Injured in 2005 during his third deployment to Iraq in three years, former Kokomo resident Joel Hunt nearly lost his will to live.
He joined the Army after graduating from Northwestern High School in 1998. Seven years later, he was injured by a road-side blast that left him with a severe traumatic brain injury.
Paralyzed on his left side and confined to a wheelchair for a year, Hunt said he felt helpless for the first time in his life, and he didn’t like it.
“I hated my life,” he said in an email from his home in Denver, Colo. “I wished that I had died.
“I was always the man that provided for my soldiers,” he continued. “And now I had to swallow my pride and ask for help. I felt little and overly depressed. I was mad at society.”
Hunt said he sank into depression. He also suffered from post traumatic stress disorder remembering all the soldiers he left behind.
“Night after night, I laid in the dark remembering all my buddies that didn’t come home,” he said. “I felt guilty when I saw the families of my buddies who were killed in Iraq. I couldn’t get the memories of my dead buddies out of my head.”
Before his injury, Hunt said he never really appreciated what people with disabilities endured on a daily basis, but soon found a new respect for their plight.
“When I came home, I found a new respect for [disabled people] ’cause now I know first-hand how difficult it is,” he said. “My parents were my biggest supporters. They constantly motivated me to get out of the house and get active.”
That’s how he got involved in a ski camp for the disabled.
“I never skied before in my life,” he said. “I am from the small town of Kokomo. I’m definitely a hick. I didn’t ski or golf, and I still don’t golf. I was always under the impression that skiing and golfing were for rich people. What I didn’t realize is that skiing would change my life.”
On Dec. 17, 2008, Hunt learned how to ski at the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center in Colorado.
From there, he went on to become a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Paralympic Military Development Team. He’s now the fifth-ranked adaptive skier in the nation and 50th in the world.
“Skiing is a way of rehabilitating and getting off of medications,” he said. “It shows others that people can improve their situation through a good work ethic and constant training. My favorite saying is, ‘Train like you’re the worst skier in the world and race like a champion.’”
On top of being one of the top adaptive skiers in the nation, Hunt will be presented the Purple Heart today in a ceremony in Colorado.
Hunt said he was proud to receive the award, but said the real heroes are the soldiers who didn’t make it home.
“I’m not a hero. I’m just a kid that did his job and felt if I didn’t do the right thing all the time, I would have to live with it,” he said. “The Purple Heart is awarded to the man in the wrong place at the wrong time — point blank. I know a lot of soldiers that deserve this a lot more than I do.
“It’s my hope that by setting the example, others will realize that tough times don’t last, tough people do.”
• Mike Fletcher, Tribune crime reporter, may be reached at 765-454-8565 or via email at mike.fletcher@kokomotribune.com
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