A visit to WRAMC-Everybody has the potential to change your life

HIGH-SCHOOL CORRESPONDENT-Ashe County High School, North Carolina

Published: May 15, 2008

Updated: 05/14/2008 09:30 pm

Twenty students, all members of the Ashe County High School Cans and Pans Steel Drum Ensemble, piled their drums into the luggage compartment of a bus and began the nine-hour journey to Washington in April. They had decided to make a difference in the lives of the wounded war veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Group members, accompanied by chaperones and the band director, Scott Turnmyre, unloaded their instruments at Walter Reed, rolled them down the hallways, and set up in the corner of the cafeteria. After playing a complete set of tunes, they were asked to play again in the lobby of the facility.

An elderly man was clapping his hands to the beat of the drums as they played the "Limbo Song." His bent back and drooping eyes told the story of his life -- that it had been difficult, and that he had seen almost too much for any one person to bear.

A young man in a wheelchair was missing both legs. He had prosthetics instead. He positioned his chair near the ensemble. He was only a year or so older than the students, and his life was changed forever because he had chosen to serve in the military.

One of the group members asked him how he had been injured. The young man said that during his last mission in Iraq he was ordered to work on a bomb that had not yet exploded. As he worked on the weapon, it detonated, and in that moment, his life was changed.

Yet, as the young man watched the steel-drum ensemble, a smile broke over his face, something that, I imagine, had not happened in a long time.

Life is not about our health or our age, but about the many events that only happen once in a lifetime. It is when a small child picks you some flowers from your own garden so that you can decorate your dining room table, or when the old lady at church compliments you on what you are wearing.

It is when you see a child's eyes light up as he sounds out his first word and realizes that the world of language is now open to him.

Or when your grandfather, on the brink of death, tells you from his hospital bed to call his office and tell them he's coming back soon.

Every day has the ability to be breathtaking. We must simply open our eyes to the many wonders we encounter every day.

Everybody -- the lady crying on the street, the man serving your table at a restaurant, or the child pulling on your leg in the elevator -- has the potential to change your life.

We members of the steel drum ensemble had decided to make a difference in the lives of our wounded war veterans. What we did not realize was the difference they would make in ours.

The news makes the deaths and injuries of troops seem like numbers, statistics to be used in research papers. Stepping into their world at Walter Reed made these people real. They have prosthetics and horrible stories, but they also have homes and friends and families -- and smiles.

In a moment, I glanced up from my instrument, and my life was changed, my breath, taken away.

■ Courtney Camp is a junior at Ashe High School and a member of the band.