One of my favorite hoodies that I own is from the Til Valhalla Project. On the front, it says “Keep Moving Forward”. On the back, it reads:

“Crawling is acceptable

Falling is acceptable

Puking is acceptable

Crying is acceptable

Pain is acceptable

Quitting is not”

While TVP is advocating to end veteran suicide, I feel this tenet is also applicable to almost all aspects of life. “Keep moving forward” was built into me before I even knew the words. At the time this is posted, I will have just had my forty-third birthday. Mentally, I think of myself as twenty-two still. Biologically, I’m forty-three. Physically, I feel eighty. In forty-three years, I feel I’ve lived a dozen lives, none of which followed the trajectory I thought I was on in high school. No matter where you find yourself- physically, mentally, spiritually- keep moving forward.

When I was in high school, my father suffered a pretty major back injury. At the time, he was driving a tractor trailer for a dry ice delivery company, lifting heavy crates at various locations. I remember him coming home from an appointment or the hospital, and hugging my mother in the kitchen, and crying. I don’t recall ever seeing him cry prior to that point, and it would be years before I would see him cry again. He underwent extensive back surgery, and I remember him telling me that I would have to take on some of the responsibilities of the house and look out for my younger brother and sister for a while. When this all occurred, he had to reevaluate what he was going to do for a living to provide for the family. He would eventually go back to school, get his degrees in Art and English, and do what it took to make ends meet. He kept moving forward and set an example for me to keep moving forward.

I was a smart kid. I was in the National Honor Society, an honor roll student. I was respectful to others, and I got along with most everyone. I was also lazy when it came to school work, a procrastinator, and much preferred playing sports and being with my friends. Basketball was life- I would play anywhere, anytime I could. I played a few other sports, but basketball was always my favorite. I was smart enough to do the bare minimum of what I needed academically to stay out of trouble with my parents and look like I was excelling. Everyone expected me to go to college, and I actually did want to be an English and Art teacher like my father. I disliked math and science, but had an aptitude for all subjects and honestly didn’t have to try very hard, so I had zero study skills and habits, and didn’t really know what it meant to apply oneself- it was just easy. I also knew that because of my cavalier attitude toward academia that if I were to go away to school, away from my parents, I would not do the work on my own. I had no self-discipline when it came to school work ethic and getting things done that I didn’t consider fun. If I went away to school, I would blow everything off in favor of fun- sports, games, and friends were my priorities, and if I went to college as I was, I would waste large sums of money and time. 

Knowing this about myself, I decided to look at enlisting in the military my junior year of high school instead of going to college. My grandfather on my father’s side had been a Marine Corps pilot, and was a POW in Vietnam for almost eight years, and his story inspired me to join the Marines. He had been captured when my father was eight, and returned when my father was sixteen. My father often told me I was his “guinea pig” child because he had no idea what he was doing with me, that I didn’t come with instructions. Not having had his father around for a good part of his childhood, and with the untraditional way that he had grown up, he wasn’t really sure how to be a father. We butted heads a lot, mainly because we’re so similar and I was stubborn and willful, but he always made sure I knew he loved me. I was able to get permission from my parents and guidance counselors to graduate halfway through my senior year to ship out to boot camp. I didn’t ship out in March like I was originally supposed to because of a broken nose in a basketball game, but I eventually left in June 2000 for Parris Island.

After boot camp, I was stationed at NAS Pensacola, FL for air crew school. Eventually I would be moved to NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense) School in Ft. Leonard Wood, MO, where, once again, life would derail my plans and put me on another path. On April 21st, 2021, while out hiking and rock climbing with three other Marines, the ledge I was on gave out from under me and I fell about fifty feet, landing on my feet. I had hit a tree on the way down, which slowed my fall enough to not kill me. I ended up on a ten foot ledge that sloped toward another drop of about twenty feet into a river which flowed under the mountain we were on. I was able to hook an arm around a small tree and yell for help, then I passed out from a punctured lung. The other Marines I was with were able to call 911 and secure me to keep from sliding off the ledge and into the river. I was airlifted to a civilian hospital a three hour drive from base. After about sixteen hours of surgeries, I was woken up to see if I could identify my cousin that had driven out from her college in St. Louis as a test to see how badly I had hit my head and the extent of the damage. 

