World Class Kayaker wants to be Ultimate Warrior

Courtesy Photo | Spc. (Ret) Tracy Hines races with the U.S. Women’s Kayak Team. (Photo courtesy Tracy Hines)  

FORT BLISS, TX, UNITED STATES

03.01.2018

Courtesy Story

Army Recovery Care Program

World Class Kayaker wants to be Ultimate Warrior
By: MaryTherese Griffin, Warrior Care and Transition

FORT BLISS, Texas - Before she traveled the world on the U.S. Canoe and Kayak Team, retired U.S. Army Spc. Tracy Hines was a parachute rigger for the 5th Quartermaster Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team. She’s an adrenaline junkie who loves water sports and track with an Alabama accent as strong as her desire to win gold for Team Army.

Hines was injured during a training exercise at Fort Lee, Va. in 2008. While landing from a parachute jump, she hit her head and injured her knees and feet. She continued to jump, but soon her fellow Soldiers began to realize she was having issues while on deployment to Germany. A year later, Hines found herself at the Warrior Transition Battalion at Fort Benning, Ga. with a traumatic brain injury and damage to her extremities.

Hines only spent three months at the WTB, but says they were a big help with her transition out of the Army and gave her hope. “The WTB was a huge blessing because you need to recuperate [from injuries]. Being in parachuting, I was not productive to my team due to my injuries, so I needed to recover. The career and education readiness program at the WTB also helped get me through school.”

Hines used the CER program to her advantage and now has a degree from Western State at the University of Colorado and a Masters from Montreat College in North Carolina. Happy to have college under her belt thanks to the WTB, she plans to continue her studies in the seminary this summer, hopefully after she competes at Warrior Games if she makes Team Army.

Hines has come a long way since she was injured and is now back doing the activities she loved pre-injury. “Being able to kayak again was a long process. I started training in my boat and it was hard. In fact I was uncoordinated and my memory was terrible,” Hines said. “But I worked really hard and now I am able to kayak and do other sports again.” Ten sports to be exact. Hines is hoping to be named the title Ultimate Warrior, which means she will compete in adaptive cycling, rowing, track, field, wheelchair basketball, sitting volleyball, archery, air rifle, swimming and powerlifting.

The adaptive sports Hines is experiencing now makes her realize wounded, ill and injured Soldiers are not being cast aside. “Adaptive sports show us we can still participate, but in a new way. They also remind us that quitting is not an option. It’s just more hard word work,” Hines said. “You can’t give up, you have to be able to realize that just because I can’t do my job anymore I can do something else. You can definitely adapt.”

Her hard work will show over the next two weeks and hopefully will also aid her in another dream…making the 2020 Olympic Kayak Team.

• Date Taken: 03.01.2018
• Date Posted: 03.02.2018 08:39
• Story ID: 267834
• Location: FORT BLISS, TX, US