[caption id=“attachment_5738” align=“aligncenter” width=“450” caption=“Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Andrew Johnson keeps the ball alive for the Navy/Coast Guard seated volleyball team May 18, 2011. Navy/Coast Guard defeated Air Force, 2-0. (Photo: Samantha Quigley / USO) ”][/caption]

When we picture members of the military playing volleyball, many of us still think back to the blockbuster 1986 film “Top Gun,” where Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer and their co-stars square off on the sand as the hit movie’s soundtrack blares.  

The scene at Warrior Games 2011 on Wednesday evening was far different, because it was real.  Instead of fictional heroes flexing muscles created in Hollywood gyms, wounded, ill and injured warriors showed us that some of America’s toughest men and women play volleyball sitting down.

Many images from the sitting volleyball tournament, which concludes Saturday night at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., will stick with me.  But nothing I saw struck me more than what happened after Army finished a match with Special Forces.

After Army’s hard-fought victory, everyone on the Special Forces team, including several athletes missing all or part of one leg, rose to shake hands with the soldiers on the other side of the net.  The Army team quickly rose to greet their brothers and sisters in arms, in a seminal moment of sportsmanship that is often missing from today’s highlight-driven world of athletics.

Despite a raucous crowd and two teams that desperately wanted to win, it was just a game, after all.  About 20 minutes later, the moving scene repeated itself after Navy narrowly defeated Air Force.  Amid war and tragedy, the men and women of the U.S. military continue to show a level of class that’s worthy of the finest fighting force in the world.     

It is an honor to be joining the USO Wounded Warriors team in Colorado Springs for this incredible event. – Tom Sileo, USO