Putting the Game in perspective vs a War

[Guest SirJohn]

There is a problem I always have had in being a Notre Dame Fan. It is sooner or later a Notre Dame Hater will mention the cupcakes we play like Army, Navy and Air Force on our schedule. I fully intend next time that topic comes up to print this article up on my printer. Wad it carefully and shove it somewhere on that othger person.

 

From theSMH.com.ao The Sydney Morning Herald

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War stories from American athletes, and not a cheerleader in sight

 

December 31, 2005

 

A love of sport has helped with the healing among many US casualties from the Iraq campaign.

 

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IN JUNE of 2004, 1st Lieutenant Dawn Halfaker, who had played basketball at West Point, was riding in an armoured Humvee in Baquoba when a rocket-propelled grenade tore through the vehicle. It burst through her upper right arm, shattered her shoulder blade and broke five ribs that bruised her lung.

 

Doctors amputated her right arm.

 

Now a retired army captain, Halfaker, 26, works in Washington as a consultant for the Defence Department. The job includes research on prosthetic arms that would allow women similar to her to do simple tasks like pulling their hair into a ponytail. But even if that technology never materialises, she says she has "reached a point that I'm happy with my life".

 

She wears a prosthesis for cosmetic reasons, though it sometimes causes excruciating pain. Doing tasks with one arm finally feels normal. She travels for work and is applying to graduate school at Georgetown University.

 

"Some days when I'm holding a cup of coffee, my ID, carrying a bag, trying to open the door at work, I spill coffee on myself," she said. "Those are the days I say that I hate my life. I cry and think, why do I have to be this way?"

 

Then there is a reality check.

 

Early this month, a close friend from West Point, 1st Lieutenant Kevin J Smith, was killed by a roadside bomb.

 

She is in a serious relationship with Captain Torrey Lynch, a doctor. They met in the pain management clinic and began dating before he left for a six-month tour in Iraq. He has seen her without her prosthesis and loves her just the same, she said, adding: "I always wonder, how can I be so lucky? How can my life be so great?"

 

PHIL SORENSON

 

Phil Sorenson and best friend Cody Wentz joined the North Dakota Army National Guard for college money. In February of 2004 they were shipped to Iraq. On November 4 that year, the two were arguing inside a Humvee about their favorite football teams - the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings - when a roadside bomb exploded. It killed Wentz and tore off Sorenson's lower left leg.

 

Sorenson, 23, is now back home in Williston, North Dakota. He jogs on his prosthetic leg and keeps in close contact with Wentz's parents, Joyce and Kenny. But the more his life starts returning to normal, Sorenson said, the more he misses Cody, especially during football season. "I caught myself today saying, 'Oh, I should call and ask him to watch football and eat a pizza'. Then it hit me," he said.

 

JEFF RAYNER

 

For eight months in Iraq, Staff Sergeant Jeff Rayner ran night operations for Company A of the 467th Engineer Battalion, an Army Reserve unit based in Memphis that looked for roadside bombs. Between missions, he and his fellow soldiers played sports on their base to forget about the danger.

 

"The only reason we got this nasty job chasing roadside bombs is because we are expendable," Rayner said at the time. "They need bodies, and we provide them."

 

On August 29, he returned home to Nashville for a 15-day break. He called his parents, Dorothy and Mozell, for directions to their new house but he never showed up.

 

Late that night, Rayner, still in his desert camouflage uniform, was stabbed to death in the apartment of his 19-year-old girlfriend. He was 37, and had a 10-year-old son from a previous marriage. William Gillum, who had been dating Rayner's girlfriend, was charged with first-degree murder.

 

"I would've understood it better if he died over there," a tearful Mrs Rayner said in November. "Here, there's not supposed to be destruction and killing."

 

DANIELLE GREEN

 

Army Specialist Danielle Green, a former basketball player at Notre Dame, was sitting atop a police station in Baghdad in May 2004 when a rocket-propelled grenade tore off her left arm below the elbow. For months afterwards she was angry and self-conscious about losing her dominant hand, but now says she has come to terms with the injury.

 

"I don't dwell on my disability any more because there's no sense being down on myself," Green, 28, said from her home in Chicago.

 

In May, she was the first female grand marshal of the city's Memorial Day parade. That day, during a visit with Mayor Richard Daley, he asked her what she wanted to do. Green, normally reluctant to ask for help, said she had always wanted to work in the sports department of the Chicago Board of Education. The next day, she got a call.

 

Now Green is an assistant co-ordinator in the board's department of sports administration and facilities management. She also is working toward a master's degree in school counselling, which she expects to earn in 2008.

 

She is so busy that she told her husband, Willie Byrd, a retired high school basketball coach and teacher, that he must take on more household responsibilities. "I'm doing more with one hand than most people do with two," she said.

 

Green does not closely follow the war, yet she knows the death toll and the number hurt. Sometimes, though, she forgets she was one of the injured. Only when she takes her prosthesis off does she look at her stump and tell herself: "I guess you were in a war, girl, because you got a missing arm there."

 

New York Times

[Guest irishrick]

CUPCAKES HELL, THESE ACADEMY MEN NO MATTER THE SERVICE, ARE IN MOST CASES IN BETTER PHYSICAL SHAPE THAN MOST OF THE ELITE COLLEGE PLAYERS, THEY PLAY FOOTBALL FOR ENJOYMENT AS THEY ARE MILITARY MEN FIRST AND FORMOST, THEY SERVE SO THE OTHERS CAN GO ONTO THE"BIGS "AND MAKE THE BIG BUCKS, WHILE A FEW P AND MOAN OVER THE BENIFETS THAT THE SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN GET, DON'T CALL US CUP CAKES, WE GIVE , SOME GIVE ALL, DON'T COME AROUND ME WITH CUP CAKE BULL, STAND A POST OR WATCH, PUT YOUR LIFE ON THE LINE,FRE EZE YOUR BUTT OFF IN THE COLDEST PLACES OR SWEAT IT OFF IN THE HOTTEST PLACES, I KNOW IVE BEEN THERE, FOR ALL MOST 30 YEARS, YEA CUP CAKES ALL RIGHT, COME ABOARD. IF YOU DARE. GO IRISH , THANKS RICK