 All right, hello everybody, it's Brian Love with DAV and today we're interviewing Tom Davis, who's a DAV member, Army veteran and Paralympian who will be competing in Tokyo Japan during the Olympics next month. He also competed in Rio in 2016, where I believe you finished fourth and sixth. Do you mind telling our audience of what you competed in and how it went four years ago? Yeah, that's competing in para-cycling, specifically sport of hand cycling, competing in the Rio Paralympics in 2016, and I actually got fifth and sixth. I know that the Team USA website says fourth, and that's what everybody says, but I don't want to take credit where it's not due. Well, thank you for correcting me and also pointing out that it wasn't all my fault. It's on there and everybody says that, so. To go back just a little bit when thank you for that information, tell us a little bit about your career in the Army, and if you're willing, how you got hurt and kind of how you've gone from there to where you are today. I joined back in 2002, I was stationed in Germany, got to Germany right right before the invasion of Iraq, and left shortly after did two deployments. When I was my second deployment, we were in Ramadi and doing a nighttime patrol and home V ran over IED and got blown up and lost my left leg above the knee, broke my right leg, broke both my arms, fractured a bunch of vertebrae in my back, banged my head up pretty good, all that good stuff. That's quite the laundry list. I can only imagine I was in the Marine Corps, never experienced anything like that. What was that like when the reality hit you that maybe at that time you thought life would never be the same or what that transition was? Was there a transition from when there obviously was, but can you walk us through that transition from those early moments to competing at a global stage? Yeah, it was definitely a long process and I know this is something that a lot of veterans deal with is when they get out for whatever reason, what do I do now? What's my purpose? The military, even though I was only in for a short time, I was only in for about four years when I got hurt. It was what I wanted to do. I could definitely see myself staying in full 20. I loved it, I loved everything about it. And then in one instant, it seemed like everything was ripped away from me. So I definitely dealt with a lot of depression and PTSD and all that struggling with, okay, what's my purpose? What's my identity? So to go from that back in 2006 to where I am now, it was definitely not an easy road. It was a very, very rough, especially at the beginning. The first couple of years was very, very rough. I can only imagine in the, I think most veterans, especially when you said the word identity, I mean that really stuck out to me as far as you get so associated with the uniform and your job and most importantly, maybe the people you're around, then that's gone. And then that's just the mental side. Physically, obviously you went through a gauntlet of stuff. Could you speak a little bit to the physical side of that and did the mental and physical side coincide as far as healing? Did one happen without the other? Were they running parallel or was the mental side, you think somebody had to tackle first and physically came along after that? Does that make sense? Yeah, I think the physical side was something that I definitely, you know, laying in a hospital bed because I actually didn't lose my leg right away. It was a decision that I made at Walter Reed about a month later. And I think I spent almost six weeks in a hospital bed, not being able to move. My leg was in a big contraption and I couldn't go anywhere, just stuck in a room. And then after that, I spent another, I spent almost 15 months total at Walter Reed. So going through all that, trying to train my body back up to be, you know, my goal was to go back on duty and to go back to, you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, whatever and fight and lead soldiers. And that was my goal for the longest time until I realized that physically I wasn't going to be able to do it. It wasn't necessarily losing my leg, it was all the other injuries. My back ended up having to be fused together. I dealt with a lot of back pain, migraines, you know, just chronic pain that wouldn't go away. And ultimately that's what led me to retire from the military. I was joining a program where they would send me back to college and help me get my master's degree at Fort Leavenworth. And through that, when I was trying to go back to school and everything, just the migraines and just physical problems and everything just kind of culminated. And eventually I just decided it was in my best interest to retire and move on to other things. Yeah, I can only imagine that's a difficult decision, but a special breed to have that goal to get back. First of my further, I think it's in a lot of veterans, but I'm glad that even if it didn't work out, that they had to be a good goal that kept going hopefully during those tough times to give you something to strive for. You know, you talked about the mental aspect of it. And I think that's something that's really overlooked by, you know, like service members and veterans and people in general don't understand until it happens how much it messes with you mentally. To, you know, I remember driving back home from the hospital every day. And when we lived out in Walter Reed, we lived in Silver Springs. And we had an apartment out there and every day driving home, there's like a little highway and