My left ankle had exploded out of my boot and my right foot had fractured and was facing backwards. I had broken my coccyx, five ribs, punctured my right lung, separated my left shoulder, and a branch had pierced my left buttock pretty badly. Needless to say, I was in rough shape. I woke up to a bunch of Marines that had driven out to see me, and a sign they had “liberated” from the Bass Pro Shop display next to the hospital- it was hanging from the TV in my room and read “Do Not Climb on Rocks.” I loved it and carried it with me for years afterwards. I would be in that hospital for a few weeks while they assessed all the damage and had healed enough for transport to base. I had screws, plates, and hardware holding my left foot and lower leg together. No one could tell me when or if I would be able to walk again. Eventually I would be recovered enough to be transported to the base hospital for recovery. I would be released a few months later- I had gone from 190 lbs (which was still thin at 6’5”), down to 135 lbs, and I looked like a living skeleton. I was allowed to go home to Rockland, MA for a few weeks to rest, do some therapy, and recover. My parents flew out and drove me home from Missouri. It was an excruciating road trip- I felt every rock, bump, and pothole in every part of my body. I arrived home, did therapy, saw my friends, spent time with family, and recuperated. 

I then returned to base, still in a wheelchair but able to take some steps with a walker, and a short time later, 9/11 happened. The world changed then, and we all kept moving forward.

I was broken and not fit for duty, so had to sit by and watch as my Marine Corps brothers and sisters were all sent over to Afghanistan. I helped as much as I could with the company as I awaited my med board and eventual medical retirement from the Marine Corps. The five years I had planned on serving were now gone, and I wasn’t sure where to go from there, or what I wanted to do. The accident and my short time in the USMC had, however, accomplished what I intended all along- I now knew what it meant to work hard towards a goal and put the effort into accomplishing something. I was nineteen years old and on a mission to learn how to walk and be functional again, determined to get back to sports and normal life. I was accepted to Drexel University in Philadelphia and entered the elementary education program. While attending Drexel, I picked up a part-time job with the school IT department of the town I was living in. My aunt and uncle had been kind enough to open their home to me so I didn’t have to live on campus as an almost twenty-one year old freshman, and I got to be a part of my younger cousins’ lives, who became more like younger siblings to me than cousins. Some changes happened with the IT department a few months later, and I ended up not returning to Drexel to pursue a full time IT career. I had realized I still didn’t really like school that much, and even though I now had the tools to succeed, I’d rather go the IT career path via the IT certification route. My life’s path had deviated yet again, and I kept moving forward.

During this time, I was able to get back into sports- softball, a little basketball, paintball, anything I could. I still had difficulty running with the fused ankle, and it triggered lower back pain and some other issues. My attitude at the time was to push through, and worry about the long term effects when I’m older (which, now being older, I fully regret). I joined the volunteer fire department in the town where my uncle was a lieutenant, and I met what would become one of my closest friends in my life there. From 2002 to 2016, I would continue to grow and change jobs, always moving upwards in the IT world, while also undergoing almost a dozen more surgeries- most of which were needed because of that original incident. I met a girl, whom I married after almost ten years of dating. I set out to conquer the world, I made mistakes, I lived life, and I learned to just accept that I would always be in some kind of pain. Eventually, the pain grew worse and harder to ignore, and as the surgeries and doctor appointments grew more frequent, I would start to give up on the activities that made me happy- in softball, I would just be a first baseman or DH so I didn’t have to run. Running had become more and more awkward, until I couldn’t run anymore. I could no longer keep up in basketball, so I settled for shooting around once in a while, and replaced those activities with other, more solo but less fulfilling activities- darts, disc golf, horseshoes, etc. 

