Rockaways Aid Some Wounded Warriors?

By Marie Elena Giossi

“Anybody can do something good for someone else. You just have to want to do it,” Aileen Mullen-Smith told her five-year-old son Aidan when she explained why their family decided to host a wounded soldier last weekend.
Aidan was one of hundreds of youngsters in the Rockaways who learned what real heroes look like when residents opened their hearts and homes to welcome 31 wounded American service men and women.

The second annual Adaptive Water Sports Festival, for soldiers severely injured in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families, was held in the Rockaways, July 6-9.

Over four days, soldiers, most of whom have lost one or more limbs, learned how to water ski, go sailing, fishing, scuba diving and jet skiing with the proper adaptive equipment and trained instruction. More than just learning a sport, the weekend enabled soldiers to build confidence in themselves and hope for their future.

The weekend was made possible through a partnership between the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP) and Disabled Sports USA, and organized locally by the Graybeards, the NYPD, the FDNY, particularly Brownsville’s Ladder 120, Engine 231, and Manhattan’s Engine 33, Ladder 9, and the FDNY Fire Family Transport Foundation.

Additional support was provided by Atlantis Mega Yacht, the Breezy Point Beach Club, the Breezy Point Catholic Club, the Rockaway Point Yacht Club, Kawasaki Motors Corp., adaptive sports instructors and residents who housed soldiers and their families.

Retired fireman Flip Mullen, an adaptive ski instructor at Windham Mountain in the Catskills for 18 years, was instrumental in bringing this weekend to fruition. He worked with the Graybeards and his former firehouse, Ladder 120, to bring the soldiers to the Rockaways for the first time last year.

Soldiers had an early start on Sunday, the last day of their visit, with 8 a.m. Mass at the Breezy Point 9/11 Memorial. They sat beneath a white tent, shaded from the blistering sun, facing a makeshift altar at the entrance of the memorial. A couple hundred residents were also in attendance.

Two steel girders intersected to form a cross, and etched with the date “9-11-01,” was visible on the horizon as singer and guitarist Ed Deacy, a retired NYPD detective, opened Mass with “Let There Be Peace on Earth.”
Father Peter Rayder, parochial vicar at Holy Name, Park Slope, was the main celebrant. Concelebrants were Msgr. John Bracken, Vicar General for Temporalities, and Father Brian Jordan, OFM, of St. Francis of Assisi, Manhattan. Deacon Richard Lee of St. Thomas More-St. Edmund, Rockaway Point, assisted.

Before preaching the homily, Father Rayder told the soldiers, “You have been Christ to so many people … Like St. Thomas, you were able to touch the wounds of Christ through your own suffering and that of friends.”
He asked soldiers to unite their suffering with that of Christ and counseled them to have hope, and to trust in their faith and in Christ.

“You have brought so many people together in this community showing who Christ is. There’s a place in heaven for you,” he said.

Most soldiers visited the 9/11 Memorial after Mass but 35-year-old Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Bain had walked through earlier that morning. He didn’t want to break down in front of the crowd.

Bain, who joined the Army at age 21, says April 8, 2004 “was the best day and the worst day of my life.” The best day because it was the first time he ran into his identical twin brother Kim in the field. Kim was named for a man who saved their father’s life in Vietnam. That afternoon, “I got hit in my left arm with a bomb and I was shot in my right arm with a bullet,” he said.
Bain, who says he’s “just an average GI,” received a Purple Heart for his bravery.

While Bain is still undergoing therapy to regain and refine the use of hands, this husband and father of three is luckier than most. An electronic stimulator in his spinal cord enabled him to keep his left arm, which bears a scar that runs deeper than muscle and tissue.
This was his second year in the Rockaways and he was once again staying with Marie and Jim Moriarty and their three children. He’s been back to visit the family five times since last July and keeps in touch via phone and e-mail.

“Being with all these families and feeling you’re part of the family and the community is the best. People don’t look at us like we’re disabled. They thank us but then treat us like regular people.

“All I did was fight for my country. I just want to go back and finish the job until it’s done,” said Bain, as he looked over at the Breezy Point Memorial with wet eyes. “Nothing like this should ever happen again.”

Grateful residents of the Rockaways, who lost 70 loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, gave soldiers a heroes’ homecoming when they arrived from Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Thursday.

An elaborate motorcade transported soldiers from the Goethals Bridge to the yellow-ribbon lined streets of the Rockaways. People waved American flags and held homemade “Welcome Home” signs. Soldiers then met their host families and local firefighters at the Breezy Point Beach Club.

On Friday night, soldiers, families and guests enjoyed a dinner cruise in New York Harbor on Atlantis Mega Yacht.

Flip Mullen, and his wife Rita, parishioners at St. Francis de Sales, hosted a Saturday evening bash at their Belle Harbor home. Lead by two mounted police officers and bagpipers from Breezy Point Catholic Club Pipes and Drums, soldiers and their families paraded down Beach 134th St. followed by St. Camillus’ Special Olympians, in whose honor the annual block party is held. Patriotic tunes from the Peninsula Performing Arts Conservatory kicked off the street party, which lasted into the night.
“Everyone wants to do something nice for the soldiers but we don’t always know how. This is our opportunity to say thank you,” said Rita.

Flip and Rita’s daughter, Aileen Mullen-Smith and her husband Adam volunteered to be hosts for a second year, not an easy feat with three youngsters.

The family hosted 22-year-old soldier Spec. Rob Lliteras, who injured his right leg in combat. The young man, who calls Virginia and Florida home, said his family’s military background, on both sides, and the 9/11 attacks are why he enlisted.

“Our kids, even though they’re young, we say to them, ‘This is what a soldier looks like. This is what a hero looks like.’ Then when we say prayers and pray for the troops, they know what we’re talking about. They still pray for Capt. Dan (the soldier who stayed with the family last year) who lost his leg for this country,” said Aileen, who’s added Lliteras to the family’s prayer list.

“You go through life everyday wondering how you’re going to do this or that. And then you think ‘I have all my limbs, my children have all their limbs. What can’t I do,’” she said.

The Graybeards, a non-profit Rockaway-based organization, which raised funds for the festival, were filming the weekend’s major events and plan to distribute videos to community groups around the country to encourage similar weekends.

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