QUANTICO, VIRGINIA (WHBL) -Starting Friday, the Department of Defense will begin hosting the 2015 Warrior Games in Virginia. Around 200 athletes who are wounded, ill, and injured service members and veterans will take part. They will be split up between six groups (Army, Navy/Coast Guard, Air Force, Marines, Special Operations, and British Armed Forces) and compete in eight sports (archery, cycling, track and field, rugby, swimming, shooting, sitting volleyball and wheelchair basketball)
One of the athletes is a Sheboygan native. Retired Lieutenant Commander Scott Radetski will represent Team Navy in the shooting and cycling. The 53 year old says he will be competing to win. "I like to be standing on that podium, but if it is not my day then I won’t be there," says Radetski. "But if I am I’ll bring it back and share it with you guys."
Radetski qualified for the games not just for his performance at tryouts and trials in Hawaii earlier this year. He was eligible due to his post-traumatic stress symptoms. While he spent his early armed forces career in the Navy, he left for several years to become a chaplain and rejoined the service. He would be deployed with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines to Iraq, experiencing the first major battle of Fallujah. That experience and others led to his PTS diagnosis in 2007, which forced him into retirement the next year.
Radetski worked to cope with his diagnosis with therapy and counseling. In addition, he credits his time with Wounded Warriors and adaptive sports for helping him deal with his symptoms. "Rewriting not necessarily history, but the memories or the cognition that’s associated with it; the beliefs that I had inside that maybe I was devalued or ‘why am I here, survivor’s guilt," says Radetski.
We wish Radetski the best of luck in his quest for gold in the games. Listen to our interview with the now Poulsbo, Washington resident with the audio link above.