, and I am yours,'" she said, promising to stand with him as their lives took a new and unexpected turn. Flash forward to today. After a month at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and four months after being discharged from the James A. Haley Veterans Affairs Hospital in Tampa, Fla., Cedeno refuses to let what some would consider life-changing wounds define him -- or even slow him down. Yesterday, Cedeno snowboarded down Snowmass Mountain during the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic, surprising even himself at his accomplishment. The experience exhilarated Cedeno, one of just two active-duty troops among almost 400 disabled veterans participating in the clinic. "In one word, I feel like I'm alive again," he said while celebrating the success with Gwen and his adaptive ski instructor, Air Force veteran Jill Reifsnider, at his side. Like so many other aspects of his life, Cedeno acknowledged that his first time on a snowboard since his injury wasn't exactly as he remembered. As Iraq veteran Tommy Sowers, assistant secretary of veterans affairs for public and intergovernmental affairs, asked Cedeno if he was ready to take on the mountain, Cedeno said he expected to do a lot of falling. "That's OK," Sowers assured him. "If you're not falling down, you're not trying hard enough." Then, at one point during Cedeno's downward run, air pockets formed around his new prosthetic leg, causing it to unexpectedly pop out of position midway down the slope. "It's a little different, and I have to adjust. I have to relearn things I have been doing for 20 years," he said. "But do you know what? I'll take that over being told, 'Hey, you can't do that.'" For Cedeno, the lessons he's learning at the world's largest and longest-running rehabilitative disabled sports event are life lessons: never give up and never stop reaching for new heights. It's the can-do spirit that's driven him throughout his recovery and rehabilitation, Gwen said. Cedeno remains committed to his career as an Army infantryman. "I'm not done yet," he said, hoping to one day serve as a drill sergeant so he can continue training other soldiers. "And I know I have a few more deployments in me," he added. "I'm not unrealistic," Cedeno insisted. "I know I have limitations and have to relearn things, and I accept that. But I'm 31 years old and not ready to hang my boots up." The speed of Cedeno's recovery attracts a lot of attention that he admits makes him uncomfortable. "I hate being told I'm a hero or an inspiration," he said. "I have always been that guy to do his job, not for the 'Good for you' or the congratulations." But Gwen regularly reminds her husband that he's a role model for his fellow wounded warriors who inspires awe in those who meet him and learn his story. "Do you not realize just how amazing you are?" she asks him, reminding him of how far he has come during the past eight months. In fact, Cedeno said, it's those around him -- his wife, his fellow soldiers, his caregivers -- who inspire him to press on. Talking privately with his fellow platoon members, he tells them, "You motivated me to continue this fight that I thought I had lost." That fight continues this week at the winter sports clinic, where Cedeno said he's found a support network that will be a big factor in his continued progress -- here on the slopes and in life. Looking up at the mountain, Cedeno said he was ready to tackle it once again, perhaps even faster this time. "It's just like my job. Of course I'm going back out there!" he said. "The important thing here is for the veterans to feel challenged," said Sowers as he joined Cedeno for a run down the mountain. "They get that joy of moving fast again. They get that experience of taking on something new." What participants experience during their week at the winter sports clinic continues for the other 51 weeks of the year, Sowers said. "They go back to their local communities and work with their recreational therapists to make sure they continue to challenge themselves," he said. They'll also take with them the camaraderie and support of their fellow veterans and wounded warriors, Sowers said. "We form lifelong friendships here that continue well after this event ends," he said. "It's part of what ensures that what begins here at the winter sports clinic continues encouraging them." The winter sports clinic, co-sponsored by the Veterans Affairs Department and the Disabled American Veterans, is open to U.S. military veterans with disabilities ranging from spinal cord injuries and orthopedic amputations to visual impairment and neurological conditions. During the six-day program, veterans learn adaptive Alpine and Nordic skiing and are introduced to rock climbing, scuba diving, trapshooting, snowmobiling, sled hockey and other sports and activities.

Biographies: Tommy SowersRelated Sites: Department of Veterans Affairs Related Articles: Disabled Veterans Sports Clinic Opens in Colorado

The photographer, Stacy Pearsall is a 'Real Warrior'

By Elaine Sanchez 

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON: Black-and-white photos of Vietnam-era veterans line the wall at a Veterans Affairs center. Some are smiling and others are gazing at a distant point, but in all, an unseen light catches the emotion in their eyes.

Then-Air Force Staff Sgt. Stacy Pearsall, a combat photographer, serves a tour of duty in Iraq. Courtesy photo

The photographer, Stacy Pearsall, a veteran of the more recent wars, strove to capture the character and the experience etched in their faces while listening to their recollections of war.

