New Boise venue will help disabled veterans, athletes ‘get the most out of their lives’
Bruce Cooper, 61, of Boise, sustained multiple life-threatening injuries during his three overseas tours as a combat medic in the early 2000s. He encountered everything from improvised explosive devices to sarin gas, a toxic, colorless and odorless chemical weapon that acts on the human nervous system.
Ever since, he’s been figuring out new ways to do the things he loves — things he used to do effortlessly.
Over two decades of service in the U.S. Army and Air National Guard left him with a traumatic brain injury, broken neck, crushed vertebrae and muscle weakness on the left side of his body, making it difficult to walk or stand without help, as he can no longer find equilibrium.
“My body doesn’t know where it’s at,” he told the Idaho Statesman.
But that hasn’t stopped the Iraq war veteran from figuring things out. He still goes bicycling, skiing and whitewater rafting, all with the help of modified equipment. And he’s made it his mission to introduce other veterans with disabilities to “life in the outdoors.”
On Friday, he attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony with his wife and grandchildren for a new center in Boise’s Barber Valley that aims to help disabled veterans and athletes stay active and get outside — exactly what Cooper has in mind.
The Idaho Outdoor Fieldhouse, at 3179 E. Barber Valley Drive in Boise, is a 50,000-square-foot building on a 7-acre campus along the Boise River Greenbelt.
It will serve as the headquarters for Mission43 and the Challenged Athletes Foundation of Idaho, two groups with similar goals.
Cooper, who said getting active the way the Outdoor Fieldhouse intends can help “save a life,” wasn’t always so optimistic.
He said he remembers low points of his own, feeling hopeless. He noted that the average number of veteran suicides was 16.8 per day in 2020, according to a report from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“If I can get a veteran off the couch and doing something, I can open their world up,” he said. “A lot of veterans sit around the house, get depressed and have no desire to get out and do anything. If I can introduce somebody to something new, something they want to do or something that they used to do but no longer can do, it could save a life.”
Cooper said the new training center is different from others, like the YMCA, that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This center, he said, is designed solely for adaptives — people with permanent physical injuries or disabilities.
The Challenged Athletes Foundation of Idaho works with people in the community to fund grants for adaptive sports equipment, training and competition expenses. The foundation bought Cooper a raft with a frame modified just for him, he said. He uses it while participating in activities with Team River Runner in Boise.
Mission43, launched by the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation in 2016, is a local organization that supports veterans and military spouses. It’s helped over 1,000 veterans and spouses find employment in Idaho, the Statesman previously reported.
Roger Quarles, executive director of the foundation, said the new center is a “vanguard of innovation in inclusive sports and recreation.”
The Idaho Outdoor Fieldhouse has an aquatic center, fitness area, multipurpose gym with basketball hoops, hyperbaric medicine center, outdoor challenge courses and climbing walls. Construction is finished and the center will be open in full next spring, after about a six-month trial opening.
Bryan Madden, the center’s director, said it will not only help veterans and challenged athletes stay active, but also serve as a gathering place where they can meet others experiencing similar challenges and find camaraderie.
“Everything is completely accessible,” Madden said. “Anyone with a disability can come in here (and) train and prepare to go out in Idaho and access the dirt, snow and mountains — like anyone else here.”
The center has been in the works for over three years, according to Mike Thomas, of Pivot North Architecture, who helped design its exterior, medicine center and housing units. The Idaho Outdoor Fieldhouse has 12 rooms and 16 beds on its campus.
Thomas said he hopes the new space will help its users “get the most out of their lives.”
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