From the Streets of Chicago to the Notre Dame Basketball Court to a Battleground in Iraq, Danielle Green’s Story is One of Determination and Inspiration

LeBron James was there. Peyton Manning was, too. So were Derek Jeter, Stephen Curry, and the reigning World Cup champion U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. But the real hero at the 2015 ESPYs was Army veteran and wounded warrior Danielle Green. The annual star-studded ESPY Awards celebrate the biggest names and best performances in sports. As a former standout for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team, Danielle certainly fit that mold. She played for the Fighting Irish from 1995-2000 and is one of the team’s top-20 all-time leading scorers. But it wasn’t her athletic prowess that brought Danielle to sports’ biggest awards stage that night. It was her tenacity, strength, perseverance, and courage. And those qualities were on full display when she took the stage in her purple, sleeveless dress, baring her scars and a prosthetic arm, to accept the Pat Tillman Award for Service. “I wore a purple dress because it was symbolic of the Purple Heart,” Danielle said. “I wanted people to know that I was strong, fierce. I wanted to show the world that there are female combat veterans out there and we do come back with war scars.” That night, in front of hundreds of celebrities and millions of viewers, Danielle talked about the importance of finding your purpose. It’s something she has done over and over again.

Danielle Green accepts the Pat Tillman Award for Service at the 2015 ESPYs. (Associated Press photo)

A Child’s Dream

Danielle’s independent and adventurous streak started at an early age. She grew up in Chicago on the South Side. Her dad wasn’t really in the picture and her mother fell victim to the drug epidemic that ravaged cities in the 1980s and 90s, so her grandmother helped raise her. As a little kid, she remembers watching TV and seeing athletes from nearby South Bend, Indiana, proudly donning their blue and gold uniforms, supported and cheered on by thousands of dedicated fans. Those images stuck with her. “I didn’t know [Notre Dame] was affluent or Catholic,” said Danielle. “I just saw it on TV every Saturday, and I said, ‘this must be something special.'”

I told myself then that if I don’t go to the University of Notre Dame, then I’m going to go into the military. Those were the two things that gave me hope as a child.

While watching her favorite team play, Danielle was also captivated by the commercials urging viewers to “Be All You Can Be,” in the U.S. Army. Even at the tender age of 7 or 8, she was already planning her future and how she was going to change her life. “I told myself then that if I don’t go to the University of Notre Dame, then I’m going to go into the military,” Danielle said. “Those were the two things that gave me hope as a child.” Turns out, she would accomplish both of her goals.

Making the ‘Dream’ Team

A lot of kids dream about playing sports for their favorite team, but it takes a lot of effort to make those dreams come true, and Danielle was willing to put in the hard work. At a family reunion, she joined a pickup basketball game and got so excited the first time she got the ball through the net. One day, while walking around her Chicago neighborhood, she found a basketball on the side of the road. “You couldn’t really bounce it, but it was something I could throw in the hoop,” Danielle said. “I would go all around the city looking for places to play basketball and I would just keep shooting and shooting and shooting.” There are some things you just can’t teach – like the hunger to succeed. And Danielle had it. She went on to play basketball in middle school and competed against boys on the playground. She was getting attention for her left-handed shooting skills. In high school, Danielle moved in with her grandmother permanently, which gave her some much-needed stability. She wanted to play basketball, join ROTC, and get the best education possible, so she attended Roosevelt High School in Chicago’s North Side. She would take two trains and a bus to make the 50-mile round-trip commute for all four years of high school, but she had one goal on her mind. “I remember telling people, ‘I’m gonna go to the University of Notre Dame,’” Danielle said. “I just had this thought that no matter what, I’m going to go. I remember telling my high school coach that I was going to Notre Dame, and he just looked at me. Now I understand what the looks were about, nobody really believed me. But I believed.” At 17, Danielle started getting recruitment letters and scholarship offers in the mail. They were plentiful – 70-plus. Then one day, it came, the one she’d been waiting for. The Fighting Irish were interested in her. Although she briefly considered some of the other schools, she verbally committed to Notre Dame after a recruiting visit before she even left campus.

The Fighting Irish and Facing Reality

Danielle had made her dream come true. She was in South Bend, walking by the famed Golden Dome and the ornate Basilica of the Sacred Heart, wearing the iconic gold and blue jersey, and playing basketball for future Hall of Fame coach Muffet McGraw. But none of it was making her happy. It wasn’t really like she had pictured in her childhood. Danielle felt lost – a non-Catholic, Black woman from inner city Chicago at an affluent, majority-white, Catholic university in Indiana. “I’m not seeing anybody who looks like me,” Danielle said. “It was somewhat of a culture shock. I don’t know if [my coaches] really knew how much baggage I had brought from Chicago, because I never went to therapy as a kid. It was just one of those things I just dealt with. But once I got to Notre Dame, I realized I was probably clinically depressed.” An introduction to a sports psychologist helped Danielle change the way she was thinking and dealing with negative thoughts. And although she tore her Achilles tendon her sophomore year – the same year Notre Dame went to its first NCAA Final Four – she maintained her focus on school and the team, using her time on the sidelines as a learning experience. “I had an opportunity to see how a team really works and interacts together,” Danielle said.

