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RODEO SOLDIER -- Wounded by a roadside bomb,

Iraq veteran picks up his rope to ride for

victory at the Alaska State Fair.

 

 

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Rodeo soldier

Wounded by a roadside bomb, Iraq veteran picks up his rope to ride for victory at the Alaska State Fair

By GEORGE BRYSON
gbryson@adn.com

What's a seriously wounded soldier like Army Spc. Jake Lowery doing in a rodeo arena in Palmer?

For one thing, he's trying to win all the roping events at the Alaska State Fair, in a competition that resumes this afternoon.

But Lowery, 25, is also trying to piece back together a life that someone in Iraq tried very hard to blow up.

That was six months ago -- when the Humvee he was driving near Fallujah got hit by a roadside bomb.

The explosion blew out the right front door and killed the soldier sitting next to Lowery, 22-year-old Sgt. Russell Kurtz of Fort Richardson.

In the same instant, it drove a piece of shrapnel through Lowery's skull that destroyed his right eye and rattled his brain.

Now back in Anchorage, Lowery is learning to cope with his diminished eyesight and all the memories of war. He wrestles with several classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Occasionally he forgets things, he says. He gets powerful headaches almost daily, and certain images and sounds can trigger disturbing thoughts.

Like the trip wires on roads that state transportation workers use to count vehicles. (In Iraq, he says, the enemy uses something similar to detonate the latest "improvised explosive device.")

Or the ceremonial 6 o'clock cannon shot at Fort Richardson that marks the beginning of each day -- which never fails to fill his bloodstream with adrenaline.

"That's the worst," Lowery said. "That's as close to an IED as you can get."

There's noise at a rodeo too, of course -- the banging of the cattle chute, the pounding of hooves, the roar of an enthusiastic crowd -- but to Lowery it's almost like music.

"No, that's the only time I don't feel (stressed)," he says, noting the almost immediate relief he experiences every few days when he gets to drive out to the Valley and practice roping steers. "It's really the only time I feel fine."

FINDING RODEO IN ALASKA

Born in Tucson, Ariz., to a family of rodeo hands, raised in Silver City, N.M., in the heart of cattle country, Jacob Lowery learned to rope in kindergarten and began competing at the age of 6. As a young man, he won thousands of dollars on the Southwest rodeo circuit.

That life seemed to be shelved for a while when he enlisted in the Army in 2005 and shipped to Alaska the next year to prepare for his deployment to Iraq. Arriving in Anchorage last summer, however, he met up with Charlie and Nancy Willis, who own some horses and an arena outside Wasilla and annually manage the rodeo at the Alaska State Fair.

The Willises have since taken Lowery under their wing, providing him with a horse and steers and a place to train and sometimes picking up his fees.

In February, when the Willises heard that Lowery had been wounded in Iraq, they worried about him -- since he isn't prone to complain much. Even for a cowboy, he's quiet and succinct.

"He called me the second the plane landed," Charlie Willis says. "The next morning in the hospital, we just let him talk. And of course he was on medicine. ... I later told him, 'You know those drugs you were on? That was the best conversation we ever had.' "

The family expected Lowery to be released from the Army last spring, considering the permanent nature of his eye injury. But that's been delayed for months now pending the arrival in Alaska of a doctor who previously measured him for an artificial eye. The doctor visits the state only every six months.

In the meantime, Lowery has a temporary eye. He usually puts it in only at night because it doesn't fit well. "If I wear it during the daytime," he says, "it's always popping out."

That became a nuisance when Lowery and members of the Willis family began competing in the Kenai Peninsula rodeo circuit last May. It's one thing to lose an artificial eye in the privacy of your own home and quite another to have it fly out in the heat of competition.

So he no longer wears the eye at rodeos, Lowery says.

"I got tired of having to chase it in the sand."

ADJUSTING HIS AIM

Just as challenging was learning to chase a steer across an arena and rope it on the run -- with just one eye. His aim kept coming up short.

"For the first two months, I had real bad depth perception," he says. "You think you're a lot closer than you are."

He began to compensate for that and his aim improved, but nothing could restore the peripheral vision he lost on the right side of his head.

"So you kind of have to trust your horse not to run into the fence."

Still, Lowery has thrived in local arenas this summer.

After finishing first in several roping events, he won "all-around" first place in the Kenai Peninsula's Cowboy Roundup Rodeo series. He's also in the national top 10 of the Professional Armed Forces Rodeo Association standings, which rank current and former military personnel who rodeo.

And he's hoping to attract sponsors -- maybe the local Army recruiting office -- which would allow him to compete in November on Veterans Day weekend in the armed forces 2007 World Finals Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas.

MANAGING STRESS

Even so, there are limits to what he can do, Lowery admits. He used to ride broncs in competition too, but now that and bull riding are clearly off limits, considering the far higher chance of his suffering a concussion and aggravating his brain injury.

His doctors see some value in his pursuing his love of rodeo -- as long as he stays on his feet.

"They think it would be more of a negative to quit than to keep doing it," he says. "I know I'm more worried about not having something to look forward to. It might give me even more of a headache -- and all the emotional stuff."

He takes pain medication for his headaches and visits a neurologist every few weeks to monitor his brain trauma. He also receives a beta-blocker -- a type of heart medicine -- that helps suppress the rush of adrenaline that accompanies certain combat memories for sufferers of PTSD.

(According to a recent study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, about one in five post-deployment soldiers experience PTSD within three months of leaving Iraq. Many more exhibit symptoms but fail to seek treatment.)

There are side effects to his PTSD medication -- sometimes it makes him feel tired and light-headed -- but it probably keeps him calmer, Lowery says.

"Compared to some people who aren't on it," he says, "I would say I'm not as jumpy."

'PERFECT FOCUS'

Tall in the saddle (though standing only 5-foot-10), Lowery appeared as meditative as a Zen Buddhist recently while teaming up with Charlie for a practice at the Willis ranch.

A few feet to his right, a caged steer stamped its hooves in the cattle chute -- where Nancy Willis waited for Lowery to signal its release.

But in roping events, he doesn't like to rush things, Lowery says. He likes to slow them down -- until the action that follows feels normal and controlled.

"I try to get in a zone where it's just automatic," he says. "I try to get that perfect focus where everything gets smooth ... like walking down the road."

At the fair this weekend, Lowery will compete in three events -- team roping, ribbon roping and double-mugging, his favorite. Earlier this month, he and Garrett Willis (Charlie and Nancy's 26-year-old son) teamed to rope, flip and tie a steer in the double-mugging event at the Kenai Peninsula State Fair in Ninilchik and finished first.

For a while, it seemed Lowery might have an additional edge at the Palmer fair. His stepdad -- a veteran rodeo hand from Silver City -- was planning to travel to Alaska to serve as judge. Not long ago, however, he was badly gored after he jumped into an arena to assist a fallen rider whose hand got hung up in the rope that encircles a bull. Now he's recuperating in the hospital.

So Lowery's on his own.

But Willis, as rodeo manager, plans to honor him before the crowd -- along with any other Purple Heart contestants competing this week at the fair.

And afterward?

Lowery is looking forward to receiving the final version of his artificial eye and his subsequent discharge from the service. Then maybe a rodeo or two.

He doesn't expect to remain in Alaska. The metal plates implanted on the side of his right eye socket get too cold on winter evenings.

"It's not that I don't like Alaska, but when it gets cold ... that'll give you a headache in a hurry, I'll tell you."

Besides, he's got two horses waiting for him at home in Silver City. It's a memory that makes him smile.

Find George Bryson online at www.adn.com/contact/gbryson  or call 257-4318.

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Larry Scott  --