thedrifter
06-12-08, 04:45 AM
Trip to Kuwait, Iraq helps Leitao see the big picture
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Like many in his profession, University of Virginia men's basketball coach Dave Leitao occasionally talks of "battles" and "wars" and "warriors" when the subject is athletic competition. For that, he found himself apologizing to soldiers he met in Iraq this month, for whom war is no game.
"I think I was a little embarrassed that we use war terms when we're talking in sports," Leitao said yesterday, but the soldiers' response lifted his spirits.
"They said, 'Hey, it's your battle, it's your war, so we don't feel bad for you saying it.'"
Leitao, whose father served in the Army, returned early this week from a tour that took him to two military hospitals in the D.C. area, to Kuwait and to Iraq.
Joining him on the trip, sponsored by the United Service Organizations and called "Operation Hoop Talk: Talking with the Troops," were five former and current basketball coaches, including Jim Crews of the U.S. Military Academy.
"I think, to a man, we all left saying we'd happily go back again," Leitao said. "Whether I do or not, only time will tell. But it's something that affected all of us."
Leitao's interest in the military is not new. In January 2007, before U.Va.'s game at Maryland, he took his team to visit injured soldiers and Marines at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
About six months earlier, Leitao had been among the coaches in "Operation Hardwood III," a tour to Japan sponsored by the USO and Armed Forces Entertainment. There, the coaches were matched with military personnel who'd been split into teams.
"The basketball part of Japan was great, because you got to coach them," Leitao said. "This time was a little different. You got to learn. The conversations with the soldiers were so much different this time around."
One of the coaches' first stops was Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. In Iraq, Leitao stayed at bases in Mosul and Balad, spending much of his time "meeting and greeting soldiers" of all ranks. Among those he met were a woman from Farmville and a man who'd worked at U.Va. before enlisting.
Leitao left Iraq with a heightened appreciation for the military and the sacrifices soldiers make every day. The experience, he said, was "extremely enlightening, life-changing [in regards to] what you appreciate and your views on a lot of different things, especially on what's currently going on in the war, and how different it is from what you get either politically or from the media's standpoint."
When the coaches traveled in areas where they might be exposed to enemy fire, they wore helmets and body armor. They also endured sandstorms that disrupted their travel plans and offered tangible evidence of the obstacles U.S. soldiers face in the Persian Gulf region.
In the journal he submitted to VirginiaSports.com periodically on his trip, Leitao closed each entry with God Bless America!
Back in the States, he hopes to impress upon his players that what they "have to put up with as a student or an athlete pales in comparison to" the hardships that U.S. military personnel deal with routinely.
"Hopefully that means in moving forward, I can give them a little more perspective on having appreciation for the moment you're living in," Leitao said.
Contact Jeff White at (804) 649-6838 or jwhite@timesdispatch.com.
Ellie
Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Like many in his profession, University of Virginia men's basketball coach Dave Leitao occasionally talks of "battles" and "wars" and "warriors" when the subject is athletic competition. For that, he found himself apologizing to soldiers he met in Iraq this month, for whom war is no game.
"I think I was a little embarrassed that we use war terms when we're talking in sports," Leitao said yesterday, but the soldiers' response lifted his spirits.
"They said, 'Hey, it's your battle, it's your war, so we don't feel bad for you saying it.'"
Leitao, whose father served in the Army, returned early this week from a tour that took him to two military hospitals in the D.C. area, to Kuwait and to Iraq.
Joining him on the trip, sponsored by the United Service Organizations and called "Operation Hoop Talk: Talking with the Troops," were five former and current basketball coaches, including Jim Crews of the U.S. Military Academy.
"I think, to a man, we all left saying we'd happily go back again," Leitao said. "Whether I do or not, only time will tell. But it's something that affected all of us."
Leitao's interest in the military is not new. In January 2007, before U.Va.'s game at Maryland, he took his team to visit injured soldiers and Marines at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
About six months earlier, Leitao had been among the coaches in "Operation Hardwood III," a tour to Japan sponsored by the USO and Armed Forces Entertainment. There, the coaches were matched with military personnel who'd been split into teams.
"The basketball part of Japan was great, because you got to coach them," Leitao said. "This time was a little different. You got to learn. The conversations with the soldiers were so much different this time around."
One of the coaches' first stops was Camp Arifjan in Kuwait. In Iraq, Leitao stayed at bases in Mosul and Balad, spending much of his time "meeting and greeting soldiers" of all ranks. Among those he met were a woman from Farmville and a man who'd worked at U.Va. before enlisting.
Leitao left Iraq with a heightened appreciation for the military and the sacrifices soldiers make every day. The experience, he said, was "extremely enlightening, life-changing [in regards to] what you appreciate and your views on a lot of different things, especially on what's currently going on in the war, and how different it is from what you get either politically or from the media's standpoint."
When the coaches traveled in areas where they might be exposed to enemy fire, they wore helmets and body armor. They also endured sandstorms that disrupted their travel plans and offered tangible evidence of the obstacles U.S. soldiers face in the Persian Gulf region.
In the journal he submitted to VirginiaSports.com periodically on his trip, Leitao closed each entry with God Bless America!
Back in the States, he hopes to impress upon his players that what they "have to put up with as a student or an athlete pales in comparison to" the hardships that U.S. military personnel deal with routinely.
"Hopefully that means in moving forward, I can give them a little more perspective on having appreciation for the moment you're living in," Leitao said.
Contact Jeff White at (804) 649-6838 or jwhite@timesdispatch.com.
Ellie