This area will welcome a rolling group of wounded warriors and supporting bicyclists back to Adams County when the “Face of America” ride returns on Sunday, April 17.

Riders in the 2010 Face of America ride. Photograph by Van Brinson.

More than 400 riders, as many as 80 of them military members wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, will take the two-day, 110-mile challenge from the nation’s Capitol to its most famous battlefield.

“In the Army, somebody’s always got your back; you’ve got 360 (degrees of) protection,” said Army MSgt. John Souza of Duluth, Minn. “Everybody relies on each other when you are down range. You rely on a team and it takes a team effort to accomplish a lot of things. (This ride) is one huge, massive team from all walks of life and all over the country.”





Read B.J. Small’s feature about the World T.E.A.M. Sports‘ Face of America ride, published in the April 6, 2011 edition of the Gettysburg Times.

MARTINSBURG, WV, March 12, 2011 – Bill Czyzewski has found a niche that is a win-win for more than a few parts of his life and for others.

Bunker Hill, WV rider Bill Czyzewski will be participating in the Face of America ride this April.

Two years ago, he met Steve Miller at the Air Show in Martinsburg. Miller told him about a bicycle that the Department of Veterans Affairs had bought for Miller because he was an amputee. Czyzewski, who is also an amputee and a veteran, looked into the program at the Martinsburg VA Medical Center, where he has been going since 1977.

That was the year that Czyzewski decided to have the operation that took away the vestige of his leg below the knee. The limb had deteriorated due to a reduced flow of blood after he was wounded in Vietnam seven years earlier.

Read more of Bill’s remarkable and inspiring story at the Martinsburg Journal-News.

By Eric Frazier, Huffington Post, March 9, 2011

I would never walk again.

Though everyone told me to be positive, the cold facts were painful. The news from my doctor was a harsh reality that tore me up inside, leaving me hollow, my mind spinning and my eyes seeing nothing but a vacant future.

Eric Frazier.

Inspired to serve my nation by the tragedy of the September 11 attacks, I proudly served with the United States Marine Corps, returning from my overseas tour healthy and able bodied. With my fiancée Shenette, a Corps gunnery sergeant, my future in 2005 seemed bright — that is, until the dark day I suffered a severe spinal cord injury that took away my legs and left me learning to live again.

For most people, the road to recovery starts when they enter a rehabilitation hospital. For me, my recovery process started in March 2007, when I left my final rehabilitation hospital and joined a team called World T.E.A.M. Sports. That’s when I accepted the challenge of riding the Face of America Ride — my very first ride — a ride that changed my life!

Read more of Eric’s story at the Huffington Post.

James Benson during the 2009 Adventure TEAM Challenge. Photograph by Kabao Messner.

Dec. 16, 2010 -  The U.S. Olympic Committee added five new members to its board of directors Thursday, including former Microsoft executive Robbie Bach, as part of the restructuring of a leadership group that had been widely criticized the past few years.

Former John Hancock CEO James Benson, four-time Olympian Nina Kemppel, former Visa executive Susanne Lyons and USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean also were voted in at the USOC’s quarterly board meeting.

Read more at the U.S. Olympic Committee Team USA website.

Warrior SOS

Read the full interview with climber Jeff Evans, a participant of the World T.E.A.M. Sports‘ October 2010 Soldiers to the Summit Expedition to Nepal.

Go to CBS 4 Denver to read the full story.

By BOB WOODRUFF, ENJOLI FRANCIS, SUSIE BANIKARIM and JIM HILL

Matt Nyman was told he’d never walk again. He was a Sergeant First Class in the Army in Iraq in 2005 when he lost his right leg and his left foot was crushed in combat.

Read more and watch the video about Matt Nyman, a participant in the October, 2010 World T.E.A.M. Sports‘ Soldiers to the Summit expedition, at ABC World News.

The team training in Colorado at St. Mary's Glacier.

There are some guys and gals here who have never done anything like this. It will be tough. It’s stressful: you, up on a rock face, hanging on a rope on a piece of ice with a 1,000-foot drop on both sides? It’s some serious stuff, a whole different ballgame. — Jeff Evans, World T.E.A.M. Sports‘ Soldiers to the Summit 2010 Expedition

Read the full story at The Denver Post