Photo By Pfc. Zackary Root | Army Spc. Antony Villa, of San Antonio, a health care specialist and licensed...... read more read more
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FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHANK, Afghanistan— The operation center is quiet. No patients and no doctors are in sight as U.S. Army Spc. Anthony Villa, of San Antonio, Texas, a healthcare specialist and licensed practical nurse for the 628th Forward Surgical Team, methodically wraps his hands.
The warm smile and friendly demeanor slowly fades away, replaced with an intensity and focus of a trained fighter. Once his hands are wrapped properly he puts his gloves on and begins slamming the practice pads held by his fellow nurse throwing combinations in rapid succession.
His lithe movements have fluidity about them, a violent dance filled with jabs, hooks and uppercuts. He continues a to unleash a flurry of punches designed to injure an opponent while surrounded by medical equipment in a place designed to save lives.
“With boxing, I saw a fight and I was like let me see if I can do it, and I loved it. I like the skill, I like the art form of it, but at the same time I love to help people,” said Villa.
Villa grew up in Pontiac, Mich., where at a young age he began training to box with his uncle, and his cousin, who was a professional boxer, on a boxing team called Pontiac Azteca.
“I worked out with my uncle, and I would spar with my cousin. It worked out pretty good because I got free training,” said Villa.
Villa had dreams of turning pro, but soon realized that he just didn’t have the time with school and work to dedicate to the sport.
“I was pretty close, but I couldn’t dedicate the time opposed to going to school,” said Villa.
Villa moved to San Antonio, Texas in 2006, with a new goal of becoming a firefighter. Talking with a friend and former firefighter, Villa decided the best course of action was to get his emergency medical training, before attending the fire academy.
Villa eventually became a firefighter, but before long, with budget cutbacks, the program was cut.
He then got a job using his EMT skills working closely with Brooke Army Medical Center, often seeing hurt soldiers returning from War.
“It sucked because you got some guys that would be glad to be home, some guys that were in bad shape and some guys that were pissed off because they couldn’t be back there with their unit,” he said. “It was a crappy feeling not being able to relate to them. There was nothing I could say.”
Villa quickly decided to join the service to help soldiers like the ones he saw in his civilian job. Wanting to use his medical training, Villa asked the recruiter to sign him up as a combat medic. At the time, the only medic job available was health care specialist licensed practical nurse. Villa was less then enthused.
“I was like no way,” Villa said. “I make fun of nurses.”
With limited options, Villa decided to join anyways and quickly finished his initial training and proceeded on to nursing school.
“I went to nursing school and the first two months I hated every minute of it.
Once we started getting more hands on, I started liking it more and more,” Villa said.
Once he finished nursing school, Villa joined up with his reserve unit in San Antonio. The unit was on the brink of deployment, and had him working full-time training, just in case someone dropped out, and they needed him to fill a slot.
The training paid off, because a couple months later his unit informed him that he was deploying.
Fast forward to present day and Villa is three months deep into a year deployment. According to Villa, he has finally begun to understand the frustration and feelings of the injured soldiers he had worked with in his civilian job.
“After experiencing the IDF attacks and seeing some of the mass casualties that have come in, I understand why some of those guys were pissed off and why they just wanted to get back to their unit,” he said.
Looking to the future, Villa holds on to his love of boxing and has plans to pursue it in the future.
“When everything is said and done,” said Villa. “I want my own amateur boxing team and my own little gym.”
Villa continues to train as often as he can, despite a strenuous job where he is on call 24-hours a day seven days a week. Keeping that fighting spirit, Villa now fights to save lives in Afghanistan instead of fighting opponents in the ring.
| Date Taken: | 12.09.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 12.13.2011 08:10 |
| Story ID: | 81283 |
| Location: | FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHANK, AF |
| Web Views: | 515 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Former boxer fights to save lives in Afghanistan, by PFC Zackary Root, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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