Healing vets

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http://www.csnchicago.com/blog/sox-drawer/...49914454843-915

 

He sits in the visitor’s dugout on a windy November day at U.S. Cellular Field. Wearing the brown camouflage of the United State Army. He looks across the barren diamond of the White Sox, his childhood team, that plays a sport where the objective is simple.

 

Get home.

 

For every soldier who has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan, they share the same goal. It’s the ultimate mission.

 

Staff Sergeant Matt Ritenour completed the task. He fought for his country, killed the enemy, and is now back home in west suburban Huntley with his wife and two kids.

 

But his life has been changed forever.

 

“I got shot in the head September of 2007 in Afghanistan,” Ritenour says, pointing to the long, deep scar permanently embedded on the left side of his head, a wound that immediately left him paralyzed.

 

“After about four days I was able to move my right thumb. That was the first movement I had, so that’s a huge wait because for the first few days it’s like there’s nothing working,” says Ritenour, who has since regained motion throughout his body, but everything on the right side — his arm, leg, foot and ankle - can’t move like they once did.

 

Then there’s the story of White Sox fan Jeremy Votawi from St. Charles, an Army veteran who in just two months of fighting in Ramadi, Iraq had over 68 engagements.

 

“Every night we went out, we got in a firefight,” he says.

 

On what turned out to be his last day of combat, he and two other soldiers survived a 40-man ambush.

 

“My team leader was shot in the head instantly. I went out after him and as I went out to get him I took three shots myself to the left leg, hitting me in the quadriceps, knee and calf,” Votawai recalls, relaying the facts of his injuries as if they were stats on the back of a baseball card. "It’s an accepted reality when you join the military. You just hope and pray that the bullets and explosions arrive, they don’t find you.

 

“I actually remember saying to God, just let me get through this. Let me get back home to my girl,” Votawai says. “I don’t want to be like the guy in (the movie) 'Blackhawk Down,' because I got shot in the leg. That was the first thing that came to my mind.”

 

Ritenour and Votawi are just two of the thousands of veterans who survived the wars in the Middle East, but have returned home in need of assistance — whether physical, emotional, or financial.

 

That’s where Mary Beth Beiersdorf comes in, and where the White Sox have lended their support.

 

Nine years ago, Beiersdorf and her husband, Will, created Salute, Inc. - a non-profit organization that pursues the needs of military service members and their families. The couple felt their own emotional and economic burdens when Will was deployed to Guantanamo Bay for 13 months soon after 9/11.

 

“Our family was affected by the war, and our community was able to help us through those hard times,” Ms. Beiersdorf says. “When Will came back we decided to pay it forward for all the love and support that was given to us.”

 

When Votawai returned from Iraq without a job and with three kids at home, Salute, Inc. was consistently there, helping to pay for heating bills during the winter, even repairing the family car when it broke down.

 

“They not only helped us get back on our feet and got us rolling, but now they’ve gotten us to the point where we can keep marching on,” Votawai says.

 

It’s a journey Beiersdorf is hoping to pave with opportunities, like the idea that popped in her head last winter when she and Will watched her dad play in the White Sox Fantasy Baseball Camp in Glendale, Arizona.

 

“The energy and camaraderie reminded us of the brotherhood of military members,” says Beiersdorf, whose father spent a week playing baseball amongst the likes of former White Sox greats Harold Baines, Bill Melton and Bobby Thigpen to name a few. “We decided this would be an incredible opportunity to celebrate our wounded warriors that have regained their lives through rehabilitation and doing positive things to move forward.”

 

Salute, Inc. asked wounded veterans who were both White Sox fans and had the ability to play baseball to submit essays telling their stories, explaining their injuries and why they aspired to participate in the camp.

 

“I wanted them to know that I love this game. I played the game hard, I played it hard prior to getting injured,“ says retired Sergeant Daniel Casara, who broke his right and left tibia in a tank explosion in South Baghdad in 2005. He also shattered both his ankles and dislocated his right hip during the attack that killed two of his fellow comrades. “I told the doctors when I got injured, ‘Save my leg, because I want to play softball.’ That’s just something that I love. This game is what I love to do.”

 

Casara, Votawi and Ritenour are 3 of 7 injured veterans who have been chosen to participate in the fantasy camp, held in January at the White Sox spring training facility. It’s a joint effort between Salute, Inc. and the White Sox, who are working with their own charities and sponsors to raise money to send the vets, as well as family members and caretakers to the week-long camp.

 

“It’s going to make me feel like a kid again,” says Michael Krueger of the Wisconsin Army National Guard. He’s another soon-to-be camper who in the past year has needed three surgeries on his brain to remove three separate aneurysms. He says he feels great now. “It’s going to be like capturing some youth again.”

 

And when they take the field, the seven veterans will all be on the same team.

 

“We’re going to play together as a team, but we’re military. We’re always a team,” Krueger says.

 

War gave all of them a hard dose of reality. Now these die-hard White Sox fans are headed to Arizona for a baseball fantasy. But considering where they were, at the lowest depths of their injuries, to where they are now, this is something more than just a fantasy.

 

It’s a dream come true.

 

For more information about Salute, Inc. or if you would like to donate to the cause, visit their website at www.saluteinc.org or contact them at 847-359-8811.