FORT LEAVENWORTH, KAN. - Thomas Torres casts his fly fishing line across the glass-like surface of a northwest Missouri lake, breathing in the late summer calm. Sunshine and the comforting sounds of nature greeted 16 Leavenworth, Kan., disabled veterans on a recent fishing trip.

Volunteers from the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center-Training and the local area have hosted seven fishing-related getaways so far this year. The sessions are part of Project Healing Waters (www.projecthealingwaters.org), a nationwide effort to help rehabilitate disabled veterans. On the various visits, the disabled vets learned how to tie the flies used for fly fishing and cast a fly rod, helped assemble a drift boat and simply practiced their fishing skills.

Volunteer Rob Bowen with the Combined Arms Center-Training sees Healing Waters as "an opportunity to give back to the Soldiers." Adds volunteer Dan Butler, with PEO-STRI FSR: "These guys have sacrificed for their country. It's the least we can do to help them out."

Judging from their big smiles, phone calls and "hey, when are we going again'" messages, the disabled vets from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Veterans Administration Hospital definitely appreciate the efforts.

Raphael Williams hasn't missed any of the Leavenworth Healing Waters events. During the most recent fishing trip, he cast his line while seated in a wheelchair following hip surgery - and caught the biggest fish of the group. Three weeks later he was recovered enough to stand while sanding the drift boat the group is assembling.

"It's tremendously therapeutic getting away from the hospital environment," Williams says. "We do the same things every week. Even when you go out to smoke, you're still on hospital grounds."

The various opportunities give the disabled vets something to look forward to and a healing experience, too. "Before I came here, I tried to fish a lot," says Williams. "Now Healing Waters is it - and I can't wait to go back!"

Based at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the U.S. Army's Combined Arms Center-Training delivers training programs, products and services to leaders and units in support of Army readiness. Wherever Army training occurs, the Combined Arms Center-Training helps make it happen. To learn more about the Combined Arms Center-Training, visit www.leavenworth.army.mil, www.facebook.com/usacactraining or www.twitter.com/usacactraining.