Blind Vietnam vet introduces sailing, outdoor activities to disabled people, other veterans

From San Diego News Network in California:

Urban Miyares (pictured) is blind, but that doesn’t mean he can’t see the world.

He can see that there are thousands of disabled people who just want a chance — a chance at normalcy, a chance at independence, a chance at life. Having been there himself, Miyares has made it his life’s goal to help the disabled find their way, when most merely cast them aside.

Miyares is the president and co-founder of Challenged America, a nonprofit organization introducing sailing and other outdoor activities to the disabled and military veterans and their families as a means of therapy and rehabilitation.

“I made a vow that if I could figure out how to do it, I would help others,” said Miyares of his organization’s work to try to provide the disabled a sense of normalcy.

But to know more about that vow, you need to know more about the man. Ironic, given that Miyares’ life has been anything but normal.

It was 1968, and Urban Miyares was serving his country as a member of the U.S. Army fighting in Vietnam.

(For weeks, he had been physically ill, encountering bouts with vomiting, exhaustion, dizziness, and desperately needing sleep. When checked out by Army doctor’s Miyares, a commanding officer in the 9th Infantry, was diagnosed with “battle fatigue” and peptic ulcers.)

One fateful day, Miyares and his squadron flew into a small village in the southern part of the country. He remembers walking through a giant, marshy field of rice paddies when he heard the distinctive “thump” of mortars being launched. At that point, he said he remembers falling face-first into a rice paddy.

“I woke up in a hospital in Saigon,” he recalled. “I had to look under the bed sheet to make sure I still had my legs. I remember one of my commanding officers walking up to the bed and telling me, ‘You’re one lucky grunt.’”

Miyares had apparently been counted among the soldiers killed in combat that day, and was placed in a body bag. When an Army medic opened the bags to tag the deceased, he found Miyares was a different color from the other bodies — barely alive, with only a faint heartbeat.

He returned to the U.S. and spent six months in a V.A. hospital in Valley Forge, Pa., with doctors performing countless tests on him to determine his mental and physical makeup. Weighing only 119 pounds, he developed Type 1 diabetes and had nerve damage caused by peripheral neuropathy.

In addition, the neuropathy limited the blood going to his optic nerves, which caused his eyesight to start to fail, and made it very difficult for Miyares to move around.

“I was diagnosed as being bipolar, but I was really suffering from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder),” he said. “Back then, you never told anyone you were a veteran. You didn’t know what benefits you were entitled to. Where medical science was at the time, I was told I had no longer than 20 years to live.”

Upon being released from the hospital, Miyares set out to live — live the way he had always intended to, promising himself that his blindness and disabilities were not going to keep him down.

More than 40 years, 23 owned companies, and one unique world record later, Miyares is still standing. He has run companies in many different industries, including retail, restaurant, publishing, public relations, and import/export product distribution.

Some of Miyares truly amazing accomplishments are his performances on the slope. Yes, that slope. Skiing. Totally blind skiing. In 1988, he was invited to the Disabled American Veterans & Department of Veterans Affair winter sports clinic in Grand Junction, Colorado, and was asked to try his hand at skiing.

“It took a while to get adjusted,” he admits. “I didn’t like skiing. It was cold. I got angry with myself when I wasn’t very good.”

Like everything else, Miyares decided he was going to put his mind to something and got it done. He started training to become a better skier. Two years later, he became the world’s fastest total blind skier, clocked 63 miles per hour on a downhill course in Vermont, in the B-1 total blind category (which means the goggles are taped).

“There is a fear factor. You have to make sure you have an experienced guide,” said Miyares. “The guide tells you where to go. You definitely get the sensation of speed. If you don’t really know and trust your guide, there’s definite insecurity. It can be scary. You have no sense of slope, and you can hit a jump and all of a sudden you’re airborne.”

Off of the mountain, Miyares is one of the nation’s foremost leaders on entrepreneurship for disabled persons, founding the Disabled Businesspersons Association (DBA) in 1985. The organization’s mission: to assist enterprising individuals with disabilities maximize their potential in the business world. In addition, the group aims to work with vocational rehabilitation, government and business to encourage the participation and enhance the performance of the disabled in the workforce.

He is a prominent speaker and author on the subject. He’s received dozens of awards from both entrepreneurial and disability-based organizations. He’s met presidents. He’s written books, and founded after-school entrepreneurial programs for disabled school children. A documentary on Challenged America was featured on A&E and nominated for an Emmy.

But amid an already-full life of accomplishments and accolades, there is one place where Miyares feels most at home: on the open sea.

“I like to say that I melted the snow and started sailing on it,” he said. “(Challenged America) has really helped me rekindle a passion in my life. I was introduced to sailing when I was a boy and always loved it.”

Aside from the sentimental aspects, Miyares says that sailing is very therapeutic for his PTSD.

“People with PTSD look at the world differently. They are always taking corners wider, always looking over their shoulders,” he said. “I find the sea very relaxing. There’s no corners, no alleyways, everything is flat. No one waiting around a corner to get you.”

It’s that same freedom that Miyares offers to others through Challenged America. The organization that started as the brainchild of two disabled Vietnam vets who sat on the Mission Bay shore and watched the boats pass in 1978 — yearning for the opportunity to do it themselves — has grown into a full-blown 501(c)(3) that serves hundreds of disabled and veterans and has a fleet of 12 boats, all of which are donated.

“I was talking with those two vets and they had a boat and asked if I wanted to come sail with them,” Miyares remembers. “They asked, ‘can you pull a line?’ and I said, ‘I think so.’ It all started from there. They were trying to form a racing team, and I became a member.”

A Vietnam vet who overcomes his disability to own his own businesses, meets Presidents, and becomes a championship athlete who loves being on boats? Are we sure the screenwriters of “Forrest Gump” didn’t have Miyares in mind when they penned the script?

The Challenged America racing team often competes in the historic Transpac Yacht Race, a 2,225-nautical-mile endeavor that first began in 1906. Some of the Challenged America members, including Miyares himself, have even served as part of the crew on America’s Cup yachts. (Miyares is a long-time friend of legendary America’s Cup skipper Dennis Connor.)

Most importantly, aside from giving disabled veterans back a part of their freedom and stoking their competitive fires, Miyares — who said he misses reading and driving the most by being sightless — wants Challenged America to be a safe haven for even the most downtrodden.

“They are our priority. We want to invest the time and energy into the most badly disabled,” he said. “We want to work with those where there’s a real therapeutic value [in sailing], where sailing advances their rehabilitation or ability to give back to society either through work or volunteering or something like that.”

In addition, as president of DBA, he hopes that the therapy that the disabled can get through sailing will instill in them the confidence to be productive in society — possibly even being their own bosses as business owners. Miyares said that the disabled are the largest self-employed population in America.

Cliché as it is, such a successful businessperson usually has good people behind him or her.

“It’s about understanding business. The key is to have people who want to work for you, not to try and do it yourself,” he said. “Find people who can strengthen your own weaknesses. Then put ego in the back seat and just downplay your disability. Live below your means. Your banker is the only person you need to impress.”

That’s no truer than for Miyares, whose wife JoAnn has been by his side for 42 years, officially, and even longer as Miyares said they knew each other growing up in Manhattan. JoAnn does a lot of the administrative work for Miyares’ companies and organizations, including booking him on 40-60 speaking engagements throughout the year. The fees from those help fund the majority of the work that Miyares does throughout the year.

“What can I say? I sleep with the boss.”