Abbie Johnson, a 32-year-old former Navy Musician 3rd Class from California, was suffering from at-times debilitating post-traumatic stress when she started distance running in 2014 and got involved in the Navy's Wounded Warrior program.
Her commitment to the program intensified over the next several years as she ran, biked and swam in several Ironman competitions. She won a state championship in cycling, and took part in the military's Warrior Games in 2016 and 2018.
Now, Johnson's next goal is to run marathons on all seven continents. She ran one on Antarctica in 2019 and hopes to finish up in Africa next year.
"Sports have really helped," Johnson said. "I just have found that setting goals and being active made my symptoms a lot better and just gives me motivation. It's really therapeutic."
The Wounded Warrior programs have been essential to helping her recover from her post-traumatic stress and regain her confidence.
"When I started out, I was a pretty good athlete, but when I got involved in the triathlons ... I never thought I'd be able to do any of this. I did not think that I'd have the endurance to compete in an Ironman."
People often talk about sports as an entertaining diversion. But at the Wounded Warrior level, sports that bring together veterans and can be adapted to accommodate disabilities are literally saving lives. And the sports and other adaptive activities are getting more widespread and popular each year.
"For the Department of Defense, the Warrior Games was really an introduction to some of those activities for servicemembers," said Sandra Mason, the Defense Health Agency's Warrior Care Recovery Coordination office program lead in Arlington, Virginia, which includes the Military Adaptive Sports Program, known as MASP.
"Throughout that process, the programs became more robust. And there was an intent to see what the service programs were providing in terms of adaptive activities and things that would help rehabilitate those that had been wounded, ill or injured."
But MASP "is so much more than sports, and the whole focus is your mind, your body, and your spiritual wellness," Mason said. "It's from a holistic perspective, but also looking at it like, "What would you like to do?" because there are some individuals who are naturally very good athletes. Even having a disability didn't stop them. But what about those individuals that are just seeking to do better, to have a healthier lifestyle, to reacclimate themselves to some type of normal activities? So, they'll get involved in the [other] aspect in things like art therapy, or music therapy, or things like meditation or yoga."
Service members must be medically cleared to participate in any given sport, she said. "There is an intent there to look at the service member from not only the physical perspective but occupational and mental health," Mason said.
Many people have no discernible physical injury but rather have "invisible wounds" such as traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Mason said.