Team USA’s archers ‘don’t want a safe space’ at Invictus. They want to compete.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The medal ceremony for archery was held on a stage tucked neatly at one end of the HP Field House at ESPN Wide World of Sports. In the seats behind the stage, crowds of people draped in their country’s colors cheered on the competitors, some waving flags, others with noisemakers and horns. The archery competition took place Monday evening, and afterwards, medals won, the archers finally had a moment to pause, reflect, and enjoy the rest of the games.

Monday evening’s medal rounds showed the intensity of the sport at Invictus. Standing in rows facing their targets, competitors drew their bow with whatever adaptation they needed. The armless used a mouth tab. Those who required additional assistance with balance used a shooting stool. But each round showcased the mental and physical precision necessary for nocking the bow, drawing, marking the target, and shooting, with all competitors at the well-practiced peak of their sport.

Nobody failed to shoot the target. Nobody dropped an arrow. Everyone’s focus was total as they enacted the rituals of archery. As one competitor said, unlike team sports, the real battle in archery is within one’s mind. The best competitors, such as the U.S.‘s Chasity Kuczer, showed upper-body strength and agility, and also a connection with the bow as if it was a mental extension of their hands, torso, eyes.

Coached by Jeff Matuszak, team USA’s Invictus Games archery competitors are in Orlando because they have grappled with issues of mental and physical health, and have taken on the additional challenge of being athletes. Kuczer, Team USA’s gold-winning open compound shooter and bronze-winner in novice recurve, gets around the facility with the aid of a motorized chair. Joshua Lindstrom, also a member of the bronze-winning novice recurve team, has a Traumatic Brain Injury that necessitates meditation before each match. Robbie Gaupp, third member of the novice recurve team, has an elbow that is braced by jointed metal. Benjamin Koren, silver medalist in the open compound individual category, has had cancer, twice. And yet here they all are, competing for their country in archery.

SB Nation sat down to a round table with Team USA’s archers to discuss their journeys as servicemembers and athletes. The team emphasized the importance of the greater community of the wounded -- and the power of sports to give them achievable goals.

SB Nation: You were all at the opening ceremony. What did you think of the theme of President Bush’s symposium, the theme for these games -- hidden wounds, like Post-Traumatic Stress or Traumatic Brain Injury?

Lindstrom (retired Sergeant First Class, U.S. Special Operations Command): I think the hidden wounds theme was pretty much spot-on. Nobody really wants to step forward, nobody wants to be outcast from anybody because of the issues they’re going through. And I think that the message the other night was basically to mention, it’s okay, what you’re going through, as long as you come forward and step up. What you don’t say could possibly hurt you in the future.

SB Nation: What’s the biggest benefit that these games have brought to you?

Kuczer (U.S. Army Specialist): They make you feel normal. Because I mean, society, depending on what you have, people don’t understand, and everyone here, they have something. And everyone understands because of what they’re going through, and there’s no judgement. We can just be normal to each other and no one judges.

Lindstrom: It’s like the opposite of a “safe space.” We don’t want a safe space. If you leave your prosthetic laying around, I’m going to kick it over. Normal people don’t understand -- we pick on each other, it’s with love. And nobody wants to get handled with kid gloves. So, it’s nice to be around people who are like that.

Gaupp (retired Sergeant, U.S. Army): I think sometimes people think our disability changes us as people. They look at us odd, and they look at us like, ‘Oh, these people aren’t as good athletes,’ and that’s completely irrelevant. If you think about it, we’re just as good if not better because we work harder to be better. And I think people sometimes misunderstand that.

SB Nation: Along with the work of recovering from your wounds, you’ve all taken on the additional challenge of being athletes. What additional work, physical, or mental, did you take on to be here?

Koren (Master Sergeant, U.S. Air Force): I think it provides healthy goals for us. I’m still in the military, but I can imagine if you’re used to doing your normal daily grind and you have things to occupy your time, and everything just changes. You have an amputated limb that’s totally changed your life. I had cancer, and that totally changed my life. Now I’m getting back kind of to normal, but there are still things -- like I had a spine fusion, I can’t run anymore.

I used to run cross-country and track, they wanted me to try to run here, and I couldn’t do that just based on my surgery, so it does provide things that you’re able to achieve. And anytime you’re doing an athletic event, it’s releasing those endorphins in your brain that make you more positive. Everybody struggles with depression and anxiety whether you’ve had an injury or not, and so it’s a healthy way to help us move forward. It’s been great.

Mark Vomund (Retired, US Army, part of the gold-winning open compound team): I want to hit on that, as well. So, for those who get injured or hurt, to bounce back from a surgery, getting out of the Marine Corps, getting out of the service or whatever, and getting into that depression mode -- I don’t wanna do that anymore, I’m hurt, I’m injured, I’m down. What can I do to pick myself back up?

And these Invictus Games, the trials, the Warrior Games, all give you a purpose, a drive, they give you that motivation. They give you that purpose to get back to being healthy, to get back into shape, get back into competition mode, you’re not out of it yet. You’re still in the fight. You’ve just got to find that determination deep down inside you that you used to have and light that fire again and keep going.

SB Nation: Unlike the Warrior Games, you are all here collectively as Team USA. Is it interesting to be on the same side as with all the different U.S. military branches? Is there some clashing between them all?

McDaniel (retired Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps): I would definitely say that Chasity [Kuczer] and I, we’ve got some history. But honestly, I enjoy it. And I think, me personally, that the Invictus Games are a lot better than the Wounded Warrior organization. And I love the Warrior Games and what it stands for, but, like, the individual element of the Warrior Games ... we all come together, we all do the same thing on the field. But why can’t we come together and fight beside one another on one team?

