Photo By EJ Hersom | Army Trials team members tour the convention center in El Paso, Texas, March 28, 2015....... read more read more
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By Shannon Collins
EL PASO, Texas – The city of El Paso welcomed about 80 active duty and retired Soldiers, as well as their coaches, master resilience trainers, and other support staff on a tour of the Southwest Stadium, the convention center where the USBC National Bowling Tournament is taking place and to see the Digital Information Gateway here March 28.
Throughout the day, the wounded, ill and injured Soldiers and Veterans who are here at Fort Bliss to compete March 29 to April 2 in the Army Trials for a spot on the Army team for the Department of Defense Warrior Games had a chance to learn about El Paso and the community’s relationship with Fort Bliss.
“Fort Bliss is near and dear to our hearts,” said Kimberly Foster, Visit El Paso Advertising and Communications Manager. “We support the military in the community and embrace them with open arms and appreciate all that they do for us and the community itself.”
She gave the visiting athletes a brief history of El Paso and said it was an honor to meet them.
“They are heroes,” she said. “It’s a pleasure and an honor to have met them and to see them overcoming adversity. We hope they will come back and visit again.”
For Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Cory Davis, a helicopter avionics mechanic from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, the highlight of the tour was the convention center, where the United States Bowling Congress, or USBC, was holding its annual Open Nationals.
Once a year, Open Nationals takes place over 128 days in a different city in a different state. The USBC builds the bowling alley within a convention center and the economic impact for that city ranges from $75-100 million, said Kathy Range, USBC manager on duty.
This year’s Open Nationals consists of 40,000 bowlers from across the nation who will visit from March 7 to July 12. The Soldiers were able to see some of the bowlers, as well as behind the scenes where the balls are weighed and where the pins are set.
“At Fort Leonard Wood, they give us free bowling, and we just pay for the rental shoes. I’ve been diagnosed with Parkinson’s in my right arm, and I’m right handed, so bowling keeps my arm limber,” Davis said. “The tour was amazing, seeing the machines and learning the dynamics that go into bowling. My friend and I are thinking about doing this next year so we can stay in touch.”
After touring the convention center, the Soldiers learned about the interactive Digital Information Gateway, or DIGIE, the only one of its kind in the United States. DIGIE is a vast collection of images and videos exploring El Paso’s past and present. It examines its people and its many cultures on giant 3-D touch sensitive TV screens at the Museum of History. Some of the Soldiers took photos and sent them to their e-mail addresses.
The final stop was the Southwest Stadium, where the El Paso Chihuahuas Triple A baseball team plays. Chihuahuas staff members Primo Martinez, senior account executive, and Michael Raymondo, operations assistant, took the Soldiers on a tour of the Southwest Stadium.
While the Chihuahuas staff and players usually support Fort Bliss and the military, Raymondo and Martinez said they were honored to host the Soldiers.
“I thank them for their service and their sacrifice and for what they do for us,” said Raymondo, a former Marine.
“I come from a big military family. My dad did four tours in Vietnam and three tours in Desert Storm,” Martinez said. “I love doing these tours for the wounded warriors.”
After touring the stadium, Martinez and Raymondo took the Soldiers to the clubhouse and the locker room and told them about behind the scenes and what it is like for the players.
Staff Sgt. Josh Palmer, an engineer deep sea diver at the Warrior Transition Unit at Fort Leonard Wood, said his favorite part of the tour was the stadium, especially the locker room.
“I enjoyed the fact that they opened up the locker room to us. I really, really enjoyed that. It’s a very nice facility,” he said. “You could tell they really try to cater to their players to make them feel comfortable.”
Palmer said he also enjoyed the overall tour and the people of El Paso.
“They were very hospitable. I liked how they opened their doors to us and just really welcomed us,” he said. “It’s just really great how the local community opened up its doors to us and really embraced us and made us feel welcome, showed us around, showed us what El Paso has to offer.”
| Date Taken: | 03.28.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 03.29.2015 13:39 |
| Story ID: | 158501 |
| Location: | EL PASO, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 123 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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