FORT BLISS, Texas - "Without competition, you will never see where you stack up or know how much you still have to grow."
Spc. Nicholas Cathcart is always looking for ways to grow and according to him, this means getting stronger and facing your fears, a motto commonly found in the Army.
"All of the early mornings and late nights or days without sleep. The cold, the heat and all the physical strain has made me stronger than most people I know," Cathcart said. "I don't sit around and cry and complain when I'm miserable, I work to make my situation better. Life is sweeter if you suffer a little. I love the challenge of being in the Army."
Cathcart has endured his fair share of injury challenges including tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, in his left knee multiple times. The first tear came after an accident involving a dodgeball and a trampoline in 2012. The second came two months after surgery to repair the first tear when a driver blew through an intersection while texting and struck Cathcart's vehicle at roughly 40 miles per hour. Five months after the second surgery Cathcart was back training. In 2016, he found himself in an all too familiar situation when he tore his ACL for a third time during a deployment to Lithuania.
"Toward the end of the deployment, we were playing football for physical training in the morning and I managed to re-tear my ACL. After we got back, even with the injury, I was still training to gear up for an upcoming deployment to Poland when my leg gave out and I fell into a trench before a live fire exercise." Cathcart recalled. "It was at that point that my leadership pulled me from the deployment and I was sent to Joint Base Lewis-McChord's Warrior Transition Battalion to get my knee fixed and actually heal. The WTU has been a great place for me to recover from both of those surgeries. After seven years in the infantry, I can get all the aches and pains looked at so when I go back to the regular Army I will be stronger than when I got to the WTU," he said.
During his recovery at JBLM, Cathcart, an avid athlete since high school, says he immediately dove into a variety of adaptive reconditioning sports including; archery, shot put, swimming and wheelchair basketball.
"The biggest thing I've learned is how my body moves and reacts to adaptive sports and how to work around my injuries. Now I know the fundamentals and I'm growing every day and continuing to push my boundaries," Cathcart said.
This week, the Indiana native along with more than 74 other wounded, ill, and injured athletes are at Fort Bliss, Texas to compete in the 2018 Army Trials March 3-8. Soldiers and veterans will compete in 10 events with hopes of earning a spot on Team Army for the 2018 Department of Defense Warrior Games, June 2- 9 in Colorado Springs, Colo.
"The competition found throughout the trials and the games motivates me to be the very best I can be every day. Competition has helped me remain sane while undergoing my surgeries and recovery. Without it, I would have been overwhelmed by the pain and suffered more throughout the process," Cathcart said.
Cathcart says the biggest lesson doesn't involve winning gold medals, it's about your attitude in life and staying positive.
"Just because your down doesn't mean you're out. Always remember, when things get tough, take a deep breath, focus and start again."
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