WASHINGTON (Army News Service, May 2, 2016) -- He never got the chance for company command while on active duty, but when the second Invictus Games for wounded, ill or injured international service members kicks off next week, medically retired Capt. Will Reynolds will have the distinction of leading the joint 115-member U.S. team onto the field.
Picked by Defense Department Warrior Care officials, Reynolds was chosen to spearhead the U.S. team against 15 international partners in a slew of adaptive sports events ranging from team sports -- wheelchair basketball and rugby and sitting volleyball, to individual competition in cycling, archery, swimming and track and field events at the games slated for May 8-12 in Orlando, Florida.
"It's pretty awesome and special to be chosen for this honor, especially because there were 114 other well-qualified athletes and candidates to choose from," the 35-year old said. "This is a great opportunity."
Reynolds was born and raised in Rochester, New York, the youngest of five children and the only boy. He and his younger sisters are first-generation Americans who emigrated from Guyana, South America, where his parents were both in the medical field.
His parents held tight to community involvement, so Reynolds grew up being civic-minded through church and scouting. It was that civic duty he was taught that pushed him to do something like-minded for a career, so he decided to pursue the military. He applied to the four military academies, was accepted by three and chose West Point, entering in 1998 and graduating in the spring of 2002 on the cusp of war.
"I knew I was headed for a lot of deployments like all my classmates," he recalled. "We all knew we were moving into hectic times because 9/11 happened in our senior year."
Following graduation and infantry officer school, Reynolds deployed to Korea for a year. During that year, he saw Soldiers starting to deploy to Iraq. He was targeting a Ranger regiment or the XVIII Airborne Corps because "they're high-speed units with great comradery and very proficient units," he said.
The timing didn't work out, so he went to the 10th Mountain Division, catching them on the end of their first deployment to northern Iraq. A few months after he joined the division as a staff officer, the unit headed home to Fort Drum, New York, where it would have a year of downtime and reset for a scheduled deployment to Afghanistan.
At least that was the initial plan for the division, but within six months, the first surge effort began back in 2004. Orders were changed and instead of deploying to Afghanistan, the 10th was heading to Camp Victory/Liberty in southwest Baghdad, which included operations in Sadr City.
Six months into the deployment on Nov. 7, 2004, Reynolds was on a dismounted patrol with his fire team when an improvised explosive device was remote-detonated, blowing off one Soldier's leg and tossing Reynolds into the air. He was still conscious but dazed… his left leg inverted with his foot on his stomach and an arm he couldn't move because it was so mangled.
"I also had three severed arteries, so I was losing all sorts of blood… I could hear it and see it," he said. "I told the first responder I wasn't going to make it and to respond to the other casualties, but he did everything he could and was supposed to do, reassured me, put tourniquets on my arm and leg and got me medevac'd."
The Soldier who came to his aid was Reynolds' turret gunner who was tracking the patrol. Spc. Joey Collier had seen the plume from the blast, jumped out of the vehicle with only his sidearm and ran 200 meters to Reynolds. "He was the first guy to respond to me -- he is who I am responsible to for saving my life."
While his left leg was the most serious trauma he suffered in the explosion, he was able to keep it for a few years, but it was functionally not much more than a peg leg he said, adding that it wouldn't allow him to stay active.
Eventually his leg was amputated, and he began to wonder how he would be able to stay active.
"I had always been active, skiing, running, cycling so it was tough adjusting," he said. "I had never seen a para-athlete, never in my life growing up, so I didn't know what was out there.
Then I found out about all these options and events like the Warrior Games, so I started out hand-cycling and have since moved to an upright cycle, so I'm not reduced to leading a sedentary lifestyle."
In 2011, Reynolds started racing, captaining a four-cyclist Race Across America team that took him across the country in seven days, 14 hours and 28 minutes, which was the middle pack for the 30 four-cyclist relay teams.
"I think getting out there and spreading the word about the realm of possibilities and growing the various adaptive sports through events like the Warrior and Invictus Games shows the productive ways to rehabilitate and recover," he said.
While Reynolds was in recovery at then-Walter Reed Army Medical Center, he met his wife-to-be through mutual friends. Three years later in 2008 they were married and in 2009 their "honeymoon baby" was born… since then they've added three more youngsters to the brood.
His kids don't see the loss of his leg as a disability… they love it," he laughs. "Kids don't see any bias and they don't' discriminate, so when they see me walking around in my prosthetic, they don't see it as a disability
When Reynolds is readying for some sporting activity, the kids are always willing to help him get set up with whatever leg he needs, be it for skiing, running or cycling.
"I always tell people I lost one leg, but I have eight more… let's see I've got a cycling one, a skiing one, two different running ones and four walking legs," he said. The odds are pretty good he will be packing them all for Invictus.
Reynolds has already participated in three DOD Warrior Games and the first Invictus Games in 2014, where he won four bronze medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints, the Road Race and the Time Trial in cycling.
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