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    Soldier from the top rope!!

    Soldier from the top rope!!

    Photo By Lt. Col. Brandon Mace | U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Trenty Watford, a microwave communications specialist with the...... read more read more

    SAN ANTONIO, TX, UNITED STATES

    06.03.2017

    Story by Maj. Brandon Mace 

    412th Theater Engineer Command

    As he walks out from behind the curtain half the crowd is chanting his name, “T-Ray, T-Ray, T-Ray,” while the other half can be heard booing. He makes his way through the crowd and into the ring where he pauses to flex his muscles and yell at a few members of the audience. This is T-Ray’s job, and he loves it.

    The U.S Army Reserve is full of citizen-soldiers who balance a civilian job with their part-time service in the military. This balance can be a challenge, but these warrior-citizens persevere, keeping the U.S. Army Reserve a capable, combat-ready and lethal force. For U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Trenty Watford, a microwave communications specialist with the 4th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) based in San Antonio, Texas, that civilian job is performing as a professional wrestler.

    In the ring Watford goes by ‘T-Ray’, a name he finally settled on after trying several others. He said he read a book by another professional wrestler suggesting the most successful names were short.

    “You want something simple that the fans can chant or they can boo,” said Watford. “When I am signing autographs I want something small so I can sign quick.”

    He wrestled with creating a great name until his girlfriend came up with an idea.

    “My girlfriend’s name is Rachael and she said, ‘why don’t you just combine our names,’ so we came up with T-Ray,” Watford said. “I brought it up to my trainer and he said, ‘I like it,’ so it stuck.”

    Watford is a military brat; born, raised and trained in a military family. He said he initially joined the Army to open up opportunities and continue the family tradition of military service.

    “I spent my whole life around the military,” said Watford. “My dad was in, my sister joined and it was a way to get out of Louisiana after I graduated high school.”

    Before joining the U.S. Army Reserve in October 2014, Watford was in the active duty Army and deployed to the Middle East three times with the 35th Signal Brigade in 2002, 2005 and 2006. Before he joined, he didn’t realize he would gain such strong bonds with his fellow soldiers.

    “It is a weird brotherhood,” said Watford. “Initially the military was just more of a family thing, and I didn’t know about all the cohesion. It became more about them and I put my joy and love into working with those guys. I’ve got friends that I haven’t seen in 8-9 years but we still talk on a weekly basis, and when we get to see each other, we pick up right where we left off. You don’t get that in other jobs.”

    You wouldn’t know it by looking at him today but Watford was small as a kid. In high school he wanted to play basketball, but his small stature led him instead to his school’s folkstyle wrestling team.

    “They had basketball tryouts and my whole life I had played basketball and football year-round. I went to all the camps but I was an extremely tiny kid. My freshman year I was like 91 pounds,” said Watford. “I was on the basketball team and the other kids are like 140 or 150, they are all regular sized kids, and I got cut.”

    The next day in P.E class, the teacher, who also happened to be the wrestling coach, noticed Watford looking a little depressed. He invited Watford to join the wrestling team, and that is when everything changed.

    “After that day I’ve been hooked ever since,” said Watford. “I was able to tap into something that was there, everything just came naturally. All of the drills that we did, I had no problems with the work outs. It progressed and progressed and that spawned out into kickboxing and jujitsu.”

    In the spring of 2016, as Watford was training in mixed martial arts, one of his sons had an idea.

    “My son was like, ‘you should be a wrestler,’ and I couldn’t think of an excuse why not to do it,” said Watford with a laugh. “So I looked up the schools in the area, found one and started going last June.”

    Watford’s wrestling character, T-Ray, is nothing like himself. He likes to play the villain, so T-Ray enjoys boos from the crowd as he enters the ring and competes.

    “You want to get booed as a bad guy,” said Watford. “I am an enhanced opposite of what I really am. Normally I am quiet, laid back, relaxed. My character is trash talking, telling everyone I’m better than them, I get to be mean to kids. I think about things that would make me mad or things that would offend me and then I just do it.”

    The professional wrestling life is not without its dangers. Watford had a match where he came down hard on one of the ring’s metal corner poles.

    “I actually chipped a tooth. I slipped off the ropes and landed face first on the pole. My mouth went numb so it felt like all my teeth fell out. I was freaking out at first,” said Watford. “I held my mouth and rolled around as I felt it with my hand. The match is still going on so the ref checked on me and said, ‘dude, your teeth are fine,’ so I finished the rest of the match.”

    Watford’s girlfriend is very supportive. He said she wanted him to be happy in a job so he would be happy in other aspects of his life.

    “She told me no matter what I am doing, as long as something in life is making me unhappy, then I’m not going to be happy in any relationship because that stress is going to carry to the relationship,” said Watford. “She is all for it, she picked out my gear, she helped with my name, she watches matches with me.”

    While she enjoys watching his matches, Watford said he has to prepare his girlfriend before each match so she knows what to expect. He used to not tell her, but one night things did not go as smoothly as he hoped.

    “There was a match where I got beat up bad, she wasn’t expecting it, and I think she took it personal,” Watford shared. “She went to go check on me in the back and I was still trying to get my bearings back. They said, ‘Oh, he’ll be fine,’ and she was like, ‘no he’s not fine, I saw what you did to him!’ So if something intense is going to go on in the match, I let her know, then she will be ready.”

    Despite the danger and the hard work, Watford truly loves what he is doing.

    “You know that feeling you get where you know you are doing what you are supposed to be doing in life? I have no stress, no worries, I am not dreading going to a show,” Watford shared. “I am working at what I want to do. I want to make an impact, and if I can inspire one person I have done my job.”

    Watford hopes that his performances as T-Ray inspire people to be the best versions of themselves.

    “You can’t expect to be in like someone else,” said Watford. “I try to get people inspired to be the best person that they can be. No matter what other people think of what you do in life, you can do whatever you want to do that makes you happy. As long as you are happy and self-fulfilled you should keep doing it.”

    Above all else, Watford is grateful for the camaraderie he experienced during his active duty service that continues as he serves in the U.S. Army Reserves. He recognizes and encourages that kind of camaraderie as a professional wrestler.

    “There is a camaraderie there when everybody is doing their part to get the mission complete,” said Watford. “Whether it’s the people setting up the ring or setting up the chairs; the people setting up concessions or merchandise, it all works together for the show. You have the same thing in a unit with new soldiers coming in and old soldiers retiring. It is humbling to know that any day could be my last day doing it and building that cohesion.”

    So whether you are cheering or booing for T-Ray, he loves it all, and he has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.

    The 4th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) is made up of Soldiers, civilians and their families in units headquartered throughout Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. As part of America’s Army Reserve, these units are trained, combat-ready and equipped to provide military and logistical support in any corner of the globe.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 06.03.2017
    Date Posted: 06.08.2017 14:13
    Story ID: 236896
    Location: SAN ANTONIO, TX, US

    Web Views: 242
    Downloads: 4

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