Wounded Army vet Martinez wins ‘Dancing’ - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Wounded Army vet Martinez wins ‘Dancing’

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — As “Dancing With the Stars” came down to the final vote on a winner for this year’s show Tuesday night, some members of Fort Campbell’s military medical community already knew who the winner was.

Asked how a victory for former soldier J.R. Martinez would affect the soldiers at the Warrior Transition Battalion here, Lt. Col. Daniel Sengstacke shot back immediately: “J.R. has already won this thing.”

In fact, Martinez did win, taking home the coveted mirror ball trophy as the Season 13 champion.

Asked where he would keep the trophy, Martinez said, “Right now I’m going to put mine in bed. I’m going to tuck it in, and it’s going to roll around with me. And then after that, once we’ve kind of grown apart, I’m going to glue it to the hood of my car and drive around Los Angeles and honk my horn and it will be my own parade.”

Sengstacke, who spent time as a nurse in the burn ward of Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, knows a little about the kind of victory that Martinez has won and keeps on winning.

He and others said Martinez won from the moment he decided to live after a terrible injury suffered as a soldier in Iraq. He won from the moment he decided not to be defined by injury or disability. He won when he decided to motivate and help others. He won by having the courage to become an actor, and he won again when he decided to put himself out there for “DWTS.”

The fact that he can flat-out dance is just icing on the cake.

The psychologist

Military psychologist Tony Franklin, a retired lieutenant colonel, calls the victory positive and healthy.

Franklin, himself a victim of an injury involving severe burns, said he believes in the power of teaching by example. By refusing to be defined by an injury, he said Martinez has the power to help others who are facing the very hard fact of a life-altering change in their own perceptions of who they are.

“I think it has an immeasurable impact,” Franklin said, “not just for people who have been disfigured or badly burned, but actually for everyone who sees somebody overcome something like this. I think J.R. has made an incredibly bold statement to the world, and especially to wounded warriors, that no matter what happens, you can overcome it.”

Franklin and his wife have been watching Martinez since his days as an actor on the soap opera “All My Children.” ‘‘I think what’s so incredible about J.R.,” Franklin said, “is that now you look at him on ‘DWTS’ and you almost don’t see the disfigurement. His spirit blinds you to the fact.”

The nurse

Sengstacke was a fan of “DWTS” long before Martinez showed up this year.

“My wife is a huge ‘DWTS’ fan,” Sengstacke said, smiling broadly. “She indoctrinated and recruited me. This season [was] especially significant, of course. I did not know about J.R. prior to this.”

Sengstacke, who drew on his experiences at Brooke’s burn ward to explain the magnitude and difficulty of Martinez’s journey through 33 reconstructive surgeries, also had great praise for “DWTS” and its producers in hitting the right notes with the right sensibility, in a case where a heavier-handed approach could have turned the story into a maudlin pity-fest.

“They didn’t overplay it,” Sengstacke said, “and they didn’t use it as a propaganda thing. They just recognized him as a motivational speaker, as an actor and as a soldier.”

Like others who watched this season’s progression, he quickly went from focusing on how good it was to see a wounded warrior getting a shot at stardom to marveling how talented Martinez was.

“It was just knowing that this guy had something special,” Sengstacke said. “You can see it in his eye, his smile, his attitude, in the way he talks, in the way he treats other people.”

Sengstacke said he sees the potential for Martinez to significantly alter public perceptions about soldiers, especially regarding those who return from war bearing highly visible scars of combat. However, he mostly hopes that Martinez and his journey can teach something to those taking their first steps through the dark place at the beginning of that journey.

“Hopefully, Sengstacke said, “the wounded warriors watching can see that life doesn’t have to end.” He paused for a long second or two and added, “(J.R.) is an oasis of hope and light in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”