Thankful Thursday

I've been asked who my heros are, who inspires me. For a long time, I didn't have an answer. I was just out there kinda floating lazily in the milk, so to speak, without any real direction. But when I started getting serious about doing real distance, I began to really think about the fact that I needed to remind myself that God created human beings with a capacity to go beyond what we ever thought was possible. To do things that are truly amazing. So I think it is fitting to take a little bit of space to showcase some of those public figures who really inspire me.

To be sure, I have personal friends and family who also inspire me, but for privacy's sake, I will simply say thank you to those. You know who you are. I wouldn't have gotten here without you and your support. You have believed in me when I didn't even believe in myself and helped me believe in the right things, inside and outside myself. These inspirations I am going to write about in the coming weeks cannot take that away. Ever.

With that having been said, each Thursday, I plan to post up someone whose story and triumph has inspired me. So, today's inspiration is:

Dana Bowman, US Army, RET

In 1994, Dana Bowman was Army Special Forces and a member of The Golden Knights parachute team. In February of that year, he and his team were making practice jumps. Bowman and his teammate were performing a maneuver known as the Diamond Track, where the divers speed apart to a designated distance, then reverse their tracks and head toward each other at a closing speed of about 300 miles per hour. The approach did not go as planned and the two men collided, instantly killing his teammate, Sgt Jose Aguillon and rendering Bowman unconscious. The impact was so severe that it also completely severed both of Bowman's legs, one below the knee and one above the knee. Bowman's parachute was activated by the impact and he landed unconscious in a nearby parking lot.

Rather than giving up, Dana Bowman chose to fight his way back to a normal and active life. Over the course of the next 6 weeks, he wore out 4 pairs of prostheses. Rather than sit back and wait or let the doctors dictate when and how and what he could do, he helped them to design prosthetics. 5 months after his accident, he left the hospital to go skydiving as part of a Golden Knights wedding ceremony. Four months later, he became the first double amputee to reenlist in the Army. After he retired, he went on to get a bachleor's degree in commercial aviation and is presently the only double amputee to hold a commercial helicopter instructor pilot certification in the world.

Dana Bowman has worked through his pain and became an overcomer. He inspires me any time I think I have the market cornered on pain and suffering.

Thank you, SFC Dana Bowman, for being one of my inspirations.