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Amputee softball team inspires others
The Wounded Warrior Amputee Softball Team practiced at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Monday.
They practice like any other softball team, but each of this team's members have lost a limb or two, and they lost them serving our country.
"I knew the guys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of them are former athletes and would like to get back into a competitive sport and be on a team again," said veteran David Van Sleet, who launched the team last year to inspire other by traveling across the nation, playing only able-bodies opponents.
He says it's not about winning explaining, "Because we've already won. These guys are back into a normal lifestyle."
There are 14 on the team from all over the country. They travel three weekends a month to practice and play games. They're booked until 2014. The team relies on sponsors and donations.
23-year-old Matias Ferreira is the team's catcher. He was wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan just last year.
"I had a broken pelvis, shattered femur, and of course, missing both my legs below the knees," Ferreira said. "I knew that I wasn't going to be a machine gun in the Marine Corps. I was going to miss the camaraderie, my boys, being able to be deployed and be a part of something that's bigger than you."
But he found it again on a different kind of battlefield.
Ferreira added, "To our veterans, I know that they're getting ready for combat and those are the things that go through your mind before you get deployed. What happens if I get injured, if I killed or something? Just think about the present and let the future take care of itself."
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