I am a combat wounded Vietnam veteran, USMC.(1968-1969.) Twenty years after returning from Vietnam, I was diagnosed with PTSD. My life was out of balance. I was angry and emotionally disconnected and not living a healthy lifestyle. About 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with heart desease. Due to an accident, surgery on my lower spine and degenerative disc desease, I lived with constant pain. Four years ago I was introduced to Yoga and immediately fell in love. I have since become a certified yoga teacher and yoga has changed my whole life. Today I have improved all my health issues.

I was introduced to yoga by my sister (a yoga teacher) and was immediately attracted to the physical and mental relaxation. Yoga was a window into the many tensions I held and helped me release these tensions. Regular yoga classes improved my flexibility, reduced tension, increased my body awareness, and helped me heal quicker from soreness and injury. But yoga was also something I could take with me anywhere. During Army Special Forces training, yoga helped me recover from the rigors of training while still in the field. I used breathing and meditative yoga practices to relax and refocus during deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Later, I became a certified yoga teacher, finding deeper personal meaning in my yoga practice and an enjoyment to share yoga with others. Now as a doctoral student in sport psychology, I see that yoga's holistic self-development method is in keeping with the recommended practices of sport psychology experts and resear ch literature. Yoga, at its best, not only improves performance as a soldier, but facilitates your life as a whole.

I am currently on my 2nd tour in Iraq and 4th deployment since 9/11. I first tried Yoga in April 2008 after seeing a picture of a former professional wrestler who now teaches Yoga. The moment I tried it I was hooked, buying all kinds of videos, audios, and books. I have had a daily practice ever since. Here at Camp Taji we have a fairly strong Yoga community that practices together three times a month. My back has never felt better and my outlook on life has been brighter this deployment compared to the last one.

In 2003 I volunteered to go to Afghanistan, during my tour I was tasked with moving Taliban prisoners from austere air bases to central confinement containment facilities often times coming under enemy fire. In one such encounter I herniated two disks in my upper back, when I got back I went to see an orthopedic surgeon, he told me the herniation was pushing up against my spinal cord which was causing me all the pain. He suggested surgery but said I could try other options first, I sought out other options. I went to physical therapy which was helping but I still had pain, then one of the therapists suggested I try Yoga, I thought to myself that it's better then surgery and gave it a try. I have never looked back, I really do feel ten years younger. The new guys in my squadron think I'm much younger than I am due to my Yoga practice.

I am currently on my second tour in Iraq. My first tour was in Al Asad, and I flew over 500 hours in an ejection seat aircraft. My body was killing me and needed a rebalancing. I was not the only one feeling the discomfort. I have always been a fan of yoga, but there were no classes offered for my time schedule or on the south side of the airfield. I started working on my certification and taught classes on the roof top of our headquarters building. It was called "Combat Yoga" to encourage the Marines to partake in the class. I got so much feedback from the students that it was requested that I keep teaching once we redeployed. Now I am currently in Baghdad and teach the same class here. The class has grown from 15 people on the first day of class to over 40 people, for many of which this is their first yoga experience.

I have served in the Army Reserves for 22 years. During this time, I served in Operation Desert Shield/Storm. After returning from Saudi Arabia, I experienced symptoms of PTSD that were debilitating. After 9 years of therapy, I understood how PTSD affected me, I could see the emotional storm approaching but was unable to stop the destruction the storm caused until I found my yoga mat 9 years later. I was overwhelmed by the discovery that through my yoga practice, I could manage PTSD symptoms. Therapy helped me understand the emotional storm, yoga gave me the tools to manage the storm so that I could integrate my war experience into my life at home. Since that time, I got certified as a yoga teacher, own a yoga studio, and established a reintegration program for veterans, There & Back Again, which incorporates yoga and meditation. My goal is to share the healing affect yoga can have so that veterans can find immediate relief.