SEASON 3 EPISODE 12 | Army Veteran Michael Smith

In this episode of Vetted Conversations, Army veteran and former professional athlete Michael Smith shares his inspiring journey from injury to international competition and advocacy. Representing the U.S. Army in the World Class Athlete Program and now serving as an ambassador for Sierra Delta, Michael reflects on how service, identity, and purpose continue beyond the military. https://www.sierradelta.com/
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Join us as we learn together and help equip you with the tools to project and preserve what matters most. Our shared American ideals.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

Are you ready for it? We are here on Radio Row at the Super Bowl with fellow veteran and uh military community member and professional athlete and here ambassador for Sierra Delta helping connect veterans with service dogs. Michael Smith, thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Thank you. I appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Yeah, man. Okay, so so first of all, tell us uh the the organization you're talking about as you walk around here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Sierra Delta. Um just out here being an ambassador for Sierra Delta. It's to help any and all veterans receive a service dog. Doesn't matter, you don't, a lot of people think of service dogs you have to have some kind of ailment, amputee, and whatever the case is. It's not the case, you know what I mean? Sometimes I didn't even realize I had a uh I didn't even realize I needed a service dog until I received one. And I'm capably, I'm fully physically capable of doing whatever I want to do. Um for me, my service dog, Zus is more, he's more of a buddy, he's a he's a he's a friend, you know what I mean? When I need to be vulnerable with somebody, he's he's that he's that animal I can be vulnerable with, so it's been pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:57

That's really cool. I love that. Well, um speaking of someone who's fully capable, you not only uh retired recently from the Army, but you spent how many of the last years in in the Army's world class athletes program?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

So um I got injured in 2011, so the last 11 of my years have been spent without an arm. The last four and a half of my years in the Army was with the Army World Class Athletes Program.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Okay, can you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, so basically you're a professional athlete for the military. You're you represent your branch, so mine's is uh the Army, so I represented the United States Army on every single professional uh athlete pro stage I could as a triathlete and as a cyclist.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

As a triathlete, as a cyclist, and as a skeleton bobsledding.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

All I want to talk about because I am the biggest Winter Olympics fan. Okay. And Michael, you told me that most people say, what's a skeleton? And I was first of all like, excuse me, if these people don't know, I don't want to talk about it. Can you though tell everyone who's listening what the skeleton is?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Yeah, so skeleton bobsledding is basically you're on a sled um and you're going head first down an ice track at like 60 miles an hour. That's what exactly what it is. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Yeah, so you're you, you know, you people think like joining the military is dangerous, but then you are choosing to go head first down an icy.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

There's no other thrill like it. I've jumped out of planes, I've repelled, I've fast roped, I've done all that exciting stuff. Skeleton is on a whole nother level. Like it's it's a few moments in your seconds in your life that when I say everything flashes before your eyes, it's just that. It's amazing. Like I love it. It's it's nothing like it.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Alright, so how did you get into that?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Ooh, so being from Texas, uh, I actually was living in Arkansas, uh, Little Rock, Arkansas, and a guy from Texas reached out to me and was like, hey, you're a better, and we're having like uh a combine here at ATM Stadium. Do you want to come out? You know, we'll pay for you to come out. It'd be a great representation for adaptive athletes. Sure, why not? And so I'm there, and me, I'm a I want to be challenged, and I want to be able to show people like this is a my arm is a minor setback. And so I just really gave it all I had. And I ended up being in like the top 5% of the entire combine with one arm.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Um, and then I had a recruiter come to me who was like, hey, would you like to go to this camp? Just to see what you have. I was like, what is it? You told me? Why not? My very, very first run, Tuffy Latour, who is the I believe he's still the national team coach, came to me. He was like, hey man, you got something special. And I was like, what do you mean? He was like, I'm one of those wood men on the You literally just like you just qualified for a national race. Wow. Just practicing.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

First time. First time. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

And I was like, for real? He was like, you could, you could really do this. And at the time, para skeleton box legging was very new. So I just I did it. And I just stuck with it. And like within three, four weeks, I was like number one in the in the in the world. Like, boom, like overnight.