It was wearing on me pretty badly to not be able to do what I loved anymore, and, not realizing it at the time, I was starting to become depressed due to chronic pain syndrome. I was struggling to sleep, not being able to get even a full hour of sleep at a time without some type of sleep aid. I finally came around to the fact that three hours of pushing myself through something I wanted to do was not worth the three or four day recovery period, or causing further injuries because I was still broken. While on a trip in Sicily, I slipped on some wet cobblestones and my left foot was caught under me. Because of the fused ankle, my foot broke in multiple places instead of just being a bad sprain. I tore my ACL, MCL, and lateral meniscus playing another sport. These incidents led to multiple surgeries again, and all these surgeries were starting to take their toll on me physically and mentally. I started making bad decisions in the moment to try and get out of my chronic pain depression, I wasn’t being responsible, and I started becoming the person I had originally joined the Marines to leave behind- selfish, lazy, and doing the bare minimum to scrape by. I was making poor decisions just to feel good about myself and to forget about the pain for a few minutes, but then the remorse, guilt, and pain would set in, bringing me right back down again. This would eventually lead to a divorce and my moving back home for what was supposed to only be a few months to get my head straight again. I had to find other avenues to fulfill that need to be happy, to compete as a part of something, to be productive and successful again, and keep moving forward.

I didn’t intend to stay in Massachusetts, but it turns out to be one of the best things I ever did for a number of reasons, not the least of which was being around my family again. While I had been dealing with my own issues over the past few years and trying to present this illusion to the world that I was happy, successful, productive, and fine, my parents were also going through some tough times. They had moved to Pensacola, FL after I fell in love with it when stationed there, and for the most part, were enjoying it. My father then had another injury at work- this time he had to have his neck fused. While recovering from the surgery, he developed blood clots in his left leg that would eventually lead to an above-knee amputation in 2012. He tried using a prosthetic for a while, but eventually would have to give it up because of some issues and he became a wheelchair user. They moved back to Massachusetts to be near family and better doctors. When I moved back in fall of 2016 to try and figure out where I wanted to go and do, I moved in with them and was able to strengthen my relationship with them. My younger sister had also moved back to Mass and I was also able to form a stronger relationship with her. I hadn’t intended on staying for more than a few months, but would eventually get a job as a tech at a public school district, meet my current wife, start a family, and put down roots. I was promoted from being a tech to the manager of the tech department, and am currently in charge of the department. In September of 2019, I would have a second fusion on my left ankle- this time the subtalar joint. I was to be non-weight bearing for months as part of the recovery process. Unfortunately, that fusion didn’t go so well. The angle was wrong with my previous fusion and I couldn’t get my heel on the ground. My surgeon said it was going to be about seven more surgeries to break my foot up into pieces, fuse them back in a straight position, and the process would take about two years. I started to slide back into that depression and become increasingly frustrated with all of my health issues. This led to what I consider one of the most, if not the most, impactful conversation I have ever had- and it provided me a way to keep moving forward.

It was December of 2019, about a week before Christmas, and I was still struggling with the recovery of the subtalar fusion. I was using my iWalk to walk with, and I was still coming to terms that this was going to be how I got around for the next couple of years while they broke and fused my entire foot. I was at my work holiday party, at the bar and talking to the high school engineering teacher, Daren. He was asking about the iWalk, and the surgery overall. He then asked if I had ever heard of Hugh Herr at MIT. I hadn’t, so he told me I should check out his TED talk sometime. I went home and watched his TED talk where he talked about amputation, prosthetics, and how there hadn’t been much change since the revolutionary war. He believed that humans weren’t disabled or broken, it was the technology and research that were lacking. Fascinated, I looked up the MIT Biomechatronics lab and found an email address that you could message for information. I emailed that address with a little bit of my story, and offered myself as a test subject for any research projects they may have going on. I figured that since my limitations were because of trauma, not a disease or condition, and that by this time I had a high pain threshold, even if they couldn’t do anything for me personally, maybe they could use me to help someone in the future. Dr. Herr emailed me back within three hours, with the surgeon Dr. Matthew Carty of Brigham & Women’s Hospital CC’d, asking Dr. Carty to get me in for an evaluation. I didn’t know it at the time, but they were in the research phase of a new type of amputation that preserved muscles, nerves, and reduced phantom pain to phantom sensation for amputees. The goal is that this new type of amputation would eventually work with a robotic foot that Dr. Herr’s lab at MIT was developing. The amputation procedure was named Ewing after the first patient, Jim Ewing, whose initial accident story was eerily similar to mine. I was able to see Dr. Carty just after the new year, in 2020, and suddenly I was optimistic that I may have a better way to keep moving forward.

