Thesis on "Sports and Society Danielle Green"

Thesis 7 pages (2275 words) Sources: 10

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Danielle Green-Byrd

In the face of tragedy, the human being survives. This is a generalized truth - that our species is nothing if not a survivor. How else could we have prevailed in the ultimate predator contest over the vast millennia of our existence? With no natural weapons, no protections against the elements or nature, the human being is a hairless, toothless, slow, infantile creature next to the wolf, the tiger or the shark. Yet, that which makes us human is what makes us crave life, even in the face of tragedy. This is a generalization - there are innumerable instances of when a person has simply given up, stopped trying or even wanting to live but in the course of human history, that is the exception to the rule. In fact, for many, tragedy translates into a completely reinvigorated dedication to life and living. We have all known someone who turned a personal devastation into an affirmation. Danielle Green, a star athlete, a U.S. Army soldier, and now a dedicated educator and aspiring scholar lost her left arm in an RPG attack in Iraq three years ago and is a prime example of the type of survival turned inspiration; "Life is full of challenges, it's all in the way you handle it...it's so easy to get down on yourself and lock yourself in the room and throw away the key, but I refuse to do that." The human spirit, then, is what allows us to triumph and seek greater meaning and purpose and spurs us on to make more of ourselves; we never truly value a thing until it is gone from our lives.

War creates a truly staggering level of tragedy on all levels of society, from the individual to the entire world. It has the distinction of being the one socially acceptable method of state-sponsored violence that encourages the maiming and killing of human life on a truly massive scale. The level of systemic trauma that the participants, bystanders, victims and relations to those involved is such that the psychological damage is every bit as brutal as the physical. War is, for want of a more poetic definition, an assault on everything that makes a society function and an absolute violation of the gift of human life.

While the dead do not carry the war home, their friends and relatives do; and it is they that suffer often to the level of finding that life no longer holds meaning for them. Tragedy, then, can find its way into the lives of anyone connected to war, in any number of manners.

For women, there is a complicating factor when the body no longer functions in the way(s) it used to; "American society for women is so visually oriented and what you see on the outside is what you get...for myself, I struggled very much with that in the beginning because I didn't feel like a whole person anymore." For Danielle Green-Byrd the course of her life changed dramatically in a literal blink of an eye. Going from hard-working, dedicated soldier on patrol in Baghdad to a left-arm (her dominant one) amputee recovering on a bed in Germany was certainly a traumatic experience. Hers was the kind of injury that you only partially recover from - the loss of parts of your body force a change in function that can never be truly regained. "On the afternoon of May 25, she was alone atop a two-story police station, M-16 rifle at her side, feeling as if she would melt in the 110-degree heat. Suddenly, two rocket-propelled grenades hit a barrier on the ground and exploded. She grabbed her rifle, but it was too late. A third grenade pierced her left arm." The loss of her arm would result in changing her entire method of thought and muscle-brain memory for just about every activity in life that we all take for granted: writing, dialing a phone, driving a car, dressing ourselves: none of these things would prove to be impossible for Danielle, but the challenge associated with rebuilding those skills, with relearning how to function without that which she had taken for granted was a true heart-testing challenge.

Psychology, then, is at the heart of "recovery" from trauma. Wounds heal - those that don't result in death - so with "modified" bodies, people go on with their lives. How they manage those lives post-trauma is greatly influenced by their psychological makeup.

Our sense of self, our identity, what we perceive our intrinsic value to be all inform, but not necessarily dictate our recovery from personal loss. "Danielle has always been a strong-willed and courageous person who has faced numerous challenges throughout her life." Danielle said in an interview, "even putting on a bra, a bra, that can be a challenge but I do it. A skirt. I'm starting to wear skirts now. That's a challenge. You figure out ways. And I think this has taught me how to be very, very patient with myself. Very patient," Psychologically, Danielle Green-Byrd has been generally exceptional in her resolve to overcome the problems facing her changes in life. Who you are before tragedy has a great deal to do with who you will be after it has struck. "A native of Chicago, Ill., Green graduated from Notre Dame in May 1999 with a bachelor's degree in psychology from the College of Arts and Letters. She was a two-time selection to the BIG EAST Conference Academic All-Star Team and was named the BIG EAST Player of the Week on Nov. 23, 1998.."

But, these are the words and quotes about Danielle from a distance of time. In the months of recovery that followed the injury, Danielle was less philosophical about her injury. "I'm not going to lie, I didn't understand the mission, the purpose. If you understand what you're fighting for, then you've got something to hang on to. But we didn't even have that. I think if I hadn't lost my arm, I would have lost my mind. It was enough to drive you insane, and I think that's where I might have been headed." Danielle was a reluctant patriot. She wanted to serve her country, she wanted to be part of a much larger world than her own. She wanted to escape from a life with a drug-addicted mother. She set her sites on the military early. "I was 6 or 7 years old the first time I saw my mom smoke reefer," Green said. "Then it got to be an everyday thing. And then I saw her smoke out of a crack pipe. I went to my room and cried. But I also made up my mind that day what I was going to do with my life. I wrote down some goals. I wanted to go to Notre Dame someday, and I wanted to be GI Joe in the military." This would be a stark contrast to the same woman who a year later would be the Grand Marshal of Chicago's Memorial Day Parade.

At the time of the injury, Danielle was just Danielle Green (still single) and had joined the army as a reservist in a non-combat supply division. She reported looking forward to her weekends of reserve duty and did not balk at being called up to become part of combat operations in Iraq. "On May 25, 2004, U.S. Army Specialist Green was working security detail on a rooftop of a police station in Baghdad, when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) from enemy fire blew off her left arm. "I started praying to God," Green said. "I said, God, I'm only 27 years old; I'm not ready to die. Don't let me die."After the injury, her feelings toward the military and her time in Iraq were markedly different. Her recovery was not easy; Green was strong but not inhumanly so. Green, "could be in a bad mood and felt it was O.K. To show that," but, while in recovery, Danielle met April Holmes, the bronze medal winner of the 2004 Paralympics long-jump. It was through April that Danielle began to see a light in the fog of her pain, disappointment and disillusionment. Holmes, who lost her left leg in a train accident. "Since her accident, April has made remarkable strides as both an athlete and advocate for individuals with disabilities. A little more than a year after her accident, April was back on the track in her debut Paralympic competition."

April opened Danielle's eyes to an entirely new world of possibilities - she had spent four months deeply within a depression that seemed at times to result in her being little more than fatalistic and declining, Danielle made a determination to get out of the hospital and begin training for the 2005 Paralympics. Though she knew she would never play basketball at the same level again, there was still the strong, capable athlete inside. After release from the hospital, Danielle returned to Chicago where she began the process of… READ MORE

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