"Their stories are amazing," she said.

This line of photos on a wall in a VA center in Charleston, S.C., serves not only as Pearsall's veteran tribute, but also a milestone in her recovery from physical and emotional wounds of war.

Just a few months earlier, Pearsall had nearly given up hope of working as a photographer again or of taking photos that didn't serve as a haunting reminder of a painful past.

Pearsall's photography career took off while she was in the Air Force. As a combat photographer, she took thousands of pictures over the course of her Air Force career, earning her accolades and awards from leaders at all levels of her chain of command.

She traveled extensively for her job, so she felt prepared when she was tasked to deploy to Baghdad in September 2003.

As part of her duties, Pearsall documented a school rebuilding process, and when the school marked its opening with a ceremony in February 2004, she attended. After the ceremony, as the unit prepared to head out, the Humvee she was riding in was making a tight turn on a dead-end street when a roadside bomb detonated.

Pearsall was sitting behind the driver's seat. The impact threw her forward, and her head hit the back of the seat. But more concerned about her ears, which were bleeding from the concussive sound, she didn't feel the neck pain until hours later. She was seen by a doctor who chalked it up to whiplash, and she was back out on a mission the next day.

Months later, the headaches and vertigo lingered, as did the severe neck pain. But concerned about her Air Force career, Pearsall didn't seek treatment. Her deployment ended in March, and she became a student at Syracuse University for a year to hone her photography skills.

She had become accustomed to hiding her pain and the emotional after-effects of combat from others, but was unable to keep them from a friend -- a fellow photographer and Vietnam veteran -- who recognized the signs of post-traumatic stress. He connected her with a Vet Center, where she began counseling.

"It definitely helped me work through a lot of emotions and stress," she said. "I knew whatever I said to [my therapist] wouldn't go back to my active-duty command. There was no threat of losing my career."

After school, Pearsall went on back-to-back deployments, first to Africa, then to Lebanon and finally, back to Iraq. The difference between her first and second Iraq deployments was like night and day, she said. In 2003, she never fired her weapon, but in 2007, she fired it constantly.

Her unit experienced heavy casualties in Diyala province. Pearsall saw bodies of Iraqis who had been executed and mutilated, and comrades shot just a few feet away, which she later had to photograph. People getting wounded or killed was a daily occurrence, she said.

A series of back-to-back events took their toll. Pearsall lost three teammates, and a day later, her video partner was wounded and evacuated. Another friend had been shot in the head right in front of her. "Nothing prepares you for the death of your friends," she said.

Her photos from that time are haunting.

In one photo, three soldiers are gathered in a dimly lit room, faces downward as if in reflection, a single light shining through a window. Two days before, their teammate had been shot in the head just 10 feet away from where they were standing. In another photo, two soldiers are comforting each other, one close to tears, after the loss of a friend the day before.

"I'm eternally tied to the photographs that I made and those soldiers who were in those photographs," she said.

The photographer said she had to keep her emotions in check, for her teammates and for the troops who served under her. "I think I handled things pretty well by just not addressing the emotions at the time," she said.

Pearsall was injured again -- further damaging her neck -- when a roadside bomb detonated during a mission. A few months later, her unit was ambushed. She was running out to help a wounded soldier in the street when a cord attached to her helmet snapped her back. Her head slammed on a Stryker vehicle, again injuring her neck.

The next morning, she felt neck pain unlike anything she had felt before, and she knew it was time to get help. The doctors did an X-ray and she was on a helicopter that day. Her neck injury had grown so severe, the doctors told her, that if she had jolted her head one more time, it would have severed her spinal cord.

Pearsall's greatest fear -- losing her career -- was now at hand, she said. And her husband, a strong source of support, was deployed at the time. "It was a really ugly time in my life," she said.

The years of wearing 85 pounds of gear had wreaked havoc on her neck. The doctors told her she wouldn't be able to work as a photographer or pursue another passion, riding horses, again.

But Dr. Patrick Lovegrove, an Air Force flight surgeon at the time, offered her hope through prolotherapy treatment -- which involves insertion of a 4-inch needle down to the bone -- that lasted for more than two years. Pearsall was able to get off of the pain killers and finally on the road to physical recovery.

Invested in her recovery, her doctor separated from the Air Force, but continued to donate his services to her until the therapy ended in 2009 and she switched over to the VA system.

"I'll always owe him a debt of gratitude," she said. The therapy enabled her to ride horses and take photos again, but she knew she'd always have some degree of pain from her degenerative condition.

"It was either adapt to life or shrivel up and die," she said. Pearsall chose to adapt.

But the loss of her Air Force career affected her, as did the emotional wounds of war that she had pushed aside to focus on her physical recovery. She started seeing a mental health therapist about a year after her deployment.

