The world exploded for Army Captain Michael Trost in July 2011, when he was injured in Spin Boldak, Afghanistan. His long military career came to an abrupt end after being shot five times while escorting an aide from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Michael and his team came under fire, and one U.S. soldier was killed and he and a fellow corporal were injured. Since his recovery, with the assistance of Hope For The Warriors – which donated a backhoe – Michael is concentrating on growing hops and plans to sell them to local micro-breweries and home brewers in the Knoxville, Tenn., area. Born and raised in southern California, it was after a move to northern California that he had a taste of farm life. “My father was raised in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. When we moved to northern California, we got a small half-acre and my father taught me how to take care of chickens and grow things like fruit trees. That was where I got my farming information,” he recalled. The interest in hops and beer didn’t begin for Michael until during his recovery after Afghanistan. “With microbreweries exploding, I gained more interest in how beer was made.” He earned a brewing science certificate from South College in Knoxville in March 2015. He medically retired from the Army in 2014 and he has had quite a journey from there to the fields. “During my 32 years in the Army I was infantry solider the first half, and the other half was with Civil Affairs.” He likened this to “like the Peace Corps, with guns. “I was in charge of all kinds of stuff. We’d do everything from deliver foodstuffs to farm packages, where they could start with seeds; maybe a goat, or two of whatever they raised there.” After being shot he began a five-year odyssey of learning how to walk again. It was often an uphill journey, with 31 surgeries and eventually the amputation on his right leg below the knee. Besides the amputation, at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, they also were able to take a portion of Michael’s foot and big toe and affix it to his right hand, which had also been damaged. “I now call my thumb ‘Tomas.’ I deal with my trauma through laughter and comedy. You can get mad or you can laugh about it,” he noted. Seeds of how he wanted to proceed after recovery began while at Walter Reed in Maryland. “I cruised the internet and found out about the Hope For The Warriors organization. I had already been growing hops in Maryville, Tennessee. I grew Cascade hops; they seemed to be the best. I have been growing them the last four years. My certificate gave me an ‘in’ with brewers.” Hope For The Warriors was founded in 2006 at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, by military families who witnessed the effects of war on their community. The group grants A Warrior’s Wish, which is to fulfill a desire for a better quality of life or support a quest for those who have sustained severe physical and psychological wounds in the line of duty. Since its inception, the group has served more than 13,000 service members, veterans and military families, and granted 169 wishes. Hope For The Warriors gave Michael an LS backhoe model LB1104 with a 9-inch bucket. The backhoe that he uses fits with his LS Mitsubishi model XJ25025H hydrostatic tractor. This tractor worked well because it does not require a clutch. “I worked with AgrAbility, and they will make a modification for hand controls,” Michael said. “I have hand nerve pains that can stop me in my tracks. AgrAbility is all over the United States in farming country, and I got hooked up with them early on. They are helping me with my business plan, soil analysis and to get going.” Recently he located farmland in Madisonville. “It is half an hour south of us. It is good land and will help me to do the next step, the infrastructure and get the rhizomes in the ground to grow the hops. “Hope For The Warriors helped me to get over that hump to get that backhoe; it is a neat piece of equipment. It hooks up to tractor and I’m ready to go,” Michael said. “My wife, Stephanie, grows vegetables and she has a really green thumb, so we hope (the business) will morph to a little country storefront. “A friend grows beef, and we will have an agritourism site where people can walk around and see where the hops grow and are processed. That’s our dream.” For more information on Hope For The Warriors and A Warrior’s Wish, visit www.hopeforthewarriors.org Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication. Learn more of Cindy’s finds and travel in her blog, “Traveling Adventures of a Farm Girl,” at http://travelingadventuresofafarmgirl.com |
