It is not often you meet a real hero much less have the opportunity to help them in some small way. I had the honor to work with retired Navy SEAL Mike Day. If you haven’t heard, Mike was shot 27 times while on an operation in Iraq’s Anbar Province in 2007. On his road to recovery it took two years to physically recover from his injuries, and he still deals with constant pain.

Mike is determined to not have a victim mentality, however. That has launched him on a journey of giving back. Mike is now a contractor for 9Line LLC working as a Wounded Warrior Advocate for wounded Special Operations Warriors.   In addition to being an advocate, Mike has independently initiated a fund raising effort that has netted more than $83000 for the Carrick Brain Center, a treatment facility that focuses on the treatment of Traumatic Brain Injuries. After his treatment Mike was kind enough to send me this testimonial of his experiences with training and acupuncture.

“I received my first acupuncture treatment from my bosse’s daughter, Ashley Heintz. She asked me what I wanted fixed. First of all, there are not enough needles to fix everything. Second I like where I am and how I feel, pain or being uncomfortable when I work out is normal for me. It’s normal for everybody to a certain extent. I’m not saying to destroy yourself. As an individual you need to know where the point of being uncomfortable crosses over into self destructive behavior. I jokingly asked Ashley to make my runs faster. It worked. I improved my average pace this morning by roughly :20 to :30.6.9 miles, 58:58, 8:29 average pace, 1241 calories, run in Tampa, Florida.”
If you would like to read more about Mike and his inspirational story please follow the links below.

It is not often you meet a real hero much less have the opportunity to help them in some small way. I had the honor to work with retired Navy SEAL Mike Day. If you haven’t heard, Mike was shot 27 times while on an operation in Iraq’s Anbar Province in 2007. On his road to recovery it took two years to physically recover from his injuries, and he still deals with constant pain.