Two years ago this month, U.S. Army 1st Lt. Brian Brennan was leading a patrol in Afghanistan when he suffered devastating injuries from the detonation of an improvised bomb.
Brennan suffered a collapsed lung, internal bleeding and a ruptured spleen and had both his legs amputated.
Part of the road back for the 23-year-old has included an innovative program at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that uses yoga as physical therapy, and as an emotional support system.
“It meant so much to me. It raised my morale,” said Brennan, who has stayed in the Army. “It helped me stretch muscles I didn’t know I had. I got more relaxed and focused. It helped me clear my mind, and I found the hope to go on with my [physical] therapy.” Brennan has made a remarkable recovery and now runs with the aide of prosthetic legs.
“For the guys, it reminds them that they are whole the way that they are now,” said Annie Okerlin, who started the yoga classes in 2006 as part of the work of the Exalted Warrior Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
It teaches wounded vets that they are still strong they way they are,” she said. “They learn to find comfort in themselves and their own body. For me, it’s a way of thanking them for all they’ve put themselves through and for sacrificing so much.”
Okerlin hopes to see the therapy program, known as warrior yoga, expand to veterans hospitals nationwide.
It is available for a range of veterans seeking therapy, no just soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Vietnam War vet Don Hartigan, 60, has taken up the therapy.
“I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder,” Hartigan said. “The yoga definitely helps me to relax and brings me peace. Before all I had was medications, but the yoga has helped me feel 100 percent better.”
Daniel E. Hickman, a yoga instructor who teaches on Tuesday and Thursday at Walter Reed, said the classes “help everyone, including the families of veterans, who are the main caretakers and suffer as well.”
“Yoga is for everybody. It’s something you can do anywhere,” Hickman said. “All you need is yourself and the willingness to heal.”
(More information on the Exalted Warrior Foundation can be found at yogani.com.)
