PAIGE
As crazy as the week already was, we decided to try to go to the Auburn vs. Texas A&M football game for our last event. I had never been to an Auburn game before, but I had easily become a huge fan after the response of the university when our photo with the president went viral. People from the alumni association, athletics, and student veterans offices were constantly inviting us to special events on campus. At the time of their requests, I couldn’t even imagine Josh putting pants on, let alone traveling on an airplane to visit Auburn University. As time went on, however, more and more requests came in. We received letters in the mail about Josh finishing his bachelor’s degree. HA! I thought. Once they see the GPA he’s bringing in, they will retract that offer in a heartbeat. Ignoring my discouraging attitude, they kept pursuing Josh as a student.
When we confirmed that we would be able to go to the football game, Auburn University made an event of it. As Josh would say, they treated us like five-star recruits. Rick Nold, my former volleyball coach at Jacksonville State, had been newly hired as Auburn volleyball’s head coach. He and Eysha Ambler, his assistant coach, began the day giving us a campus tour. Then we met up with Kate Larkin in the alumni association, who had deployed several of her friends in Washington, DC, to check on us and make sure we had plenty of Auburn stuff while we were in the hospital. She introduced us to pretty much anyone at Auburn who could help us with moving, enrolling in classes, or finding a parking spot! I loved Kate from the moment I met her, but I also thought she was crazy for thinking Josh was going to sign up for more school once we got out of the hospital. We then met up with the head football coach, Gene Chizik, who not only showed us great hospitality but shared a wonderful story about his father, who was a Bronze Star recipient.
Our tour moved on to the lobby of Cater Hall, where we chatted with our tour group and rested up for the game. At some point the question came up: “So, Josh, what do you plan to do with your life after you get out of the military?” It was all I could do to not roll my eyes at them. I just thought, Look, this guy tried college and it didn’t go well. He never went to school and hated sitting in a classroom taking notes. That’s why he joined the Army—no note taking. He is not going back to school. Josh gave some kind of response that alluded to not really having a plan. The group looked at each other as if they were hoping he would say that. We were then presented with literature on scholarships and veteran benefits at Auburn University. We talked through his GPA, the number of credit hours he would need for a degree, and the classes he could possibly skip. There had already been a few Auburn graduates who had taken advantage of funding outside of the GI Bill to get school paid for. According to their research, we weren’t going to have to pay a dime. We sat there a little shell-shocked with all this information. Those people smiled and stared like they had just told us we had won a free trip to Hawaii. I finally took a deep breath and said, “Would you excuse us a minute, please?” Josh and I went out into the foyer. I asked him, “What did you gather from all that?”
Josh said, “Uh, sounds like I’m going to Auburn when we are done with Walter Reed!” with an implied duh at the end.
For the first time, we had a post–Walter Reed destination. We didn’t know when, but we were headed to the Loveliest Village on the Plains. War Eagle to that!
CHAPTER THIRTEENA THOUGHT
What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love him.
—1 Corinthians 2:9
JOSH
By the end of November, we had successfully traveled to Boston, Alabama, and Washington, braving planes, subways, trains, taxis, and even a Boston duck boat. We proved our competency with managing meds and traveling with a wheelchair and canes, and we had zero mishaps. It might not seem like a big deal, but a lot of soldiers would leave for trips like these and then come back practically on house arrest. After their time at home, they would return to square one with physical therapy because they stayed in their wheelchairs the whole time. Or, they would go back to their units for redeployment or a military ball, and something bad would happen on a hard night of partying. Our command and our therapists had noticed that we were handling our independence well, so they recommended an adaptive sports trip to ski in Breckenridge, Colorado. “Like a fun trip?” Paige asked. Not that the others weren’t fun, but there was a mission behind the trip home: We went to see and encourage people. Now, this trip was going to be just for pure enjoyment and to learn something new. Neither of us had done any real skiing, so we signed up to ski Breckenridge in the December snow.
Paige and I were on the slopes for almost eight hours a day. That was my first time trying to ski. I’m not sure how monoskiing compares to skiing on legs,
