Outdoors

Marine sets his sights on world archery championship

NESHANNOCK (AP) -- Archery season for deer is under way in Pennsylvania, but Major Eric Burkett has his eye on a different kind of target.

Burkett -- a Marine Corps veteran, wounded warrior and bow and arrow sharpshooter -- is going for the gold medal at the third Pan Am Archery Championship on Nov. 21-27 in Santiago, Chile.

Burkett, 50, of Neshannock Township, is a double amputee from injuries he suffered in an Osprey military air crash in Morrocco in 2002. He's found he can excel in his favorite sport from his wheelchair.

Burkett was two weeks into his sixth deployment in April 2012 when the MV-22B he was piloting and commanding as part of Operation African Lion crashed, killing two on board. He was one of two others aboard who survived, but he suffered life-threatening injuries that landed him at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

"I had severe crush injuries of my lower extremities and chest," Burkett said, and he suffered lung and optic nerve damage.

While he was hospitalized, a Marine Corps Warrior project team approached him about participating in adaptive sports as part of his recovery.

"I'd participated in archery competitions before I got hurt," Burkett said. When he was in Marine Corps training, he had joined the archery club at Camp LeJeune.

At the urging of the Warrior team, he took up bow and arrow again through recreational therapy during his recovery and rehabilitation. As he got stronger, his prowess excelled.

Burkett's father was a Marine Corps pilot, and both of his grandfathers served in World War II. His military lineage extends back to when Jehu Burget fought in the War for Independence from 1775 to 1883.

Burkett enlisted in the Army Reserves at 22, trained for various specialities and attained the rank of sergeant. When he was 28, he was commissioned into the Marines as an assault pilot.

Six years after his disabling plane crash, in June 2018, Burkett, his wife Melissa and their children Keenan, Josily, Richard, Lochlen, Roawlynn and Nolynn, moved into a completely wheelchair-accessible "smart home" in the Neshannock neighborhood where he grew up along the Neshannock Creek. The home was funded through the Gary Sinise Foundation RISE program -- Restoring Independence Supporting Empowerment -- and by dozens of donors.

His new home was the Sinise Foundation's thank-you for Burkett's service to his country and it included a long hallway, designed for him to use as an archery range.

Burkett is a member of the Marine Corps League, New Castle Area Detachment.

His first tournament in 2013 was the Valor Games Southeast in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he won a gold medal in compound and recurve.

His next competition was at the Endeavor Games in Oklahoma City, where he won a gold in compound.

In 2014, he went on to the Invictus games in London, where he won another gold, and had the opportunity to meet Prince Harry. He has since met him on a few other occasions, he said.

"That competition got me into Rosario, Argentina with the U.S. Army team in the Pan Am world archery championships," he said. He came in fourth place there.

Burkett also started coaching.

In 2015, as a member of the United States team, he was asked to go to an invitational, and he agreed to go as a coach. Then he was asked to be a coach in 2018 for the Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia, "which I accepted," he said.

"I've been to a lot of cool places shooting my bow," he said. Also among them are the Czech Republic, Monterey, Mexico and Colombia.

He came in fourth place in the U.S. Nationals and fourth in the U.S. Open, and he came in first place in the Buckeye Classic in Ohio, which is ranked fourth in the United States in U.S. Archery.

He had come in second place in the Pan Am world championship in Colombia, and this year, his sights are set higher.

"I'd like to finish up with a gold medal, that's the goal," he said.

He'll be traveling next month to Santiago with the team, which has about 15 members. He will leave from Pittsburgh and meet up with the team in Dallas to fly to Chile.

In addition to being a marksman with the bow and arrow, Burkett coaches the Marine Corps Wounded Warrior Team.

"It's part of my giving back and helping," he said, adding that archery helps him to focus and take his mind off things that have happened in the past and that are happening around him.

"Archery can help you escape from that for awhile," he said. "It mellows you out and it's easier afterward to go and face the day."

Burkett does a lot of his practicing at Acorn Archery, a 40-meter-long range that he calls his second home. Its owner, Bob Fedrizzi, lets him go there to practice regularly.

"He's been taking care of me here for 30 years," he said, noting that they met when Burkett was 19. "Bob has been a great friend. He's very gracious and kind. He taught me how to shoot."

Burkett explained how the competition works. He shoots a total of 72 arrows at a target face, with the goal of putting six in the center ring, 12 rounds in a row.

"Five is the most I've ever gotten," he said, adding, "Nobody's ever shot a perfect score in target archery."

Burkett doesn't just do his shooting on the range. He also goes archery hunting every year.

He is assistant archery coach at New Castle Christian Academy, competes in the Paralympic games and has won multiple gold medals. He also has coached archery at the University of Pittsburgh.

Fedrizzi, who has known Burkett for about 25 years, commented, "He's an excellent archer and an excellent person."