Former POW Visits Resiliency Campus in Kuwait, Talks Comprehensive Fitness

Photo By Natalie Cole | Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum talks comprehensive fitness on Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Sept. 10. Cornum, who was held as a prisioner of war for eight days in Iraq in 1991, is now the director of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program.  

CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT

09.10.2010

Story by Natalie Cole 

1st Theater Sustainment Command

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – "Being a POW is the rape of your entire life. But what I learned in those Iraqi bunkers and prison cells is that the experience doesn't have to be devastating, that it depends on you."

These are the words of Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, who was held as a prisoner of war for eight days in Iraq in February 1991. Cornum and seven other soldiers were aboard a Blackhawk helicopter that was searching for the pilot of a downed F-16. The Blackhawk was shot down by enemy fire, killing five soldiers and injuring Cornum and two others.

To escape the wreckage, Cornum, a major and flight surgeon at the time, “dug her way out with two broken arms, a broken finger, a gunshot wound, torn knee ligaments, an eye glued shut with blood and other injuries,” according to a 2003 Time Magazine report.

Fast forward 19 years, and Cornum is now a brigadier general and director of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program. She visited Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Sept. 10 to tour the soon-to-open Resiliency Campus and to host a seminar on best practices in comprehensive fitness.

In 2009, the Army formally introduced comprehensive fitness to answer the leadership’s call for a “holistic program that dealt not just with individual psychological problems but would be a strengthening exercise for the entire force,” Cornum said.

Comprehensive fitness is defined as a balance of the social, spiritual, physical, emotional and family areas of one’s life. The theory goes that if soldiers are strong in the five areas, they are more resilient they are to the rigors of Army life, including the deployments and combat that soldiers and families have faced since 2001.

In an effort to pull together the facilities and resources for comprehensive fitness in Kuwait, the 1st Sustainment Brigade on Camp Arifjan will be opening a Resiliency Campus mid-September. The campus is one of the first in the U.S. Army Central Command area of operations (there are two others in Iraq).

The Kuwait campus will be a collection of resources such as Red Cross services, physical wellness activities, seminars on family and religious services, said Maj. Ric Brown, 1st SB chaplain. Additionally, centers on the campus will host “chats with a doc,” so soldiers can talk with a medical professional, Brown said. The campus will also have specialists who can make mental health referrals and offer physical fitness guidance.

The concept of five pillars of strength is intended to bring balance to a force that has traditionally valued physical toughness and power. “I envision that Comprehensive Soldier Fitness becomes a part of everybody’s lifestyle” she said. “Resilience gives you the self confidence to try more things, to take advantage of opportunities, not just bounce back from adversity,” she said.

For Cornum, comprehensive fitness is not just a buzz phrase. Instead, she is living proof that optimism, perspective and mental grit can go a long way. “My experience as a former POW really convinced me that how you come out of an experience is determined by how you go into it,” she said. “I was resilient. I was self-confidant,” she said when talking about herself at the time of her capture.

She also exemplifies mental and emotional fitness by taking what she calls purposeful action. “I approached every problem I encountered, whether it was failing an exam or a disease or getting shot down and shot up the same way: I would fix what I could fix and I wouldn’t complain about – I would use acceptance coping, I now know –what I couldn’t,” she said. For those who question whether it is realistic to think every soldier can be so optimistic, Cornum believes that one’s comprehensive health can be improved with intention and resiliency education.

Leaders with Third Army/Army Central Command and the 1st Theater Sustainment Command attended Cornum’s seminar on comprehensive soldier fitness. “I think that the fact that the senior leadership of ARCENT was all in this auditorium was a good sign that they think it’s important [and ] that they are leaning forward in terms of developing a program. I think they have embraced it,” she said.

Even after her experience in 1991, Cornum said being in the Army and promoting soldier wellness have always been what she has wanted to do. “I never really thought about doing anything else. I mean, I’ve had people ask ‘ I can’t believe you stayed in?’ Why not? If the worst thing that could happen has already happened - that I’m not dead - Why would I get out now? I loved it before, I love it still,” she said.

• Date Taken: 09.10.2010
• Date Posted: 09.11.2010 02:17
• Story ID: 56064
• Location: CAMP ARIFJAN, KW