January 2020 was momentous for me. My wife and I bought our house and moved in; she was due in July with our first child. I met with Dr. Carty and after some tests, thought I would be a great candidate for the Ewing procedure. The amputation, while a huge life change, would eventually give me back more of my life and activities than breaking and fusing my biological foot. I would be able to wear a prosthetic, and after having been with my father for a while now, I had a rough idea of what life as an amputee would be like. The surgery was scheduled for April 21st, 2020- nineteen years to the day that I had fallen from the cliff in Missouri. I was also now thirty-eight years old, and had been dealing with these issues for half of my life. Having the surgery in April would also give me enough time to heal and get walking on a prosthetic, just in time for my daughter to be born in July. I was excited, eager, and optimistic- suddenly all the pain and depression and difficulty of the past nineteen years seemed to be worth it to bring me to this point. I wouldn’t resent my biological foot anymore- this useless weight that had been dragging me down and wearing away at the rest of my body. As the day got closer and closer, I had appointments for benchmark testing so they could measure mobility and performance pre- and post-operation. Then March came, and with it came the COVID-19 global pandemic and the world shut down. All elective surgeries were cancelled indefinitely. What could we do? Just take it day to day, hope it would go away eventually, life would resume, and keep moving forward.

My daughter was born July 1st, 2020, healthy and beautiful (well, she really looked like a little alien, but was the most beautiful thing in the world to me). I was lucky in that they had just loosened restrictions to allow the fathers in the rooms for deliveries, and I was able to be there. Shortly afterwards, they opened up elective surgeries again, and I was scheduled for August 14th, 2020, six weeks after my daughter’s birth. Surgery went well, my poor wife had to be alone for a few days while I was in the hospital, and then I was released, and she had to deal with two needy babies at home during a pandemic. She was pretty much a new, single mother for a time, and she was incredible. Everything went well with my surgery and recovery, and in October I received my first prosthetic. I was able to walk out of the hospital that day with no canes, crutches, walkers, or other assistive devices- on two feet without pain. The next day, I went disc golfing with my brother-in-law. A few weeks later, I sprinted for the first time in almost sixteen years. I don’t even like running just for the sake of running, but simply gaining back an ability that I had considered lost and forgotten came with a flood of emotions and I broke down sobbing hysterically. I saw in that moment that I may be able to get back to activities I never thought I would do again. I would be able to run with my daughter, teach her how to play basketball and all the other sports I had loved and given up on. I saw a future of gain, instead of loss. I was to still face some challenges, and it wasn’t as smooth as I thought it would be at that moment, but now I had a reason and path to keep moving forward.

I adapted well to a prosthetic. My father and I have had many conversations over this- we had always been very similar, but now we had an even closer bond and shared something not many family members do. He loves to tell people that he “always said to follow in my footsteps, but I didn’t mean literally.” One of the greatest lessons I learned from him is to keep smiling, keep looking at what you can do instead of what you can’t. We’re still here- talking, walking or rolling, playing games, doing art, and living. We keep moving forward.

Naturally, there were some bumps, bruises, and setbacks along the way, but I refused to give up. I was golfing, swimming, disc golfing, playing sports- I was more active than I had been in a decade. At one point, I went for a few months struggling with my socket fit and my level of activity drastically decreased. I wasn’t happy with the decline in quality of life- I was gaining weight, had less endurance, was becoming more easily frustrated- I felt like I had lost a part of my life yet again. I needed a way to still be active, especially cardio, without having to depend on my socket. I brought it up to the amputee clinic at one of my appointments, and they mentioned hand cycling. A referral was put in to the wheelchair clinic and I was able to meet with them to discuss options and goals. In order for them to build me a hand cycle, I needed to do ten sessions with the Recreational Therapy program (which up to this point I had no idea was a thing), and a referral was put in. I met with my amazing recreational therapist, Jenny, and was able to do a few sessions, as well as some other activities I hadn’t known about. I had freedom again, I felt good, I was excited to have an avenue of exercise that wouldn’t rely on my having two feet. Little did I know my trajectory was about to change again, this time for the better. I kept moving forward.

