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Volunteers, hunting group
get injured hunters back in chase for deer hunt
By
Gunnery Sgt. Mark
Oliva,
MCRD Parris Island
YEMASSEE,
S.C. (Oct. 26, 2007) --
Army Capt. Aaron D. Sears listened quietly as the South Carolina
woods woke up Oct. 26. It was a cool Friday morning. The rains just
let up and the dark woods were giving way to shades of gray that would soon
become the dull colors of the piney woods. It was right where he wanted to
be and the spot that just nine months ago, he thought he might never get to
again.
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Sears, a 36-year-old
operating room nurse for the Army, cradled his Weatherby 7 mm-08 rifle. He
shrugged off the chill in his Army-issue tri-color camouflaged patterned
Gore-Tex jacket. His captain’s bars were still proudly displayed. He
looked every bit the officer… down to his neatly-parted blond hair and
cleanly-shaven face.
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“I love the outdoors,” Sears
said in a whisper. “This is where I’m at peace.”
Sears said he’s always had
an infatuation with hunting, but it really took off into a full-blown love
affair when he was 28. That’s when he caught “buck fever.” Squirrel
guns gave way to tack-driving deer rifles and plodding through the woods turned
to scouting excursions, patterning the ghostly whitetailed deer.
That love affair was almost
cut short. Sears injured his back on three separate occasions, the final
time in a car accident. Doctors suggested surgery. When he woke up,
they asked him to move his toes. There was nothing. Doctors weren’t
saying anything.
“I walked into surgery on
the 7th of February,” he said. “I woke up paralyzed from two inches above the
navel. That’s when I discovered what pain was.”
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Doctors couldn’t explain to
Sears what happened. They told him he might be able to walk in two years.
It wasn’t until he was transferred to the Veterans Administration hospital that
he got a straight answer.
“The VA said I was a
complete injury,” he said. “I wasn’t going to walk again.”
That’s when Sears started to
fight back. He started physical therapy right away. He takes 14
different medications every day. He refitted his truck so he can drive
himself. Then he set a goal. He’d get back into the hunt. Somehow,
some way, Sears would again call himself a hunter.
“I realized there are things
I cannot do,” Sears said. “But there are some things I can do, just differently.
“I knew I would hunt again,” he added. “I knew because that’s my safe
place. When I can’t sleep at night, I think about hunting.”
Lowcountry hunters step up.
That’s when Mark Petersen and the Safari Club International Low Country Chapter
stepped in. Petersen had his own experience helping a wheelchair-bound
hunter. He often hunted with a young man who was later paralyzed while at
college. Petersen got him back into the hunt and after that experience, he
brought the idea to the rest of SCI Low Country Chapter.
They hosted Wheelchair Hunts
for the past two years, but this year, they felt called to open their 3rd Annual
Wheelchair Hunt to those who defend their freedoms. The call went out to
bring injured, recovering and wheelchair-bound service members to Nemours
Plantation, just a half hour’s drive from Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris
Island and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
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“One of the biggest reasons
Safari Club exists is to do this thing,” explained Petersen, who is a long-time
member of the chapter. “It’s become the signature event of our chapter.
It’s a great thing to share the sport we love.”
Petersen was quick to point
out that SCI Low Country Chapter didn’t do it all by themselves. A
platoon’s worth of volunteers accompanied each of the guest hunters to the field
for the two-day hunt. Restaurant owners donated food. South Carolina’s
Department of Natural Resources brought out rifles. Local private
plantation owners opened up their lands. Even Benelli USA, manufacturer of
high-grade firearms, sent down Tim Bradley, an exhibition shooter, free of
charge.
And Petersen said they’re
the ones with the biggest smiles. “It gives you goose bumps, doesn’t it?”
he asked excitedly. “I tell people I feel selfish. I get so much more out of it
than those who are hunting.”
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Ernie Dorsey was among the
volunteers. He brought Sears and another wheelchair hunter to Brewton
Plantation. Dorsey’s a field underwriter for an insurance agency with a
rich, white beard, an easy style that matches his smooth Southern drawl and a
boyish fascination with deer hunting. “It’s heart-warming,” Dorsey
explained. “We had Vietnam guys, guys hurt in the line of duty. They were the
most upbeat of any group we’ve had.”
Dorsey set up Sears and
another hunter in ground blinds overlooking corn. Dorsey set up Sears in
his stand and sat with the other hunter who had never hunted before.
Dorsey had praise for the volunteers and awe for the hunters.
“Instead of hunting
themselves, they’re out here helping others to hunt,” Dorsey said. “Only a
coach or a mentor can understand it. You put a spark into somebody.”
Still, he shrugged of the time spent helping. For him, it was nothing.
“It’s not a burden,” Dorsey added. “You can see the appreciation in their faces.
That feeling is better than harvesting a great deer yourself.”
Buck fever sets in… again.
Sears looked about as the
Carolina dawn broke. The rain that washed down in sheets during the dark drive
to the stand finally let up and the cool damp held promise. Maybe, just maybe,
the deer would want to get up and move, shake off that autumn cold that was
finally setting in.
“It’s nice to get away,”
Sears said. “I have friends who have already killed their first deer. When the
therapist at the VA called me and told me about the hunt, I was excited.”
It’s not all escape though.
Sears looks decidedly tired on Friday morning. His nightly routine took
him hours to complete. He logged in just four hours sleep between the
evening hunt the day before and the morning hunt. It’s something he’s
learned to accept.
“Parts just don’t work,” he
explained.
His strength isn’t all there
either. He wheels himself whenever he can, but in the rain-soaked mud, he
allows others to help push him along. And it’s not just the physical work.
It’s the parts of the hunt he knows he still can’t enjoy that linger on his
mind.
“I spent a bit of time
deciding what gear I could use and not use,” Sears said. “I was practicing
all the different shooting positions from the chair. If it wasn’t for the
pain, it would be like the old times. The pain and lack of balance remind
me it’s different.”
Still it’s worth it for
Sears. Shortly after sunrise, a yearling deer skirts the edge of the dirt
road. It’s about 50 yards from the blind where Sears sits. He
watches, tapping excitedly and pointing. The rules of the plantation keep
the yearling off limits. It’s only does and eight-pointers with racks
ranging outside the tips of the ears.
But it’s a deer that never
knew Sears was there. He got into its’ backyard, wheelchair and all.
The time slipped by too
quickly and Sears had to pack it in. No other deer showed themselves, but
it didn’t matter. Several other wheelchair hunters took deer, one of them
taking two eight-pointers in two days.
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“I think hunters are good
people,” Sears said. “How many other sports do you see where members come
out and help out like this? It speaks a lot that people care, and not just
verbally. It’s easy to say it, but different to do it.”
The story doesn’t end on the
plantations of eastern South Carolina, though. There will be another hunt
next year and more hunters and more plantations will join together to bring more
deer to the freezer. Sears’ hunting season has just begun. He’s got
friends in Vermont figuring out how to get him into a stand to hunt Green
Mountain whitetails.
Sears may be confined to a
chair, but he’s a hunter who found his way back into the woods. Sears is
back in the hunt.
“I heard the sounds of
birds, rain and squirrels,” he said. “It’s nice to get away. I’ve got buck fever
again.
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