Diveheart Help Parents of Fallen Troops Take a Leap of Faith

Joe Caruso of Naperville had the opportunity to experience something that his son had loved.

Sgt. David Caruso of the U.S. Marines died in Iraq in 2004 at the age of 25. Prior to that time, he had been stationed in Okinawa, where he loved to SCUBA dive. “He used to explain it to me.  So I got this chance and I knew I was going to take it.  I wanted to know what it was like,” Caruso said. 

A member of Operation Support Our Troops Illinois (OSOTIL), Caruso has participated in the organization’s Leap of Faith Seminar for families of fallen troops. On Wednesday, April 27, the group was invited to a Discover SCUBA program coordinated by Diveheart of Downers Grove. “It was awesome,” Caruso said.

The Leap of Faith Seminar and subsequent events were developed by Deb Rickert, founder of OSOTIL.”This is a concept that we’ve designed to help the parents live and grow beyond their grief and sadness," she said. "To commit to living a life of hope and happiness again. The sadness doesn’t go away, but it doesn’t have to define them and be the end of joyful possibilities.

“We encourage them to embrace a new normal," Rickert said. "Life will never be what it was before they lost their son or daughter. But it can be new.”  

She had observed there was not much available for families of fallen troops other than memorial services. “Not that memorial services are a bad thing because they’re certainly not. But what we watched and observed was that these families would get on a memorial merry-go-round. Everything encouraged them to go back and dive into the grief,” Rickert said.  “Our concept is to help them rediscover life again.” 

The group’s first event was a tandem skydive with the U.S. Army Golden Knights Parachute Team in February.  “We wanted to bring them back together to see how their time had been,” she said. Their second event was the Discover SCUBA program which was held at the Double Tree Hotel in Downers Grove.

Rickert met Jim Elliott, founder/president of Diveheart, earlier this month at a networking event.  Diveheart, which is a not-for-profit organization, provides SCUBA diving for wounded veterans and children and adults with disabilities.

Elliott said working with the parents of the fallen troops was a natural extension of Diveheart’s mission. “Diveheart Military Wounded works with our wounded veterans," he said. "These parents are wounded. They’re the families of our service men and women, and we look at that as being an extension of who we serve.”

Furthermore, there are similarities between the parents of fallen troops and veterans, Elliot said. “Our wounded veterans are returning without arms, without legs, without their vision, with traumatic brain injuries; they’re facing losses and coping with a difficult transition,” he said. “It’s obviously not the same as a parent having to deal with the loss of a loved one. But both are facing new realities. So there’s a similarity in trying to cope and move forward and be positive. And that’s what Diveheart is all about. There are a lot of parallels. We are focusing on what people can do, not on what they can’t do. And we’re focusing not on the past, but on the future.”

The nature of the event deeply touched Navy Corpsman Josh Winter, a frequent Diveheart volunteer who drove down from Naval Station Great Lakes to help out on Wednesday night. “I think something like this would be helpful to any parents," he said. "If something happened to myself or my brother (formerly in Airborne), it would help them to find a group like this. Every time I volunteer with Diveheart it has meaning, but this is just something that’s a little bit closer to home.” 

Winter helped Caruso in the water. ”He was really excited," he said. "His son had talked about diving but he’d never experienced it until now. Now he knew why his son enjoyed it so much.  There were mixed emotions. He was sad, but excited that he could experience something his son had enjoyed.”

Elliott noted that sometimes the families of fallen troops lose their connection to the military, but many of Diveheart’s volunteers are service men and women. “If we can get those bonds back and help them to feel whole again and part of a new family, that can only be a good thing,” he said.

Elliott would like to consider the possibility of the parents perhaps taking a dive trip with wounded veterans at some point. “They would have the opportunity to depend on each other and learn from each other and grow together and heal together,” he said.

“It’s been eight years now and we were ready for our new normal,” Caruso said. “My son would think that it’s pretty cool that I did this.”