All,
John Thompson is married to a beautiful Army Officer who happens to be stationed at Walter Reed Army Hospital. He is smart, soft spoken, and honest. As a dive professional and a veteran himself, he looked around the hospital and felt that there was something positive he could do to help some of the seriously wounded vets. By himself, he started to get these recovering soldiers into the water. He had no money, no equipment, no organization, and no name for what he was doing. He simply felt an obligation to help these men and women adjust to their new lives. Since then, he has gone from grass roots to SUDS, Soldiers Undergoing Disability Scuba. They are now working on Operation Bottom Time, to get these guys certified and to generate the money necessary to train more veterans.
The veterans who are in the SUDS program have been seriously wounded. They probably don't need to learn to scuba dive? But they do need to know that Americans care about them and that we appreciate their sacrifice and their struggle to recover. Their rehabilitation is more about support and less about training. If the dive community can support these determined divers, we will probably get more out of this than the veterans will?
In my humble opinion, the dive shops, the dive clubs, and the dive industry needs to get behind our veterans, and SUDS, and OBT. John Thompson is a great guy who is trying to do the right thing, and I want to support him and our veterans in every way I can.
I hope to see you at OTB in Key Largo.
Cheers
JC