A Place in the Sun for War Veterans

The mortar round that landed on Airman 1st Class Diane Lopes last September in Kirkuk, Iraq, collapsed a lung, perforated an eardrum, broke two bones in her left leg, and left shrapnel wounds in her right knee and both arms. That was the physical damage. The emotional trauma was serious too: “That was a lot harder for me to handle,” she says.

Although the physicians and staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center treated Lopes's injuries with skill and care, their most effective step may have been a simple introduction to a wounded Army captain named Eivind Forseth. “This is the guy I want you to meet,” Lopes's surgeon told her. Forseth, a Ranger with the 82nd Airborne, had been wounded in a 2005 ambush by a suicide bomber in Iraq. His shattered arm would require 30 surgeries and thousands of hours of rehabilitation. His rage over his injuries and a career cut short only made his recovery more difficult. He tried to focus his restless mind on boyhood memories of wading with his father into the trout streams of Montana. As the vision faded, he'd wonder, Will I ever be able to fly-fish again?

Thanks to Project Healing Waters, an organization founded by a military man who thought the unhurried yet challenging sport would provide essential therapy for injured vets like Forseth and Lopes, the answer was yes. Both of them, and many others, would see their broken bodies and battered spirits restored.

Retired Navy Capt. Ed Nicholson was recuperating from abdominal surgery at Walter Reed in 2004, surrounded by soldiers just returned from Iraq, when he had his brainstorm. “These guys were struggling in the hallways, on crutches, missing arms and legs, suffering head injuries, banged up pretty good,” he recalls.

It occurred to Nicholson that fly-fishing, which he'd taken up in the 1980s, might offer a soothing form of rehab for these wounded men and women. He later learned that Benita Walton, MD, had had a similar idea eight years earlier, when she co-founded a group for breast cancer patients called Casting for Recovery. She discovered that the gentle casting motion of fly-fishing was an excellent activity for cancer survivors, both physically and emotionally. “To fish,” Dr. Walton often said, “is to hope.”

At Walter Reed, Nicholson's fledgling idea quickly won the medical staff's support and became Project Healing Waters. He found instructors to teach the basics of fly-fishing on the hospital lawn. For those who wanted more, volunteer fishing guides would take them to nearby streams and rivers to catch trout.

Forseth knew Nicholson was onto something good. “I was mending, but it wasn't enough,” he says. “I was in desperate need of a mission, and Healing Waters gave it to me.” After his first fishing trip with Nicholson, Forseth began recruiting other soldiers to join.

He started working on Lopes the moment they met. After her doctor introduced her to Forseth, he told her about Project Healing Waters: “You should join us,” he said. “Getting out in nature is a positive thing.”

She started with fly-tying sessions but was hesitant about casting, given that she'd be doing it from a wheelchair. One day, she wheeled herself to a window to see the vets at practice. “I watched them casting for a while and was getting ready to bail when I heard this booming voice behind me: 'Air Force, glad you finally joined us!' ”

Forseth took her out to the lawn. “I put a rod in her hand, and the rest is history,” he says. She had a knack for it, even though she had to cast left-handed because her stronger arm was in a brace. Soon Lopes was demanding a crack at the real thing.

“It was really too cold, but it was so nice to be out on the lake,” she says of her first trip with the group. “I used my walker to stand by the water's edge. It was exactly where I wanted to be.”