Hunting as therapy

Injured soldiers find outdoors beneficial to rehabilitation

By Kristi Hsu
ReporterNews.com

Josh Pappas, 21, looks like any other hunter in Shackelford County around this time of year. He wears a three-dimensional camouflage suit covered in waving leaf-like strips of fabric as he walks into an open field Saturday with rifle in hand to stalk deer.

Pappas, a Marine corporal, suffered second- and third-degree burns to his face and arms in Iraq when a bomb went off near him last December.

While his body has recovered, he is still seeing doctors for post-traumatic stress disorder.

This hunt is in disguise as well. It is not ordinary excursion. Instead, it is a weekend event arranged by a Moran family and the Armed Forces Foundation that is meant to calm troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Click here to read the entire story from the Abilene (TX) Reporter News.