As part of the program, Jenny sends out a calendar of various activities for the month that are open to any veterans in the Recreational Therapy program. These include adaptive golf lessons, chair yoga, bowling, power wheelchair soccer, and events that may not necessarily be VA driven, but she has partnered with. One of the events on the calendar for November 18th, 2023 caught my attention- a wheelchair football clinic at Gillette Stadium’s fieldhouse, where the New England Patriots practice. The event was being hosted by Adaptive Sports New England and The Patriots Foundation. I’d never followed football (or any professional sports really- I preferred to play or do something else with my time), but my father was a huge fan and I thought it’d be a good event for us to do together. I asked Jenny what it was about and if it was open to anyone, and she encouraged me to attend. I asked my father if he wanted to go with me and check it out, and of course he was onboard, so I picked him up (all decked out in his Patriots swag- even down to the lanyard he kept his keys on), and upon arrival, everything changed.

Upon arrival, I helped Jenny unload a van full of sports chairs. This was my first time seeing a sports wheelchair. I went inside and registered with Sam from ASNE and he greeted me enthusiastically. He was genuinely interested in what had brought me out that day. I looked around and saw kids in wheelchairs laughing, playing, throwing footballs, and just having the time of their lives. I sat in a sports wheelchair for the first time that day, and discovered an entirely new world. I was in a place where it didn’t matter what you had been through, what your disability or story was, or what your perceived limitations were. There were adults, children, able-bodied, disabled, all there for one purpose- to play football, together. No one looked at me and saw a missing limb and felt sorry for me or wondered what had happened- they saw someone trying to learn a sport, an athlete, and instead of wondering “How is this person limited?”, they saw athletic ability and potential, and wondered “What can this individual contribute?”. One of the players from the team, Vaughn Pfeffer, rolled up to me and introduced himself, then asked me to throw with him. We started talking as we passed the ball back and forth and I came to find out he was the quarterback for the New England Patriots Wheelchair Football Team.

Throughout the event, we ran drills, learned how to move in the chair, went over some plays, broke out into small groups, large groups, we mixed and matched. The incredible women’s professional football team, The Renegades, were there helping with drills and even jumped in chairs to play a scrimmage with us. It was like being transported back in time to all those years of basketball and team sports that I had given up and thought were gone forever. Throughout the day, I was introduced to other players from the team- Joe LeMar, Damon Isles, Josh White, and many others. All of them were so welcoming and they encouraged me to keep in touch so I could try out for the team in the spring/summer when they started back up for the season. I traded phone numbers with a few of them to keep in touch and informed.

Sam reached out a couple days later to see how I like the clinic, to get some of my background and story, and again encourage me to try out for the team when they started back up. Joe and I kept in touch, me bugging him because I wanted to know how to improve my skills in the sports wheelchair. He invited me out in the spring to play wheelchair basketball in East Boston, and I was able to make it for a few weeks. I was introduced to some other players on the football team that also played basketball, which was a whole different animal. Basketball, my favorite sport to play growing up, had at this point become just shooting around once in a while. Suddenly, I was able to play basketball for real. I was moving, passing, dribbling, blocking shots, playing defense, getting shut down by more experienced players, inciting me to want to do this, to be good at a team sport again. Blisters covering my hands to where they were almost unusable, I was barely able to lift my arms after a couple of hours of playing- and I loved all of it. Between the football clinic and these wheelchair basketball pickup games, I was able to do something I had long ago given up on- play a real team sport, where split second decisions rely on your synergy with your teammates, not solely on individual performance. It gave me back something I had lost and yet still craved- true teamplay and camaraderie. Moving forward…

