liberal arts college in Schenectady, N.Y. He tried again during his freshman year to get into the Navy. Rejected once more, he made the decision to enlist in the Marines. College was not for him. “That was a surprise to me,” Lucien Jacquet said. “I had pretty much put military kind of on the backburner or even out of my mind.”
***
Between 2 and 3 o’clock in the morning on Ortiz’s 45th birthday, she woke up to her cell phone buzzing. She expected Adam would call, but she was not sure when. Jacquet was in South Carolina for basic
training at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in Parris Island. After getting off the bus and signing papers, Jacquet and the other recruits were allowed one phone call each to tell someone they arrived safely under the black veil of night. The Marines do things a little differently
than civilians, and this was one of the first glimpses of that for Jacquet’s mother. “Hello?” she answered. Before she could even finish the salutation, Jacquet started yelling, rambling through a mandatory script posted inside the phone box. Then he hung up before Ortiz could say she loved him.
Back in Maryland, Ortiz cried. ***
Recruits have been coming to this swelteringly hot, humid swampland since 1915. The bugs torment them almost as much as the drill instructors for 12 grueling weeks.
While rehabbing at
Walter Reed, Jacquet enlisted other
wounded warriors and lobbied to add lacrosse to its adaptive sports program. Wheelchair Lacrosse USA hosted
the first clinic there in spring 2013.
A DEEP
CONNECTION Wounded Warrior Project has lacrosse in its veins
John Fernandez still plays lacrosse whenever he can. His lower legs will never come back but his wounds have healed. Fernandez is one of the lucky ones.
“Physical wounds, most of them, heal,” said Fernandez, the former Army lacrosse captain who lost both of his legs below the knees in Iraq. “A
40 LACROSSE MAGAZINE » November 2014
lot of times, the troubling issues can be the hidden wounds, the mental wounds, things that aren’t easily forgotten.” It’s the reason why, when Adam Silva speaks to lacrosse teams, he makes certain the players understand exactly who it is fighting these wars. For college players, it could be their former teammates For high schoolers, in a year, it could be the player beside them. “Those are the ones getting blown up and shot at,” said Silva, the former Army lacrosse star and current chief development officer of the Wounded Warrior Project. “The kids we see on the field are the ones we see in combat.”
Fernandez has become one of
WWP’s most visible alums and has testified in front of Congress on Veteran’s Affairs issues.
But Fernandez is just one link in a chain between lacrosse and WWP. “There’s a deep connection between lacrosse and the city of New York,” Silva said. “The attacks on Sept. 11 profoundly impacted a lot of people from Long Island and southern New York. And there just seems to be an intense patriotic element to the game of lacrosse.”
Army and Navy used to play an alumni game, which raised $100,000 for WWP in its first year. Shootout for Soldiers, a 24-hour lacrosse event, has raised more than $400,000 for the organization over the last three
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©PHOTO CREDIT
©JOHN MECIONIS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76