Multi-sport star credits DOD Warrior Games for re-instilling resilience

By Tim HippsJune 30, 2015

Multi-sport star credits DOD Warrior Games for re-instilling resilience
Army veteran Staff Sgt. Randi Gavell serves for Team Army at the 2015 Department of Defense Warrior Games at Barber Gym on Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. Gavell helped Team Army win the gold medal in sitting volleyball and and won several more event... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

QUANTICO, Va. (Army News Service, June 29, 2015) -- Army veteran Staff Sgt. Randi Gavell credits the Department of Defense Warrior Games for re-instilling resilience in wounded warriors.

"The ability it gives people to show that they are worth so much more than they might feel after their injuries," said Gavell, about what she likes most about the DOD Warrior Games.

Gavell helped Team Army defeat Team Air Force in the sitting volleyball gold-medal match at Barber Gym, June 28.

"Every time somebody gets hurt or sick or injured or they have a disability, it starts to wear on you because you remember what you used to be able to do, not what you can do," she said.

Gavell battles nerve damage, post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries sustained while deployed in 2006 to Ramadi, Iraq.

"The games show everyone that you're still capable of accomplishing greatness," she said. "You just have to do it a little differently. You have to find a different way to do things."

Gavell brilliantly did her things in sitting volleyball, on the track, and in the swimming pool at the 2015 DOD Warrior Games, an adaptive sports competition for wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans.

Gavell, who competed in the inaugural games at Colorado Springs, Colorado, returned this year after a four-year hiatus.

"I got out of the military and I didn't realize I could still be a part of the games when I got out," she said. "A really close friend brought me back to it, and here I am."

Gavell swam for gold in the 50-meter freestyle, 50-meter backstroke, 50-meter breaststroke and struck silver in the 100-meter freestyle. She helped Team Army win gold in the swimming relay event. She also won her divisions of the 100 and 200 meters on the track.

Gavell was also a stalwart on Team Army's gold-medal-winning sitting volleyball squadron. She served Team Army to a 4-0 lead in the second of three games against Team Air Force in the finale. She said the Soldiers "knew" they would prevail in a rubber game.

"In that third game, we knew we had to come out strong because we didn't have a chance to come back," she said. "At the very end of the first game, we started to get our momentum. The second game, we started to pick it up, and it was real close. As soon as we knew we were playing a third game, that was it for us - we knew."

She also knew Team Army had secured the Commander's Cup Trophy before the sitting volleyball squad took the court for the gold-medal match Sunday afternoon because she was part of the Soldiers' dominance in the pool Saturday and on the track Sunday morning.

A hurdler in high school, Gavell ran the 2008 Army Ten-Miler, two years after getting injured in Iraq.

"I've been an athlete my whole life," said Gavell, who retired as a staff sergeant stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany. "Sports have just always been something I turn to. Actually, the water has always been what I turn to. It has always been therapy for me, so I learned how to scuba dive and it just brought me out of a hole."

Camaraderie was the buzzword of the week at the DOD Warrior Games, and Gavell was quick to confirm that sentiment.

"Our team has come a really long way from never having met each other to going to travel camps, getting to know each other, to becoming eventually a big Family," said Gavell, a native of Grand Junction, Colorado, who now lives in Oklahoma City. "To be able to celebrate something so huge the last day of the games with your Family is amazing. And to have our Family come and support us is over the moon.

"The games bring that, and the camaraderie. Family is the key here," she said.

Related Links:

Army News Service

Army.mil: Human Interest News

Army.mil: Women in the U.S. Army

2015 DOD Warrior Games

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