Danielle Green is the 17th-leading all-time scorer for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. (Photo provided by Danielle Green)

Working on her mental health improved her game. She was a starter her senior year and invited back to play for her fifth year of eligibility. She graduated on time, becoming the first in her family to graduate from college, earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology, and a place in the Notre Dame record books. The time spent at Notre Dame included some amazing highs and extreme lows, but Danielle wouldn’t change the experience and lessons that came with it. “I had developed somewhat of an inferiority complex,” Danielle said. “But somehow, I figured it out and I’m a better person for it because I believe my experience at Notre Dame really prepared me for what was in store for me in the military.”

The War … and the Rings

After graduation, Danielle tried out for the WNBA’s Detroit Shock, making it to the final cut. When that didn’t work out, she returned home, and took a job teaching physical education and coaching high school basketball. She met someone, began a relationship, and contemplated graduate school. “One day, I just woke up and I was having an identity crisis,” Danielle said. “I didn’t know who I was. I had identified myself as a student-athlete for so long, and now that was gone. I realized I didn’t want to teach. I really didn’t want to coach. As I reflected on it, I thought about the 7-year-old girl who wanted to join the military and thought, ‘I’m getting older now. If I’m gonna do this, I need to do this now.’” Of course, being Danielle, she was going to challenge herself. As a college graduate, she could have gone to Officer Candidate School and been commissioned. She decided to enlist instead and went into the U.S. Army as an E-4 (Specialist). It was 2003, and the Iraq War was kicking into high gear. Danielle signed up to be a Military Police officer (MP), making her responsible for protecting the safety of Army personnel and property. “I knew we were going into war,” Danielle said. “I knew this, and my family and boyfriend were really against it. But you only have one life, and this is what I wanted to do.”

A year after she enlisted, Danielle was in Iraq. It was January 2004, and she was assigned to be the company commander’s gunner. Although she was proud to be selected, she was also aware of the risks and the possible aftermath of combat. “My goal was to get back to my cot every night,” Danielle said. At one point, Danielle had the chance to return home on leave to visit her family. She used the time to marry her longtime boyfriend before returning to Iraq. “I had a premonition when we got orders that I was going to get hurt,” Danielle said. “So, I told my boyfriend, ‘Let’s get married, just in case.’ We loved each other, don’t get me wrong, but I just said, ‘I think I’m gonna get hurt.’ I went back to Iraq as a married woman. I had the rings and everything.”

Danielle Green served as an MP and as the company commander’s gunner while in Iraq. (Photo provided by Danielle Green)

Seven weeks after her wedding, Danielle woke up in Iraq not feeling well. Her unit was conducting riot training during preparations to go into Fallujah. Despite feeling ill, Danielle participated in the training, Afterward, Danielle and some other MPs were summoned to report to the police station, where they trained Iraqi police officers. During the drive, they got into a car accident. They didn’t sustain injuries, but a report was written up, and they continued to the station. It had already been a strange day, and Danielle immediately felt something was off when they arrived at their destination. “We get to the police station and normally we’re greeted by the civilian kids, but there are no kids there. It’s empty,” Danielle said. “We go inside. There are no police officers, just the detainees, and I’m like, ‘Oh, boy, this doesn’t look good.’ But you do what you’re told to do.” Normally, rooftop surveillance would be done in two-person team rotations, but because of a staff shortage, only one soldier was going on the roof at a time. When Danielle’s turn comes, she goes up to the roof alone. “I surveyed the area, and everything looked clear,” Danielle said. “I’m starting to relax and all of a sudden, something hits the barricades two stories below and somebody shouts up, ‘Green, are you OK? Are you OK?’” Danielle wasn’t hurt and immediately reacts as she’s trained to do. She lifts her rifle and turns the safety lever to fire. As she kneels into position, a blast from a rocket-propelled grenade knocks her down. “I just remember thinking this can’t be real,” Danielle said. “I’m lying there angry, in shock, waiting to die. My body’s numb. I hear ringing in my ears and there I am, facing mortality. After a little while, I realized that maybe I wasn’t going to die. So, I said a prayer.” Danielle asked for the strength to go on, to be able to share her story, to be able to help others. She prayed about the child she had been wanting to have, and whether that dream would ever be able to come true now. “I can feel the numbness and the shock starting to wear off and I just felt pain come from every which way,” Danielle said. “My uniform is shredded and covered with blood, and I can see my thigh is shredded. I couldn’t tell what was going on with my arm. I’m waiting and I’m waiting. And then my comrades come up and start performing first aid, trying to tourniquet my arm.” Thirsty and bleeding, but still conscious, Danielle’s fellow soldiers manage to get her off the rooftop and to a Humvee. They transport her to an airfield to be medevaced to a hospital, where she’s cut out of her uniform and taken into emergency surgery. Hours go by before Danielle comes to and realizes the extent of her injuries. “I wake up and I see the entire command standing at the foot of the bed and they’re crying,” Danielle said. “And I’m looking at them like, ‘Why are you crying?’ I look down and I noticed that my left arm was shorter than my right.” In disbelief, Danielle looked at her master sergeant and asked if her arm was missing. The answer left her reeling. She had lost her left arm in the attack – the arm she used to shoot hoops; the hand her new wedding bands had been placed on less than two months ago. She began crying. ‘Hey, I gotta tell you something,” she recalls her master sergeant saying. “A couple of your sergeants went back up to the rooftop, and they found your hand under several inches of sand.’” The damage was too severe to repair the arm, but her fellow soldiers had retrieved the wedding rings, which were now placed on her right hand.

