While on tour in Afghanistan dismantling bombs for the Navy five years ago, Brad Snyder sustained multiple facial wounds and lost his eyesight in a mine explosion.
The former lieutenant was transferred to a Veterans Affairs hospital in his hometown of Tampa, Fla., so he could be near his mom and three younger siblings. But when his high-school swim coach asked him to come down to the pool to swim laps, Snyder didn’t hesitate.
“I just wanted to see if I could do it,” recalls Snyder, now 32. “I had this scuba mask because my eyes were all messed up, and my coach had rigged up these big foam noodles on the side of the pool so I wouldn’t hit the wall.”
But right away, he felt at home: “It was the first time that I felt as dominant or strong as I used to be. I even forgot I was blind.”
Now, Snyder not only swims, he’s a two-time Paralympic Champion, winning two golds and a silver at the London Games in 2012. And he’s currently training to do it all over again in September, as he hopes to qualify for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.
“I’m a professional athlete,” marvels Snyder, who now lives in Baltimore with his Instagram-famous service dog, a German Shepherd named Gizzy. “Sometimes, I’ll just look around and think, ‘What the hell happened? Whose life am I living?’”
Snyder is not alone: The Paralympics, which occur right after the Olympics come to a close, is the most prestigious international multisport competition for athletes with physical disabilities — from missing limbs, to impaired muscle power, to blindness — and scores of veterans are signing up. Since launching in 2004, the Paralympic Military Program has helped some 60 wounded warriors represent Team USA in the Games. The Winter 2014 roster boasted 18 competitors who had served in the US Armed Forces.
“I didn’t even know what the Paralympics were,” says Snyder, who swam competitively in high school and at the US Naval Academy before someone from the US Association of Blind Athletes reached out to him about trying to qualify for the US Team.
‘It was the first time that I felt as dominant or strong as I used to be. I even forgot I was blind.’
- Bradley Snyder, two-time Paralympic Champion
“I was like, ‘Is this like the Special Olympics?’ I really had no idea what I was getting into!”
Melissa Stockwell, an Army Officer who lost her left leg in 2004 from a roadside bomb in Baghdad, had also never heard of the Paralympics before she was transferred to Walter Reed Hospital following her deployment in Iraq. “I had spent 24 years of my life with two legs, and suddenly I had only one and had no idea what my life was going to be like,” says the 36-year-old Chicago resident, who had wanted to be a competitive gymnast before joining the ROTC and studying communications at the University of Colorado. “Then, someone came to the hospital and did this presentation about the Paralympics. I had dreamed of going to the Olympics as a child. This almost seemed like a second chance.”
Stockwell — who was already swimming several hours a day as part of her rehabilitation — decided to train more seriously, and qualified for the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, where she placed fourth in the 400-meter freestyle. Now, she hopes to represent the US in Rio for the Paralympics’ first paratriathlon, in which competitors have to swim 750 meters, bike 20 kilometers and run 5 kilometers. “I knew I was more than just a swimmer,” says Stockwell, who lives with her husband Brian Tolsma, a prosthetist and orthotist, and their 17-month-old son. “I love the challenge of all three sports.”
Both Stockwell and Snyder believe their military training has made them uniquely suited to the rigors of professional sports, and not just because they’re used to training for hours a day.
“In the Army, you really learn about the power of being on a team, and being on time, and wanting to represent what you do well,” says Stockwell, who has since co-founded the Dare2Tri paratriathlon club for disabled youth and adults and injured service members in the Chicago-area. “You learn to be more than just you, and that’s so important when you’re competing in any sport and representing your country.”
Snyder agrees: “Being in the military, it really opens you up [to] critique; when you’re disposing bombs, you can’t have a thin skin, you need to be receptive to anything that will make you better at your job, because that’s a life that’s on the line,” he says. And that’s been helpful not only in the pool, but in his numerous public speaking gigs, and in life in general.
“Being blind is very humbling,” says the champ. “I screw up a lot of stuff; I slam into doors all the time. I’m constantly learning from my mistakes.”
But he admits, being a Paralympian is pretty cool. “When I left the [Naval] Academy in 2006, I thought I had accomplished everything I could have possibly imagined in terms of swimming. Coming back into sports and realizing a dream I had when I was 11 years old that I had given up on? That’s incredible.”
