KIRK'S JOB IN DISABLED SPORTS USA

But that is the payback, because I am having an absolute ball right now because the people were serving are just bouncing back so strongly and are doing such incredible things with their life, it's just a total inspiration for me. And so towards the end of my career now, it's just a joy to see this happen all the time, I mean I could tell you stories all day long- but here's one:

This young kid I climbed Aconcagua with in South America, this is a 23,000 foot mountain, the tallest mountain outside the Himalayas, and he is a double leg amputee. And he went through the really tough experience of having to deal with both legs being blown off by an IED in Afghanistan, a young marine, and he grew up in Colorado, he loved to mountain climb, and to camp and to fish with his fathers and his brothers and he felt that all of that had been taken away from him. And he described the first time he tried to walk on his artificial legs, he only had to go 150 yards, from the therapy ward to his room. And he said he had to rest 6 times just to get there he was so exhausted from the walk. And when he got to his room, he took off his legs and he had blood in his sockets. And he said it was just a really low point, when he said "God, is this going to be my life?" And now, he got involved in warfighter sports, he learned to ski, he learned to golf, he re-learned to mountain climb, to bicycle. And he was the only one in our group, there were three Marines and myself, and he was the only one that made it to the top of that mountain. And on the final day, when the rest of us couldn't make it, I just hit the wall at 20,000 feet, I was sucking air and just didn’t have the energy to go the rest of the way, he left at 4 o’clock in the morning from the 20,000 foot camp and he did not get back into that camp until 11:17 that next night. 19 hours. And the kid just persevered and made it to the top of that mountain. And he literally was so tired that on the way down he fell asleep walking. And his guides had to pick him up off the ground, wake him up, and he didn’t remember hitting the ground. So they took him to a little cave to protect him from the wind, and they got him some tea, and got him back up and they kept hiking back down.

But he made it. And I'll tell you, it was the most incredible thing, and he said- “Kirk, to think back at one point, what that first experience was like, thinking -God my life is over. I went 150 yards, and I had to stop and sit down, 6 times just because I was so exhausted and my stumps were bleeding from that one encounter- and now I'm climbing the tallest mountain in the world outside of Asia.” And that’s the kind of inspiration that just blows me away. That’s why I believe in sports. Because I know it works. And now he's going back, He's married, he's going to have his first kid in a month or so, and he's going back to school to peruse a degree in engineering. All of it motivated by being able to fight back and come back, and using sports as one of the tools for rehabilitation. And that for me really speaks to the effectiveness of the program.