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Team River Runner (TRR) gives military veterans and their family members an opportunity to find health, healing, and new challenges through whitewater boating and other paddling sports. The benefits of TRR have as much to do with social support, finding emotional strength and re-creating personal identity as they do with athletic activity.

Improvements to protective clothing and equipment for the U.S. military have led to fewer combat deaths, but also to an increase in the rate of severe injuries, such as loss of limbs. Between March 2003 (the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq) and April of 2009, almost 5,000 U.S. troops have died and almost 34,000 have been wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), according to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf.

Wounded service members have endured many months of surgeries, physical therapy, prosthetic fittings, and other life adjustments. Against this backdrop, those who are able welcome a chance to pick up a new challenge, and get out of the daily routine of a hospital for a day. All are attracted to whitewater kayaking because it offers an exciting way to recover their health, strength, and connection with nature.

TRR accomplishes its goals through a step-by-step approach in which paddlers begin learning to control a whitewater kayak in a pool, and then move to quiet open water and where available, open ocean and rivers, where they gain additional experience and skills. Once they have mastered the basics, they are then able to go on TRR organized trips to more progressively challenging venues.

TRR has Local Chapters across the country. If there is not a TRR Chapter in your area, please Contact Us at our national office in Washington D.C.

Happy Paddling!