A documentary four years in the making about America’s all-veteran wheelchair rugby team premieres this Saturday, May 30th, at the Hard Rock Casino in Rockford, with doors opening at 6:00 p.m., the screening at 7:00, and a live question and answer session at 8:30. Some Function tells the story of how a group of wounded veterans found each other, built a team, and discovered in competitive sport the kind of purpose and fellowship that combat had once provided.
One of the team’s central figures is Brian Anderson, a combat veteran, triple amputee, Purple Heart recipient, Emmy award-winning host, actor, author of the memoir No Turning Back, and now ambassador for the Gary Sinise Foundation, who joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss the film and the unlikely journey that led him from Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the cover of Esquire to the sets of Batman and American Sniper.
Anderson was blown up in 2005 and spent thirteen months recovering at Walter Reed. Esquire magazine wanted to tell the story of a wounded soldier and asked to profile him. He agreed without particular expectation, and the magazine put him on the cover. The profile mentioned that he wanted to become an actor and a stuntman, and that if his story could help even one person get through something difficult, the whole experience would be worth it. The stunt coordinator for The Dark Knight, then filming in Chicago, saw the piece, reached out, and invited Anderson to come see the production. That visit opened the door to a career that eventually included work on American Sniper, The Wrestler, and films with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock as a stunt double. He moved to Los Angeles for a couple of years to pursue it more seriously, but said he found the industry’s culture and the way it operates are not for him, and has stepped back to a position where if someone wants him, they can call. He says it plainly and without apparent regret.
His introduction to Gary Sinise came at Walter Reed itself, when Sinise visited the soldiers as a peer visitor. Anderson was practicing walking on prosthetic legs when he lost his balance working through a crowd of thirty people and fell directly into Sinise’s chest. Sinise held him up. Anderson steadied himself, looked up, and found himself face to face with Lieutenant Dan. He said he told Sinise he could never be Lieutenant Dan and Sinise would always be Lieutenant Dan. They became friends. After Anderson appeared on the Esquire cover, they kept running into each other at the same events. Sinise eventually asked him to travel with the Lieutenant Dan Band and Anderson has since become a foundation ambassador.
The wheelchair rugby team grew out of Oscar Mike, a foundation focused on helping wounded and disabled veterans get back on the move, the phrase Oscar Mike being military jargon for in motion. Team co-director and Rockford-area Marine veteran Noah Courier brought veterans together around the sport and began filming them approximately five years ago, not knowing where it would lead or what the final product would look like. Anderson said the result is something he believes has value for any audience, not just those dealing with disability or combat trauma, because the film is fundamentally about what happens when people who have been through something find each other, lean on each other, and push each other rather than trying to manage everything alone.
The team operates under an exemption that allows its all-veteran roster to live anywhere in the country rather than within the standard one hundred and twenty-mile radius of the sponsoring city, which means the team flies in for practice approximately three times a year and does much of its actual competitive work at tournaments. Despite that constraint, it has qualified for the national tournament every year of its existence. There are approximately fifty to sixty wheelchair rugby teams across the country, typically supported by hospital sponsorships, competing from October through April.
Anderson said the sport filled something he had not fully recognized was missing even through everything else he had accomplished. He had been a gymnast before his service and competitive athletics had always been part of his life. He said once he became part of the team, his life got better in ways he had not expected. On the larger question of how he has reconciled the last twenty years, he said his brain is either his greatest friend or his biggest enemy depending on what he chooses, that acceptance and honesty about reality are what made the difference, and that he genuinely holds no anger toward the people who placed the bomb that injured him. He said he went to war, war is terrible, bad things happen, and the only real question is what you want your life to be after that. He chose to try to live an extraordinary one.
Tickets for Saturday’s premiere are available at casino.hardrock.com.