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Wow. Yeah. And so wait, where did you compete? What what tracks did you compete on?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Um, so I did Canada, I did Germany, I did Utah, New York. Um Yeah, that's pretty much my main circuit.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

That is amazing. All right, I'm I'm not I'm gonna tell all the kids listening that they should not do um face first downhill uh sledding unless they unless they do some practicing.

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Please don't.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Uh but but you but if you want to be like Michael Smith, you could maybe join a professional team and do it later if you like.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Um okay, so what we're talking about here uh while we're at the Super Bowl is a campaign called Military 250. You know, this year coming up uh in June is the 250th anniversary of the Army, and followed by the uh the Navy and Marine Corps, and we're encouraging the veteran military family community to celebrate their service by continuing to serve. Yes. So to look at all the different ways that you can do that, you know, in your own community, for the country in different ways. Um and of course, it's also it's it's it's also what we want to invite the rest of the country to do, right? Right. Don't don't talk, don't post a picture on Facebook. Get out there and do something for the community. Talk to us about kind of how you've been motivated to continue to serve.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Um, so serving 24 years, that's just not something that you can rid of. That's not that, you know, I feel like once you've spent more than 10 years in the military, it's ingrained in you. It's who you are, so it has a lot to do with how you perceive and act and things of that nature. And for myself, um, I don't focus on the amputee population. I focus on us as a whole. Excuse me. I focus on us as a whole uh because it's very important to me that we all continue to thrive. Uh what I've seen in a lot of cases is service members get out and they don't have an identity before they get out. That then, next thing you know, in the blink of an eye, it's time for them to get out, and now they're trying to establish their new normal. Um so I encourage people to start to get out before they get out. To get out into communities, be active, um, you know, start looking for that for that new identity that you're gonna need. Um, myself, like I a lot of motivational speaking. Even before I got out, I was going to do a lot of speaking on my own, uh, just because raising awareness. And I knew what it I knew that dark hole I went down. So I feel like I would be less of a person if I didn't pay that for it. So every opportunity I get, I pay it for it. Like, no matter who it is. I these NFL guys, and they're talking to me, and I'm just like, yeah, so, you know, what was it like for me for you getting out of the military? And I was like, bro, the same thing goes like for you taking out that judgment. We all go through the same thing, but it's it's establishing that new norm before you're forced to have to make that transition on your own, you know.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Yeah, I mean that's such a good point. And and so, you know, when when you think about your process, what you obviously you chose to stay in after your injury. What was that process like too?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

So I'll be very, very honest with you. Um initially, I chose to stay in because I was scared of the VA system. I was scared of being a veteran. I was scared of falling into that uh that stereotypical hole that everybody goes down and have people become, veterans become homeless. Um that's why I stayed in at first, but then it became a duty and selfless service, and it just became a part of my mission to show people that I can still be a leader with going on.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

That's amazing. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

And I I still had so much left to give. Like I love leading troops. I love developing young men and women. I mean, you know, being a leader, that's what you do. You're you're doing it right now, posting this. You're developing people outside of myself, yourself. You're raising awareness. So essentially, I'm doing what you do, you're just doing it on a whole way, like it's just but I mean I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

So uh um, last question, so talk to us like why'd you join the military in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Once again, it was not a patriotic thing. I was the first to do it out of my family.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Um, I grew up in a single-parent household, and I just remember how rough it was for me, and I didn't want that for my sister. And I wanted to one day be able to retire my mother. Um and so I had a scholarship to go to college, and at the time you couldn't be paid for being in college, so I wanted to once again pay it for it. And the military was one of the things that was admirable. That's one of the things that I can do outside of myself that I can be prideful in. Um I didn't know four years was gonna turn into 24 years. Wow, but I'm thankful and grateful that I did.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Well, not only did it turn into 24 years, but you became a professional athlete in the meantime. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You became a spokesperson for a major veterans organization. So, yeah, it led you to a lot of other incredibly positive things in the world. Um, Michael Smith, thank you for someone by talking to us.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Thank you for your service and for your continued service.