"It’s not the disability, it’s the ability," said retired Sgt. 1st Class Dana Bowman and double amputee, to a crowd of faculty, staff and student veterans on Wednesday at the University Center’s Housto n Room. "Never quit."
Bowman was the keynote speaker for the Veterans Ability and Achievement Conference, a day-long event organized to address the challenges and triumphs of disabled veterans.
Bowman has become a world-renowned motivational speaker after losing both of his legs in a mid-air collision in 1994.
He enlisted in the Army for four years after graduating from high school in 1981. At the time, he aspired to travel the world to see and learn everything he could.
"My time in the Special Forces was well spent, but it couldn’t compare to what I have today," Bowman said.
Bowman said the accident gave him a new outlook on life and that he soon realized how to overcome misfortune.
"I was dealt a bad hand," he said. "It happens."
When Bowman left the hospital he said the doctors told him he would never walk normally again, much less ski, scuba dive, fly airplanes or any other activities he had participated in before, but he refused to accept their negative outlook.
"You can do anything you want to do," he said. "I showed them that."
Bowman, who previously served with the Green Berets, then the Golden Knights, the Army’s elite parachute team, is a graduate of the University of North Dakota with a degree in Commercial Aviation. He is a firm advocate that a positive attitude impacts the ability to overcome life’s trials and tribulations, no matter how severe.
After the accident, Bowman said he believed he would be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, no longer able to be on the Ranger team, the HALO team, the scuba team, or the sniper team. But five months after his accident, he left the hospital without permission and decided to skydive.
After successfully displaying to military officials that he could safely perform the same duties he executed before the accident, he became the first double amputee in history to reenlist in the military. Since his accident, he has made more than 1,000 jumps.
The event also featured speeches by Dave Lemak, representing the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Toni Brown from the Michael E. Debakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a panel discussion by UH faculty, staff and student veterans.
