News & Views
Streamside Healing for the Nation's Wounded Warriors
A typical day routes Ferris Butler through the corridors of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Ferris, a first lieutenant with the 10th Mountain Division, lost both of his feet when an explosion blasted his vehicle in Iraq.
What happened in a flash now means daily appointments, tests, X-rays, talks with doctors, the prodding of nurses, concerns about an infection in his leg, and the exhaustion of knowing it’ll all repeat tomorrow.
But this tomorrow was different for Butler and six other wounded veterans. This Tuesday and Wednesday, they were streamside, fly rods in hand, their healthcare concerns as far away as the battlefields that sent them home. The seven were hosted by Spring Ridge Club as part of a program called Project Healing Waters. Begun by a retired Navy captain named Ed Nicholson, the project aims to give wounded veterans an emotional and physical boost by teaching them to fly fish.
"Any day on the river is a good day," said Diane Cochran, an Army sergeant first class, who suffered spinal cord injuries when her Humvee rolled down a ravine in Afghanistan. "I never knew how peaceful it was to hear that water in the background."
For three years, Project Healing Waters has taught soldiers to fly fish in weekly lessons at Walter Reed and taken dozens of them to fish some of the nation’s prime fishing grounds, from Maine to Alaska. The project is expanding into veteran’s hospitals across the United States with the help of local chapters of Trout Unlimited, the Federation of Fly Fishers, and other fishing enthusiasts.
This is the third year that Spring Ridge has hosted the group. The private club normally caters to well-heeled clients who pay top dollar to fish the spectacular trout waters of Spruce Creek. Guides are not surprised by $100 tips, but their help came gratis for the veterans.
"These are the most precious days of guiding," mused Bill Hubler, of Mifflintown, as he watched Butler land a giant trout from his wheelchair with the skilled netting of guide Babe Corbin of Belleville.
Club owner Donny Beaver later presented Nicholson with a check for $19,520, raised from among club members to help Project Healing Waters. "These guys have sacrificed so much," Beaver said. "They've gone unquestioning into harm’s way on our behalf." What Spring Ridge offers is "just a pittance" in repayment, he said.
Nicholson was a patient at Walter Reed when he came up with the idea for Project Healing Waters. He saw young veterans returning from Iraq with amputations and other injuries that would require years of rehabilitation. A diehard fly fisherman, he wondered if fly fishing might help.
Soldiers could spend hours in rehab trying to pick up marbles with a prosthetic arm, or they could try tying a fly or casting a rod, he said. "A lot of them just wanted to get out and go fishing, get outdoors again."
Many of the vets had never tried fly fishing. Others, like Capt. Eivind Forseth, a ranger with the 82nd Airborne, loved the sport and thought their injuries meant an end to it. Forseth lost full use of his right arm in an explosion in Iraq and continues to battle an infection in his leg. His father had taught him to fly fish as a boy in Montana, and Forseth feared he would never be able to do the same for his son, Tristan, 10.
Project Healing Waters quite literally saved his life, he said. “Surviving the blast, that’s only the beginning of the battle.” Surviving anger, depression, and the loss of a mission for a man trained to lead, that was something that fishing helped resolve, he said. Despite nerve damage in his right hand, he has regained enough grip to mend line, and, in the last year, began to tie his own flies. "It’s a tremendous confidence booster to be able to fish independently," he said.
This trip, Forseth brought Tristan along, and the fishing tradition was passed on.
Butler was Nicholson's neighbor before heading off to Ranger School. A bass fisherman, he didn’t take up Nicholson’s advice to try fly fishing. Lying in his hospital bed at Walter Reed, he looked up one day to see Nicholson standing over him with a fly rod telling him "I’ve got you now."
He has become a diehard fly fisherman now, with an Orvis rod and all the equipment. As he and Corbin caught and released giant trout, Butler contrasted the peaceful pleasures of being outside with worries about his infection and the countless appointments of Walter Reed. "Some days I get home and I'm absolutely exhausted," he said. "Being out here makes me forget all about it."
Fly fishing is "physical therapy that doesn't feel like physical therapy," Cochran said. It is also therapy for the mind to be away from Walter Reed and the constant influx of newly wounded soldiers, she added. "Everyday, seeing pain, being in pain, it wears you down."
Injured in late 2004, Cochran uses a cane, wears a splint on her arm to protect injured tendons, and endures nightmares as well as the lost of her singing voice because of nerve damage to her vocal chords. She was a soprano, singing in choirs and a band with her brother, but now at best has hopes of someday being a tenor. After 26 years in the Army, she wanted to get well and return to duty, but the extent of her injuries means something else. "I'm done now," she said. For veterans like Cochran and the others, Project Healing Waters provides a peaceful break from the harsher reality of dealing with disabilities, unfulfilled dreams, and often lost careers.
"I've gotten to fish some of the most beautiful water in this country," she said. "I'm always humbled by the people who give up their time just so I can have a better day."
For more information, visit www.projecthealingwaters.org.
