Vets get therapy with fly-fishing
By Angus Phillips
Special to The Washington Post
SYRIA, Va. – The Washington Post did a good job exposing the nation’s shortcomings in caring for wounded war veterans with its Pulitzer Prize-winning series on Walter Reed Army Medical Center last year. Here on the banks of the Rose River in the shadow of Old Rag Mountain, another story with origins at Walter Reed played out recently on a much happier note.
Sixty fly-rodders and 150-odd helpers, onlookers and hangers-on gathered at Rose River Farm to raise money for Project Healing Waters, a budding private non-profit that gives injured veterans a crack at fly-fishing. “It’s not, ‘Take a vet fishing,’ ” said retired Navy Capt. Ed Nicholson, the founder. “We’re teaching skills that are good emotional and physical therapy.”
Nicholson, who lives in Port Tobacco, Md., hatched the idea four years ago while recuperating from an operation at Walter Reed. “I saw these wounded guys, and I thought, ‘What can I do?’ ”
Nicholson likes to fly-fish. He pulled aside a few patients for fly-tying and casting lessons. Next thing you know, he had the National Capital Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Fly Fishers hooked. The thing took off.
Four years later, Project Healing Waters is in full swing at 19 Veterans Affairs hospitals and “warrior transition units” from Maine to California, with a dozen more affiliates starting up.
“The goal is simple,” Nicholson said. “You have a guy who lost a leg, he’s in physical therapy, we get him out there wading a stream, he gets a boost. Or a guy who lost an arm, we start him casting, he has a chance to use his new arm and actually do something that’s enjoyable.
“It’s good physical therapy, and then there’s the emotional part. You get out on a stream, the pain and discomfort go away. We do our little thing. Other groups may take them bowling or teach kayaking. Every little bit helps. If we can make one person feel better, good.”
A recent occasion was the second annual two-fly tournament, organized by Douglas Dear of Great Falls, Va., who owns a 1 1/2 -mile stretch of the Rose River near Graves Mountain Lodge that he stocks with trout and opens to anglers for a fee. On a Sunday, Dear, a volunteer chairman of Project Healing Waters’ trustees, paired 10 recovering veterans with guides and had them compete with 20 teams of anglers paying $500 apiece to fish, with proceeds going to Project Healing Waters.
It was in name a contest, with prizes to those who caught the most and the biggest trout. But on a sunny spring day with hot dogs sizzling, chili bubbling and a bluegrass band picking away, it felt more like a celebration.
One participant clearly enjoying it was Army Sgt. Jack “Pappy” Cormack, who picked up fly-fishing recently at Fort Belvoir, where he’s in the wounded warrior program with a leg shattered in a rocket attack in Balad, Iraq. “I’m from the West Virginia cane-pole-and-worm school,” Cormack said with a chuckle, “so fly-fishing is a thrill for me. I’ve got it in my blood.”
Cormack, who served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, then went to Kosovo and Bosnia, said he volunteered for Iraq in 2003 at age 51. “I told my wife I might as well,” he said. “The kids were grown and if I got whacked, she’d get $400,000, and it would save some kid from having to go. They didn’t want anybody over 50, but they couldn’t wear me out. I celebrated my 52nd and 53rd birthdays over there.”
The rocket attack left Cormack with a right leg “that just flops around.” Nonetheless, he was out wet-wading the Rose with his cane and caught a few trout. “It’s just good to get out of the barracks room,” he said, “which slowly compresses on the weekends.”
High rod for the morning was Donald Stewart of Lumberton, N.C., who fished from his wheelchair. Stewart retired as an Army sergeant in 1998, then lost use of his legs in a motorcycle accident. He gets treatment at McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Va., where he came across Project Healing Waters last year.
“I was a bass and bream fisherman back home,” he said, but after the accident, “I didn’t know if I’d ever fish again. I lacked the enthusiasm to try it on my own. They came in and presented classes. They had fly-tying – you had amputees using one hand and their teeth – then fly-casting every other week on the basketball court.
“I took to it pretty natural. Then they took us out to a lake and we caught bass and bream. They gave me a 10-foot fly rod and reel, and this morning I caught 16 trout on a bead-head nymph. That’s my first trout. When I felt the first tug, it was tremendous.”
Stewart lives at home and travels to the VA in a specially equipped truck for rehabilitation. He said the big beneficiaries of Project Healing Waters are “the guys still in the hospital. They’re up and active instead of just lying in bed watching TV. It’s a relief, time flies, you’re doing something you’ve never done before, and it’s something to look forward to.”
I followed Stewart down to the stream for his afternoon session. We humped his wheelchair through the mud, then crept alongside as his guide, Gary Burwell, stealthily approached the water’s edge. “These fish are spooky,” Burwell said, “so stay low.”
The trout, fished over all morning by others, proved uncooperative, but it was hard to find fault with the surroundings. Birds chirped, bugs hatched, sunlight dappled the gin-clear water and somewhere upstream, someone shouted, “Fish on!”
Project Healing Waters always is looking for volunteers and donors. Check the Web site at www.projecthealingwaters.org.
