Maj. James Padke's entry into the Army came at the expense of losing a friendly wager to an Army recruiter. Every Soldier and veteran athlete participating in the U.S. Army Warrior Care and Transition's Army Trials at Fort Bliss, Texas, has a unique journey that led them to a crossroad in their life.
Pradke, from the Warrior Transition Unit, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is anxious to tell his story. On October 9, 2015, he and his family were travelling to do volunteer work when their van is hit head on by a drunk driver at an estimated speed of 100 mph. He had every right to be bitter. Being bitter is not in his DNA.
A former high school music teacher in Indiana, Pradke became friends with the Army recruiter who regularly visited the school, and bet him he couldn't get the Army Band to perform at the school within 30 days. The recruiter promised to get the band there if on the condition Pradke would audition. "Sure enough," recalls Pradke, I get a call: "The Army Band is coming to your school."
Although he thought he would come into the Army and play a horn for his career, the military had a different path in store for Pradke. He spent his first duty assignment with the Army Band in Germany.
After a deployment to Bosnia, Pradke was exposed to the bigger Army and wanted more. Pradke applied for officer candidate school. "I already had my degree and had done almost two years as an enlisted Soldier," said Pradke.
After OCS and graduating from the Transportation officer basic course, Pradke went on deployments to Bosnia, Kuwait, and Iraq. He commanded a company and later migrated into functional area 30, Information Operations. After many temporary duty trips and four deployments, Pradke told his assignment officer he needed some stability. He worked out a deal with his assignment officer and landed at Fort Leavenworth for resident Command and General Staff College.
The accident occurred three weeks before he was supposed to make an Army level presentation to Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster Jr., currently the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Pradke does volunteer work with high school music students in Indiana. He and his family were travelling there for that reason when the accident took place. "This is my way of staying in touch and giving back to our youth," said Pradke.
Pradke was left with several injuries. He had three fractured metatarsals on his right foot; a broken femur; a broken hip; one inch leg differential; broken L1 spinal cord; three broken ribs; a dislocated thumb; TBI; anxiety; and depression. His wife and children suffered injuries as well. His son, 4 years-old at the time, lost his right arm.
He woke up three days later to start the long road to rehabilitation. Adaptive reconditioning plays a large role in Pradke's continued recovery. AR covers many domains: social, physical, spiritual, family, career, and emotional. The most influential for him is the emotional.
"The emotional domain is the most important," he explained. "Modern medicine can put us together again physically, but we're not really capable of figuring out how to address the emotional needs of every single individual who's been through any type of trauma. It has to happen on the individual's terms."
This realization came at a time when Pradke was asking himself some tough, life-altering questions. "Is my family better off without me?" he pondered. "I don't believe that I should have survived. I finally said something has to happen or I'm going to end up being a statistic, a statistic that the Army's trying to avoid. I now know how the pit can get dug so deep, that they feel like there's no way of crawling out."
Feeling out of place, like he didn't belong, on March 1, Pradke approached the physical therapist working with adaptive reconditioning at his WTU for the first time. He asked her if it was too late for him to get to the Army Trials. The PT said it was too late, but she would see what she could do.
"Literally, I put all of my hope into the next four days for the answer if I was going to make it into the games," explained Pradke. He in fact did make it in, and won his first gold medal in cycling on April 2. "I saw a light at the end of the tunnel," he said. "It was like someone flipped on a switch, and I know what direction to go in now."
"This program has given me the emotional strength to realize that I can do it [recover], and that I will do it," he said. "In a matter of time I will be able to apply this and do what I do best, and that is helping other people." Pradke intends to start his own business helping veterans dealing with similar issues.
A few days ago he watched a double-amputee learn how to swim for the first time. "Where else can you get that kind of experience?" he asked. "Every single day there are miracles to be experienced. And those miracles are emotional."
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