to get off the exit, there was always a big pothole right in the middle of the road. And like I remember driving home every day and it would play in my head as I get a blow up. You know, those kind of things are going to us a crowded taking my kids. I remember like a Fourth of July being at a, you know, like a city park with a ton of people and just feeling like all that anxiety and just being around everybody. And just it's something that, you know, people can't see it so they don't really understand it and they can't, you know, like foretell that it's going to happen. You know, you can't anticipate that, you know, I'm going to go here and I'm going to, you know, it's going to mess with my head. And then I'm going to turn around and take it out on my family or something like that. It's, you know, mentally it was definitely, it definitely took a lot longer to recover from than the physical, you know, injuries and everything. You said you joined in 2002. Obviously we're coming up on the anniversary, called an anniversary of 9-11, 2001. Did that have anything to do with you joining the army or is the army something you always wanted to do? You know, I was, yes and no. I was in a pretty bad place in my life when I joined the military. I went to college. I have, you know, I have a bachelor's degree in marketing and business management. But when I was in college I really got into partying and drinking and everything and it just, it didn't stop and it led me down a really bad road to where I couldn't hold jobs. And I just really, really struggled in life. And I was, I was, I was sitting at home one night and I was watching TV and the Army of Best Ranger competition came on. And I was sitting there. I didn't have a job. I'm like 26 years old. I'm living at my parents' house without a job. And I said, that's what I want to do. And went and seen the recruiter the next day and enlisted a couple months later. So I mean, I mean, yes and no, 9-11 played an impact on it. I don't know if I would have wanted to do it as much if, you know, everything wouldn't have been, you know, like going on and, you know, they might not even have shown that Best Ranger competition if it hadn't been for 9-11 and stuff like that. So tell us a little bit of the audience about what you're going to compete in in Tokyo. When they might be able to catch you on TV and what are your expectations of that experience? So Tokyo is the opening ceremony started on the 23rd. And but I will, I actually won't race until the 31st, the 31st, September 1st, and possibly a third race on the 2nd. When we actually won't be in Tokyo, we're going to be up on the Fuji Motor Speedway, which is like a Formula 1 racetrack. So that's going to be a pretty awesome experience. We're about three hours outside of Tokyo. So I actually don't know the broadcast schedules or anything like that. I don't know what they're going to show if it'll be streamed. Before I forget, tell the audience a little bit about your website and where they can learn more about Tom Davis and all the things you've done like the Boston Marathon. Yeah, tomdavisparacycling.com. If you go on there, it's got a little bit of information about me, lots of other articles and contact information, race results, all that kind of stuff. Awesome. Outstanding. We're going to make sure we get that in the text as well with this post. Try to point as much traffic as we can to you. I know I appreciate your time trying to think of anything else. I guess I want to ask, you know, from all that you've been through, not just army, no pre-army even, if there's a veteran out there watching this that maybe is struggling with depression or PTSD or just simple anxiety, not simple anxiety, it's not simple. What would you have advice for them? What would be the one thing that you would want them to take away from seeing this video? You know, when I talked about like struggling with my identity and stuff like that, it led me down the road to find God. And that would be my biggest suggestion is to, you know, my faith has got me through so much, like it's changed me, you know, my wife used to talk about, she couldn't even like talk to me, she couldn't be around me, she's scared of the kids, like if I was going to flip out on the kids and what I was going to do and to see like where I've, where God has taken me, like I don't, I don't think any of this is an accident. I don't think any of this is, you know, chance and it gets him leaving me down the path of where he wanted me to go. But, you know, that's obviously my biggest, that would be my biggest suggestion. And then the other thing is don't give up. There's, you know, there's nothing that you're going through that other people haven't went through. There's people out there to help you. There's people out there that you can talk to. I mean, look me up. I'll do whatever I can or I'd do it. I can to point you in the right direction of people that can help you and that kind of stuff. And, and it's hard. And just, just don't give up. You know, I was, I was, I was training in the other day and it was, it was going through a really hard ride and I remember seeing this, this car and on the side of the car, it says, don't give up before the miracle. You know, so just don't give up. Just hang in there. I mean, I know it's hard. Trust me. I know it's hard. I've, I've contemplated a lot of bad things, but don't give up. That's a beautiful, beautiful phrase. Don't give up before the miracle because, you know, if you do, it's not going to happen. Honestly, if I love that.