Gaupp: And then it becomes a real force. As individuals, yeah we’re great. When we come together, we’re pretty much unstoppable, just like America in general. And that’s a great way to go out and win and overcome everything -- as a team.

Kuczer: And with things like this, with [McDaniel] and I, it’s one of those things that -- I’m striving to be better, because I know we have this little feud, it’s bringing out the best, the competitive edge a bit more because we’ve had to compete against each other. But it’s a positive thing, competing with each other, because it’s like, okay, we can kind of help each other out, too.

Koren: A strength that you see is like -- this guy is in the Navy, and he’s really good, and I’m going to have a hard time beating him, and you may see that as a negative thing because they’re so amazing. Well now, that negative thing is a positive thing because they’re your teammate and not your opponent. So it’s like, man, I’m so glad that guy’s on my team now and I don’t have to compete against him!

Our wheelchair basketball team has a lot of guys from the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force, -- there are some tough competitors out there, and now we’re like, “That’s my teammate! He’s on my side, that’s good, because I don’t have to compete against him.”

One thing I like about the Invictus Games is that it challenges a lot of us veterans to do more than one sport. And my inherent sport is cycling, but I was given the opportunity to compete in something that I’m just learning about, archery, and I was given a greater opportunity to push myself to the maximum envelope shooting on a team with a great group of mixed US veterans -- and we’re shooting against Canada, and it was just wonderful to be allowed to get an opportunity to learn a new sport, and it’s a life-learning thing.

Gaupp: And it kind of gets you out of your comfort zone. Like, “Here’s the thing you normally like to do, but we don’t just have that sport for you, you’re going to have to do some other stuff,” and it kind of pushes, like you said, the envelope and gets you out of your comfort zone. And you can’t sit and be complacent and know you’re already good at something. It challenges you and makes you a better person overall.

SB Nation: Each sport, each competition, assigns an ability rating to the athlete, and athletes compete in their own bracket. What do you guys feel about the ability ratings that people are given?

Lindstrom: Here’s the thing with that. We’re here, competing against ourselves, everybody I know. I’m here doing my best against myself. If my best today takes somebody A, great. I’m just here to compete and thankful for the opportunity to do that. I don’t think there’s -- I’m open, so. But I see me, what I do, and if I can contribute to the team I’m happy to be able to do that, but I’m not looking left or right.

You know, you asked about, is this an extra burden, this isn’t a burden. This is the therapy right here. This is how you get better. Once you get hurt, you’ve got to do two things. You’ve got to physically heal, and you’ve got to mentally heal. Mental healing -- it takes doing things outside of your comfort zone. Just like if you want to be a great juggler, you are not going to start juggling chainsaws. You’ll start with oranges -- Or maybe light them on fire. I don’t know, I’d light them on fire. -- but you just can’t go right to chainsaws.

So, I have a Traumatic Brain Injury -- an invisible injury. So I have to learn how to engage the thinking gears in situations that I’ve found myself deficient in. So, I shoot archery, I shoot air rifle and pistol. So, before I shoot, I have to meditate for fifteen minutes. I have to get out of the me that gets angry easily, and get into the me that lets stuff slide, like I used to be. So every time I do that, I build a trail -- into a road -- into a highway -- from angry or an inability to cope with stress, or anxiety, or pain, to overcoming. And every time I overcome something, in spite of what has happened, that’s one more time. One more success makes it easier every time.

SB Nation: Did you listen to President George W. Bush’s symposium on hidden wounds?

Lindstrom: I was not there but I’d be willing to bet that we’d be talking a lot about the same stuff.

SB Nation: What sports to you enjoy spectating here at the games?

Koren: Volleyball for me. I wouldn’t like to compete in it. I’m able-bodied, and I’m not worth the points I’d cost to be on the floor. I do like to play, and most of us like to play events more than they like to watch, but volleyball is just so high speed, so back and forth, and right when you think you know what’s happening, something else happens. It just keeps you at the edge of your seat. They’re going to go take the gold this afternoon, it’ll be great.

Kuczer: Team sports are fun to watch. And some of them -- I haven’t seen rugby or tennis before. I know rugby from able-bodied people, from like my cousins doing that stuff, so I would love to see it the adaptive way in the wheelchairs. Team sports, they get intense, and people are just in full-bore fight mode.

Gaupp: I think team sports draw you in because it’s not about individuals. One person can be great. I play volleyball ... and I’m great. (laughter) But one person can’t win. It takes an entire six people to win that. So it’s like, you go out there and you can say, I’m number 1, but if you go out there alone, you leave alone. It’s better to watch those kinds of sports, because people are not being individuals, they’re actually working together, so.

McDaniel: I’m a huge fan of individual sports. And not to take away from team sports, in team sports you work together just like Robbie was saying, and it’s great. Individually, you have to battle with whatever you’re dealing with that day, so let’s say you’re playing a team sport, you’re having a bad day, and your team is going to pick you up. “Hey man listen, you’re having a bad day, I got your back, we’ll be here for each other.” “Hey man, I appreciate that.”

If you’re doing that shotput, that discus, whatever you’re doing individually, you’ve got to tell yourself calm down, make that one more shot, that one discus shot, make that shotput count, this is what matters here. So, if you’re going through a bad time, you’ve got to find deep within yourself to calm down, make that one long shot, whatever it is individually, you have to go through it. So I’d say, I like individual sports because of that.

Lindstrom: I don’t care what the sport is, I like two moments: when people try something and succeed, and the look on their face when they pick up a medal.

Vomund: I would go into the old, “it’s very individual, and each person is very individual.” It’s not about the gold, I’m very competitive and Chasity knows that because she heard my heart beating during the competition, but it’s not about the medal for me, it’s about watching the guy or gal do something that they weren’t able to do three years ago.

And my hope is that the Invictus Games gets a guy who is sitting in his room right now out the front door.