"The military told me I couldn't be a photographer for them anymore," she said. "Mentally, that put me on a roller coaster. What am I good for?"

Pearsall found an answer at the VA medical center in Charleston. While she sat for hours in waiting rooms, she began to notice the men and women around her. Most of the veterans there were from the Vietnam era, and she reached out to hear their stories. She felt inspired to bring her camera and take their portraits, leading to the project that now fills a wall there.

"Just because I was disabled, didn't make me unable," she said. "Once I wrapped my own mind around that, I could do more."

Pearsall plans to keep up her veteran portrait work at VA hospitals in Georgia and North Carolina, then here, and to Maryland and Virginia as well. In another effort aimed at helping veterans, Pearsall provides horse therapy to veterans through a nonprofit group.

Most recently, Pearsall offered to have her story documented for the Defense Department's "Real Warriors" campaign in hopes of encouraging other veterans and servicemembers to seek help. The campaign in sponsored by the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, and it features stories of service members who sought psychological treatment and continued successful military or civilian careers. Her profile is now posted on the Real Warriors website, http://realwarriors.net/.

"My hope is that if they watch my story, they'll find a way to offload their burden," she said. "Everyone wears a different amount, but it's not necessary to carry it around with you all the time."

Pearsall said the stigma that kept her from getting help has been greatly reduced through projects such as the Real Warrior campaign and through efforts by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.

For servicemembers still leery about getting care, Pearsall recommended online support networks, blogs and forums where people can go and shed their burdens. "You'll see you're not alone," she said. "The loss of sleep, nightmares, anxiety, road rage -- they're products of war."

Pearsall also hopes leaders will gain a greater understanding of mental health issues and, above all, avoid judgment.

"Be positive and supportive," she said. "You're the first in line for that service member."

While it's been difficult to discuss, Pearsall said, she believes it's important to share her story.

"If I get one person to get help if they're having issues, then I feel like I've been successful," she said.  (Issued on May 4, 2011)

Related Sites:

Video Profile

Real Warriors Campaign

Real Warriors Resources

Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury

Warrior Care Blog 

Army Spc. Chris Jankowski, Army Spc. Joshua Philbeck and Army Staff Sgt. Lawrence Washington take time to reflect on their departed friends during some down time in Buhriz, Iraq, Jan. 27, 2007. U.S. Air Force photo by Stacy Pearsall  Download screen-resolution Download high-resolution

Remembering Dr. Inderjeet Singh

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh, Dear Gursikh Veerji & Bhenji In 1908, the passion to uplift the Sikh Panth led to the creation of Punjab & Sindh Bank. (It was a part of the Gurdwara Sudhar movement.) With his far-sighted visionary friends like Bhai Vir Singh, Sunder Singh and Tarlochan Singh they created this bank. To honour such great people and to change lives of several in the panth, Sukrit Trust has embarked upon a unique mission "KIRAT CARNIVAL"

VISION MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE Panth Ratan, Dr. Inderjeet Singh Founder of Punjab & Sindh Bank

A movement to counter drugs and depression by promoting work  culture in Punjab was started here today under the auspices of  Sukrit Trust.Dedicated to the birth centenary of Legendary  Banker and Nation Builder, Dr. Inderjeet Singh,former Chairman,  Punjab and Sind Bank, the Sukrit Trust is organizing Kirat  Carnival 2011.  More than two lac students are expected to participate in 7  different competitions as well as events like  panel discussion, debates etc. S Jaswinder Singh Khalsa UK, Chairman of the Organizing  Committee disclosed that as many as 100 seminars will be  organized on Kirat Culture and the various dimensions of  promoting  smart and hard work as a way of life among the youth. Of  these about 60 seminars will be in Punjab, 30 in rest of  the country and rest 10 in USA, Canada, UK and other  European countries. The National Organizing Secretary of Kirat Carnival 2011,  Dr.Renuka Sarabjeet Singh said that the Kirat Carnival will  emphasize on the fact that we are what we think. Who assume  defeat are defeated and who imagine victory, win the battles  of life. Work is the panacea of all our ills as it gives a  genuine feeling of fulfillment. The colorful brochure of the Carnival was released here by  eminent social workers S. Ujagar Singh and S Sukhbir Singh.  It is noteworthy that Dr Inderjeet Singh was a legendary  banker in the history of modern India who pioneered in  small lending and agricultural loans. He provided employment  to over 18,000 youth. He focused on opening the branches of  bank in the rural areas of Punjab. The enthusiasm of Dr. Inderjeet Singh can be guessed  from the fact that he started a new bank –  Bank of Punjab - in 1995,  when he was at the age of 84 years.