the story.
My name is Sgt. Josh Wetzel . In 2012 I was deployed to Afghanistan where I stepped on an improvised explosive device instantly losing both of my legs. My wife and I spent two years at Walter Reed Hospital where I had to learn how to live life as a double amputee. I was blessed beyond measure to be able to walk on prosthetics, become a dad, and even get my college degree, but my biggest struggle was, and will always be, figuring out my own body.
how we forged our family
​​Leaving the Army meant leaving a job where I got paid to stay fit to sitting at a desk and walking on robot legs. It was just too hard to take the time to learn how to exercise outside of a military or physical therapy setting, so my plan was to ignore it. I learned the hard way that my physical and mental health were inseparable. Neglecting my body meant building a world of comfort and convenience and running from anything that even remotely challenged me. I became depressed and almost convinced myself to walk away from my family.
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Then, God got my attention through randomly joining a gym (video above), where I relearned how to take responsibility for myself. What I didn't expect was that I would connect with my wife and daughters in a way that I never had before. From where I sit now, I totally understood isolation, fear, and anger lead so many veterans to life-ending choices.
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I learned that this physical body is really all we really have (even when you lose some of it) and taking that seriously can be an act of worship, hard is not the same thing as bad, and, most importantly, what the enemy plans for evil, God can always use for good (Genesis 50:20).
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Our goal at Forging the Warrior Family is to unite families by making it cool to work on yourself alongside your spouse and kids. If you get 6-pack abs, great! But the ultimate prize is finding activity + community that reminds us that God is good
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ALL THE TIME.