I did end up joining the New England Patriots Wheelchair Football Team. I asked the wheelchair clinic at the VA for a sports wheelchair- they told me if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to get the hand cycle. There wasn’t even the slightest hesitation- I wanted, needed, that sports wheelchair, and eventually got one. The first few practices, I was a little lost and struggling to keep up- I felt like a deer in headlights. I was just trying to take it all in. I don’t like feeling like I’m the one holding everyone back- I need to be good, to be a leader. The Marines had instilled in me a desire to dominate, to be the best I can be, the example, and to not hold back. I was trying to learn the sports chair, football (my previous experience was backyard neighborhood football growing up), and where I could fit in with the team. Everyone was super supportive- we were all there to be a team, learn as a team, and compete as a team. It was only the second year for the Patriots, but we were all determined to make our presence known in the USA Wheelchair Football League. I practiced as a middle linebacker with Joe coaching and supporting me, and also as the backup quarterback to Vaughn, who was incredible with teaching me and showing me the ropes of quarterback. Our first tournament in Tampa would be cancelled due to Hurricane Deb coming in, but then we went on to Chicago a few weeks later. 

I was nervous and excited- up until this point, I had only played against my own teammates in a practice setting. Here was real competition, at the highest level in the country for wheelchair football. I went into the tournament thinking I’d mainly be playing linebacker, with a few plays over the course of the weekend as QB just to get the feel for it. I was made a co-captain by the team, and felt deeply honored and that I still had yet to earn that respect. As we learn quickly in the military, the best laid plans are perfect right up until the moment of execution- then all chaos erupted and we kept moving forward.

Vaughn, the starting QB, suffered an injury on the third play of the game and was unable to continue. Suddenly, I was the quarterback and thrown into the frays of competition. We ended up losing our two games that day. I was feeling pretty down- as mentioned previously, I don’t like being bad at things or feeling like I am the person holding the team down. Later that evening, Sam, Vaughn, and I met in Sam’s room and just talked for hours- football, how the day and games went, life in general, just hanging out. They reaffirmed their confidence in me and that we would do better the next day. I left there feeling optimistic about the next two games for the tournament, but also feeling that weight and burden of responsibility of leading the offense. Who was I to think that I could pull this off- I had no football experience outside of the few months of practice, the same with the sports chair, and this whole adaptive sports world. The others were far more experienced and better than I. The next morning though, I embraced all that pressure and trepidation and used it to fuel the inner competitive spirit and drive- I had been competing all my life and came out on top, this was no different. Calm, cool, collected- we went on to win both games that day. Were they perfect games? Absolutely not, but the team rallied and supported me, and we all dug deep to pull out those victories. I left Chicago on a high I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. We kept moving forward and ended on a positive note.

A little less than a month later, we would go to our second and final tournament for the season. Vaughn was healing up still, and, (I found this out later), asked Sam to start me at quarterback. We went 2-2 in that MInneapolis tournament as well, and again left feeling elated, emotional, and drained. We finished our season 4-4, coming in 8th of the 14 teams in the league. We keep moving forward.

We’re already getting a jump start on next season. Once a non-football fan, I’m now taking in and absorbing anything and everything I can to be a better leader and player. The goal is to make the top four teams next season. I was nominated for the Veteran’s All-Star game by Sam and Joe from ASNE and was actually selected to play. I’ll be heading to New Orleans to play in the 2nd Annual USA Wheelchair Football League Veteran All-Star game as part of the NFL’s Fan Festival leading up to Super Bowl LIX. I’m so incredibly humbled and grateful for this long journey to where I am now. The experiences and friends I’ve made along the way, the family and support I have on and off the field- there aren’t words enough to describe how it feels. 

My name is Jon Brace. I am a father, a husband, a son, a brother, an IT professional, a disabled Marine veteran, a teammate, an adaptive athlete. I am a human being, and as long as I have breath, I will keep moving forward. 

I have three tenets I live by: be kind, be respectful, keep moving forward. 

“Crawling is acceptable

Falling is acceptable

Puking is acceptable

Crying is acceptable

Pain is acceptable

Quitting is not

Keep moving forward”