The Path Of Least Resistance Is Almost Always Booby-trapped (NQM012)
“If the worst I have to deal with is not being able to see, it’s certainly better than being dead.” - Brad Snyder
Brad Snyder is someone that will put things into perspective for you. In September of 2011, while deployed to Afghanistan as a Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Officer, he was responding to a casualty event from an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) incident that injured two Afghan allied troops. While carrying a field litter to the event site, he stepped on a pressure plate rigged to another IED. Since the IED was offset from the pressure plate, Brad did not lose his limbs, but the resulting V-plume hit him in the face, causing him to eventually lose all of his eyesight.
During his recovery, he immediately turned to athletics to help him get back on top. Less than 8 (!) months after the incident, Brad competes in the warrior games winning four gold medals in swimming and three gold medals in Track & Field. During the 2012 Paralympic games in London, Brad won two golds and one silver. In the 2016 Paralympic games in Rio, he won three golds and one silver. His incredible story of resilience and comeback is documented in the excellent book Fire In My Eyes.
Brad continues to give back by teaching at the Naval Academy. He is even in the process of obtaining a Masters degree to continue/expand his teaching duties at the Academy. He inspires everyone to reach their best potential, and offers some words of wisdom to do just that:
I have learned how powerful perspective can be, and how leveraging a positive outlook can take us farther than we ever imagined.
I have learned that our minds and bodies have limitations far beyond what we might expect, and the only way to truly know is to explore and breakdown those boundaries.
I have learned that we all function better as a part of a community, rather than as an individual.
Most of all, I have learned that virtue is not something we are born with, but something we can only hope to attain or understand through persistent hard work.
Team Never Quit Podcast: Brad Snyder – Blinded US Navy EOD operator – 5x Paralympic gold medalist – Naval Academy professor
As always, the Team Never Quit guys did an excellent podcast with Brad. Definitely a must listen. Some of the excerpts below:
On the path of least resistance: “We had cleared a path through this choke point and over a ravine. To the left, the first Afghan in the patrol did not pick that path, instead opting for an easier round-about way to avoid this ravine. And surely, the path of least resistance is almost always booby-trapped in that environment. Sure enough, there was a 40lbs IED buried underneath that foot path.”
On being thankful: “Thankfully I was a little bit offset from everyone else so the blast only hit me. There was about a foot and half between the pressure plate and the blast. This saved my life and limbs, but the V-plume ended up smacking me right in the face.”
On the immediate thought after getting hit: “After the blast I was still conscious. I could see slightly out of my left eye, and saw I still had my arms and legs. I had been responding to many blast incidents during my deployment and none of the victims looked like what I looked like, so I assumed that I had died.”
Placing the team first: “Now I was just screwing up my team. I needed to get the hell out of there so they could go on with the mission. They were hamstrung with me, I needed to get up and I needed to get out.”
On moving on: “The lights are out. I use my ears, I use my hands, I use my nose. That is all I got. Im wasting a lot of time trying to delineate what these misleading lights and shadows are. I have no vision. I am moving on.”
Positive mindset: “You can go down two paths. You can think of all the things you won’t be able to do anymore. But you realize pretty quickly that is fruitless. It goes back to control what you can control and let go what you can’t. I don’t have my vision. Its not coming back.”
On perspective and thinking of his fallen brothers: “Sitting in that hospital room. Everyone kept expecting me to be depressed due to my blindness. I kept thinking about Tyler and thought, how selfish of me would it be to victimize myself over the loss of my vision while Tyler and others don’t get to come back at all.”
On not being able to see your competitors, and swimming with everything you got right out the gate: “There is a way to dig the best that you have out of yourself, every single time. You have to find that edge. You have to get all the way to “this is the most I can put out in that moment”, and then sustain that. There are little tricks. I always imagine the guy to my right is slightly in front of me. That’s what pushes me.”
On the current mission: “There is almost nothing you can throw at me that I can’t handle. Because I have experience going through hardship, I know how to do it. I get the principles, I see the wisdom. Now my challenge is, pull those out in tactics/approaches and give them to other people and say: it doesn’t matter what your challenge is, I am confident I can give you a set of tactics that will help you nagitvate that terrain.”
On having an anchor thought to reframe/refocus your perspective: “An anchor thought is that one thing that kicks you in the ass. It’s Tyler for me. Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself, when i’m stressed out or my day is going crappy, I got to make the most of this, because he gave this to me. He died down-range and he gave me this moment to be here. And he doesn’t have the chance to be here. That is how I reframe my perspective. Your anchor thought can be anything, it can be your family, your pets, maybe your dream job. Just have something that will reset you and push you long after you may think you are done.”
