Wounded veterans and families find healing and support in Vail

The Vail Veterans Program hosted 80 participants for its Winter Family Program earlier this week. Seventeen wounded veterans, 17 spouses or companions, 45 children and one hospital staff member rounded out the group.

Everyone enjoyed ski and snowboard lessons with the instructors from Vail Ski and Snowboard School by day and delicious dinners and fun activities like bowling by night.

Since 2004, the Vail Veterans Program has offered military injured and their families outdoor programs like skiing and snowboarding during the winter and fly-fishing, horseback riding, golf and zip lining in the summer. The Vail Veterans Programs believes that mountains can heal people and has seen the changes that occur in the participants throughout the duration of the programs. It builds confidence, creates life-long relationships and allows wounded vets to feel the freedom of doing a sport with their families.

Josue Barron, a corporal in the U.S. Marine Corps, came with his family of five to enjoy the freedoms of being on the hill and doing a sport as a group. Barron and his wife, Debbie, are not new to the Vail Veterans Program — they had attended a ski week in 2013.

“My wife and I had such a great time in 2013 but then we started having kids and next thing you know we have four kids, and many programs only take the veteran and their spouse or partner or maybe one child during their programs,” Barron said.

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Barron had kept in touch with the Vail Veterans Program and noticed on its social media pages that the organization invited bigger families.

“So, I reached out to Robin Yazzie at the Vail Veterans Program and told her how I had four kids and that I know a lot of trips are not for big families like mine but said if you guys can make it happen I’d really appreciate it,” Barron said. “The next thing you know, she replied and asked if we were available for the January program and I said, ‘Yes, we’ll drop everything to make this happen.'”

Barron and his wife have four boys. Leon is 8, Troy is 7, James is 5 and Henry is 1 and is in daycare. The older three boys enjoyed ski and snowboard lessons during their week in Vail.

Barron is one of seven kids raised by a single mother in Los Angeles. At 14, he joined a gang but by 2007 Barron was turning 18 and decided to join the Marine Corps and turn his life around. On Oct. 21, 2010, Barron lost a leg and an eye due to an IED blast while on patrol in Afghanistan while serving with the famed 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment also known as the “Darkhorse” Battalion, which suffered the worst casualty rate of any Marine unit in the Afghanistan War.

“I ended up at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego and started my rehab and from there they introduced us to different adaptive sports and all these different winter sports that I had never done before or even thought you could do with a disability,” Barron said.

When Barron came to the Vail Veterans Program in 2013, he tried mono-skiing.

“I only had vision in one eye and during that time my vision in my right eye was kind of hazy and my disability was still so new,” Barron said.

He tried out for the mono-ski sport in the Paralympics but that didn’t work out so he went back home to California and started playing wheelchair basketball through the Challenged Athletes Foundation and Operation Rebound.

“I took that seriously and I got really competitive but when I started having a family, I wanted to do an individual sport that I could do from home and be with my family more so I got into hand cycling and now I’m competing in Paracycling at the highest level” Barron said.

“After I was injured, if it wasn’t for these programs that keep me motivated and keep me active, who knows what I would have gotten myself into, you know?” Barron said.

Although Barron is passionate about his sports, he is the happiest when his family can be involved and he can do things with them.

“I think my goal at this program is really more about my kids than it is about me. I’m so happy for them to get the lessons and to enjoy the sport. It is something that I want them to do for the rest of their lives,” Barron said.

His kids love watching their dad have fun on the slopes, too.

“Sometimes they are worried or nervous about me, and say, ‘Oh, dad, be careful’ but they know that I’m always training and I’m always doing something to keep myself physically fit,” Barron said.

Barron’s next goal is to make the Team USA Hand Cycling team and hopefully make it to the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in September in France. He hopes to qualify in Texas in April and then compete at World Cup races in Belgium and Italy.

“That’s one thing, when you get injured, you have to find something, whatever it is. For me it was being a competitive athlete. So, focusing my mind on goals and that has kept me focused and I’ve always looked for a goal and I’ve never looked back,” Barron said.

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Barron credits organizations like the Vail Veterans Program, Challenged Athletes Foundation and Operation Rebound with supporting his dreams and creating his new normal.

“It is like a family and when you are down, they are there to pick you up and help you out,” Barron said. “And then that motivates you to be a better person because there are so many people who are behind you and supporting you that it just motivates you to do the right thing and be the best that you can be because that’s the way that you show that everything they’ve done for you has worked.”

This season the Vail Veterans Programs is celebrating 20 years of serving the military injured and their families. The next program is the Winter Mountain Adventure program in March followed by summer family programs in July and August and a golf program in August. To learn more, go to VailVeteransProgram.org.