Building a New Future

Danielle survived, but her injuries would be life-altering. After a few days, she was moved to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, DC, to begin her recovery. One of the first things she remembers from her arrival at Walter Reed was receiving a backpack from Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). “I am still grateful that somebody was there to provide support,” Danielle said. “They were the first folks who came and then my husband came. He was smiling and crying at the same time, and we just embraced each other as hard as we could.” Because she was left-handed, Danielle had to go about learning how to do everything again – driving, cooking, combing her hair, tying her shoes – with her right hand. But the one thing Danielle really wanted to get back to was playing sports. Being athletic and physical was a part of who she was.

“The connection that Wounded Warrior Project provided was vital,” Danielle said. “They were there for us. It really helped me realize that maybe sports could be my way of healing.” Danielle left Walter Reed in 2005, ready to acclimate back into the civilian world. She wore a prosthetic with a hook at the time and had to get used to the stares. She decided maybe now was the time to go to graduate school. “I thought I was done with Wounded Warrior Project after I left the hospital, but then they contacted me in May of 2005 about Soldier Ride Chicago,” Danielle said. WWP’s Soldier Ride is a multi-day cycling event for warriors of all skill levels, but Danielle didn’t know how she was going to ride a bike with one hand – and she didn’t even own a bike. “Wounded Warrior Project said that’s OK,” Danielle said. “We’re going to have [your local bike shop] build you a bike or modify a bike – and they did. I still have that bike today, almost 19 years later.”

Woman warrior Danielle Green participates in WWP’s Soldier Ride, a multi-day cycling event.

Once Danielle participated in Soldier Ride, she started thinking about all the other things she could physically do. “I like to say that was a springboard to the adaptive sports world,” Danielle said, “It built my confidence because after that, I learned how to water ski; I went golfing. It became a big part of my rehabilitation.” Danielle started going to graduate school and got a job with the Chicago Board of Education, but she still felt she had a greater purpose. She applied for, and received, a position working as a mental health therapist for the Department of Veterans Affairs, allowing her to help other veterans. In 2011, Danielle was dealt another shocking blow when her husband unexpectedly passed away from cardiac arrest. “It kind of shook me up again because I’m seven years out [of Iraq], and he had been there [for me] before, during, and after Iraq,” Danielle said. “Now my partner was gone, so I went through a lot. “Wounded Warrior Project was there for me again then. I remembered them calling me and invited me to go to Kodiak, Alaska, to fish all week and I did. That helped me to take my mind off of things and try to focus on healing the best I could.”

What’s Your Purpose?

In 2014, Danielle met her ultimate purpose – what she had prayed for 10 years ago while laying injured and alone on the hot, sandy rooftop in Iraq. She gave birth to her son Daniel. “He’s my why,” Danielle said. “I have this kid who I’m responsible for, who I’m watching grow up and I’m nurturing him. It is my duty, my obligation, to make sure I can provide him with the very best that I can and make sure he grows up to be a productive citizen. He’s my purpose.” A year after Daniel was born, Danielle was honored for her service and sacrifice at the ESPYs. The award, named for the late Pat Tillman, who gave up an NFL career to join the Army in the wake of 9/11, honors individuals with a strong connection to sports who serve in ways that echo Tillman’s legacy. Danielle had found her purpose, through her son, through the veterans she helps every day, through showing herself and others that no matter what life throws at you, there is a way forward. “Trauma and adversity are all around,” Danielle said. “It’s not unique to veterans or the military community. We’re all struggling with something. We can bounce back to even stronger heights. You have to believe in that.”

Danielle Green says her son, Daniel, is her “why,” and helps give her the motivation to make a difference. (Photo provided by Danielle Green)

Danielle now works for WWP’s Warriors Speak, inspiring all, to find their purpose and to not let anything stand in their way. She always had the drive and determination, but the support Danielle received from her childhood mentors in Chicago, her sports psychologist at Notre Dame, her fellow soldiers in Iraq, the programs and services at Wounded Warrior Project, her dad who helped raise her son for the first four years of his life, and especially Daniel, allowed her to not just survive, but to thrive. “You don’t have to struggle or suffer alone,” Danielle said. “There is help out here. That’s the No. 1 thing to know. Build a supportive team around you.”