John W. Thompson; Diving Program Helps Wounded Soldiers with Rehab
ABC News sends us their latest in their Standing Up for Heroes series. This one is about Army National Guard veteran John W. Thompson and his program to help wounded warriors and their rehabilitation;
“I’ve never been to a military hospital and one day I went to have lunch with my wife at Walter Reed and as soon as you walk in, you see some pretty heavy stuff and I really wasn’t prepared for that and it hit me hard. I knew right at that moment that I had to get involved but I really didn’t know what attributes I had to offer these guys,” he said.
Thompson, who served in the Army National Guard from 1985 to 1992, said he “needed some direction and discipline.”
“So I moved to Colorado and enlisted in the Army National Guard. The military gave me what I needed as a young man,” said Thompson, who lost his father at the age of 13.
Thompson was never deployed — and seeing the young men and women at Walter Reed was a real “gut check” for him.
“I was lucky and they weren’t so lucky,” he said.
After his visit to the medical center, he went to the American Red Cross office at the hospital and asked to be a volunteer. He was placed in the aquatics department and started helping wounded soldiers.
It was there that Thompson realized he could help even more these soldiers with their rehabilitation.
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Category: Support the troops
Goooooooood Morning TAH!!!
Sorry, had to do it. Good article. See all you soldier posers out there in the wings, you do not need to embellish an honorable career. This man did the right thing.
John W. Thompson thank you sir! Thank you.
I have had the honor of working with John for several year now on this program and working with the guys diving. It is an amazing program and as I tell all the volunteers that come to us all things are equal in the water and after spending even a short amount of time with the guys you will feel you have nothing to complain about ever again. I have stayed in contact with many that I have worked with since 2008 and it is amazing to see the things they go onto and do such as medals in the disabled olympics and so much more. The best compliment I had was from one young soldier who had said he did not want to go on the trip and he was content to stay in his room feeling sorry but after being in the water and talking to the other wounded warriors he felt he could do anything. The program makes a huge impact and I am honored to have taken part in it. Working with them is a great honor.
This is how it’s done. A man who enlisted in the NG, who went through the same BT as everyone else but was not called to combat as so very many NG troops have over the years, is moved by a visit to a VA Hospital. Does he say, “Gee, I feel bad” and move on? Hell no. He says, “I can do something” and then does. Makes me proud to call him a fellow Veteran. Great stuff. Great stuff.