Great Kern County
Diving to transform lives
Disabled veterans empowered through scuba diving, friendships By Julie Mana-ay Perez
»
JOSH CONNOR WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HIS FIRST TIME SCUBA DIVING IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. Connor is a disabled U.S. Army veteran who served from 2002 to 2006 and was deployed to Iraq for 16 months. After he returned to Bakersfield, Connor was heavily involved with the veteran community. And then he found Aqua-Nut Divers, an organization dedicated to empowering our local disabled veterans by showing diving excursions through scuba diving and how it can help people therapeutically. “I’ve always wanted to be a scuba diver and I’ve always loved the ocean. There was an opportunity for disabled veterans to do it for free,” he said. “Once you get into that water, it’ll blow your mind.” In that moment, Connor found an outlet to escape the
102 M a y
2021
world and reality. “When I go underwater, I forget about everything — bills, problems, everything. It’s my own world and experience,” he said. Aqua-Nut Divers board member Martha Millan Schimon said many disabled veterans suffer from PTSD symptoms and she wanted to provide a service to give back to Bakersfield’s veterans. While Schimon was on a scuba diving trip with her husband, Eric, a former Bakersfield Police Department sergeant, years ago, she witnessed a group of veterans scuba diving, learning that the activity was a healthy outlet and support system for their mental and physical disabilities. Schimon and her husband knew they had to bring the PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARTHA MILLAN SCHIMON
