Sgt. Maj. Jerry Hochstedler at Joint Task Force North.
(Photo: David Burge / EL PASO TIMES)

Sgt. Maj. Jerry Hochstedler has used cycling to overcome some horrific injuries he has suffered during his three-decade-long Army career.

This summer, Hochstedler, a 56-year-old from Aspen Valley, Colo., won a gold medal in his disability classification in the upright 30K cycling event at the Warrior Games in West Point, N.Y.

Hochstedler, a career Special Forces noncommissioned officer, has served at Joint Task Force North at Fort Bliss since June 2012. He is the former operations sergeant major for the command but now works for the JTF North command group with its chief of staff.

The gold medal represented a “culmination of two or three years of effort,” Hochstedler said. “At first, it felt great, but then it was, ‘Oh, crap, what do I do from now on?’

“Was this performance something I can expect to be normal or was it something that was a fluke?” Hochstedler said.

Hochstedler won the silver medal in the same event last year at the Warrior Games in Quantico, Va., and the bronze two years ago in Colorado Springs, Colo.

He has used cycling as a way to cope with his injuries. In 2009, while deployed in Afghanistan with 3rd Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg, N.C., he was shot by a sniper. Since then, he has undergone nearly 30 surgeries on his arm.

Retired Army Col. Forrest Smith In 1990, he also survived a parachute jump from 850 feet when his chute malfunctioned. He was also with 3rd Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg at the time of the accident.

Hochstedler competed at the Warrior Games with the Special Operations Command team. He cited the Care Coalition, which is affiliated with Special Operations Command, for giving him support and guidance since he was shot in 2009.

“I would have never gotten involved with the Warrior Games if not for them,” he said.

Cycling has helped him heal mentally from his various injuries, he said.

“A lot of people say I’ve changed,” Hochstedler said. “I’m not as angry. I’m not as mean and not as volatile as I used to be.”

Retired Army Col. Forrest Smith, the chief of staff for Joint Task Force North, frequently cycles with Hochstedler.

“This is not about the medals he’s won, but the transformation he’s undergone and his ability to overcome the tremendous range of his injuries, surgeries and the drugs he had to take during his rehab,” Smith said.

Hochstedler plans to retire from the Army this fall after nearly 32 years and return to Fayetteville, N.C, where he and his wife, Lisa, own a home.

He plans to continue to cycle. He would like to go to Europe and cycle for fun across the continent. He would also like to continue to bike competitively and one day qualify for the U.S. Paralympics team.

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