By Angus Phillips
Special to The Washington Post
SYRIA, Va. – The Washington Post did a good job exposing the nation’s shortcomings in caring for wounded war veterans with its Pulitzer Prize-winning series on Walter Reed Army Medical Center last year. Here on the banks of the Rose River in the shadow of Old Rag Mountain, another story with origins at Walter Reed played out recently on a much happier note.
Sixty fly-rodders and 150-odd helpers, onlookers and hangers-on gathered at Rose River Farm to raise money for Project Healing Waters, a budding private non-profit that gives injured veterans a crack at fly-fishing. “It’s not, ‘Take a vet fishing,’ ” said retired Navy Capt. Ed Nicholson, the founder. “We’re teaching skills that are good emotional and physical therapy.”
Nicholson, who lives in Port Tobacco, Md., hatched the idea four years ago while recuperating from an operation at Walter Reed. “I saw these wounded guys, and I thought, ‘What can I do?’ ”
Nicholson likes to fly-fish. He pulled aside a few patients for fly-tying and casting lessons. Next thing you know, he had the National Capital Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the Federation of Fly Fishers hooked. The thing took off.
Four years later, Project Healing Waters is in full swing at 19 Veterans Affairs hospitals and “warrior transition units” from Maine to California, with a dozen more affiliates starting up.
“The goal is simple,” Nicholson said. “You have a guy who lost a leg, he’s in physical therapy, we get him out there wading a stream, he gets a boost. Or a guy who lost an arm, we start him casting, he has a chance to use his new arm and actually do something that’s enjoyable.
“It’s good physical therapy, and then there’s the emotional part. You get out on a stream, the pain and discomfort go away. We do our little thing. Other groups may take them bowling or teach kayaking. Every little bit helps. If we can make one person feel better, good.”
A recent occasion was the second annual two-fly tournament, organized by Douglas Dear of Great Falls, Va., who owns a 1 1/2 -mile stretch of the Rose River near Graves Mountain Lodge that he stocks with trout and opens to anglers for a fee. On a Sunday, Dear, a volunteer chairman of Project Healing Waters’ trustees, paired 10 recovering veterans with guides and had them compete with 20 teams of anglers paying $500 apiece to fish, with proceeds going to Project Healing Waters.
It was in name a contest, with prizes to those who caught the most and the biggest trout. But on a sunny spring day with hot dogs sizzling, chili bubbling and a bluegrass band picking away, it felt more like a celebration.
One participant clearly enjoying it was Army Sgt. Jack “Pappy” Cormack, who picked up fly-fishing recently at Fort Belvoir, where he’s in the wounded warrior program with a leg shattered in a rocket attack in Balad, Iraq. “I’m from the West Virginia cane-pole-and-worm school,” Cormack said with a chuckle, “so fly-fishing is a thrill for me. I’ve got it in my blood.”
Cormack, who served in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, then went to Kosovo and Bosnia, said he volunteered for Iraq in 2003 at age 51. “I told my wife I might as well,” he said. “The kids were grown and if I got whacked, she’d get $400,000, and it would save some kid from having to go. They didn’t want anybody over 50, but they couldn’t wear me out. I celebrated my 52nd and 53rd birthdays over there.”
The rocket attack left Cormack with a right leg “that just flops around.” Nonetheless, he was out wet-wading the Rose with his cane and caught a few trout. “It’s just good to get out of the barracks room,” he said, “which slowly compresses on the weekends.”
High rod for the morning was Donald Stewart of Lumberton, N.C., who fished from his wheelchair. Stewart retired as an Army sergeant in 1998, then lost use of his legs in a motorcycle accident. He gets treatment at McGuire VA Medical Center in Richmond, Va., where he came across Project Healing Waters last year.
“I was a bass and bream fisherman back home,” he said, but after the accident, “I didn’t know if I’d ever fish again. I lacked the enthusiasm to try it on my own. They came in and presented classes. They had fly-tying – you had amputees using one hand and their teeth – then fly-casting every other week on the basketball court.
“I took to it pretty natural. Then they took us out to a lake and we caught bass and bream. They gave me a 10-foot fly rod and reel, and this morning I caught 16 trout on a bead-head nymph. That’s my first trout. When I felt the first tug, it was tremendous.”
Stewart lives at home and travels to the VA in a specially equipped truck for rehabilitation. He said the big beneficiaries of Project Healing Waters are “the guys still in the hospital. They’re up and active instead of just lying in bed watching TV. It’s a relief, time flies, you’re doing something you’ve never done before, and it’s something to look forward to.”
I followed Stewart down to the stream for his afternoon session. We humped his wheelchair through the mud, then crept alongside as his guide, Gary Burwell, stealthily approached the water’s edge. “These fish are spooky,” Burwell said, “so stay low.”
The trout, fished over all morning by others, proved uncooperative, but it was hard to find fault with the surroundings. Birds chirped, bugs hatched, sunlight dappled the gin-clear water and somewhere upstream, someone shouted, “Fish on!”
Project Healing Waters always is looking for volunteers and donors. Check the Web site at www.projecthealingwaters.org.