Wounded veteran flashes football skills

A Lynn native who was wounded in 2008 on a battlefield in Iraq got to walk on a very different type of field last month – joining other veterans and two Patriots alumni for a skills camp at Gillette Stadium.”When we went out on the field I was surprised,” Army Specialist Adam Vigliotta said. “Then they threw balls out to us, said ?do whatever you want, have a great time,’ I was amazed.”Vigliotta was one of approximately 30 military veterans throughout New England who participated in the third annual CVS Health/New England Patriots Football Skills Camp for Veterans on Oct. 19 at Gillette Stadium.The camp brought veterans and some of their family members from Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts to Gillette to hang out on the field and take part in a clinic with Patriots alumni Jon Williams and Garin Veris. Veterans also got to meet and take pictures with Patriots cheerleaders (“loved that,” Vigliotta said) and Pat Patriot, the team mascot.Attendees were served lunch at the stadium’s restaurant and given tickets to the team’s hall of fame.Vigliotta described the trip as “unreal,” although the circumstances that brought him there were equally dramatic.Vigliotta was born and raised in Lynn, dropped out of school and got his GED at 16, and joined the Army as soon as he turned 18.”My grandfather was in the military,” Vigliotta said. “I looked up to him, grew up with him, and I always thought that was what a man was – you served your country, came home and went to college, got married and raised kids.”Vigliotta was on active duty from 2003-07, then joined the National Guard before deciding to go into the Inactive Ready Reserves.He said he was called up from the reserves in November 2007 and arrived in Tallil, Iraq in February 2008. On Sept. 25, 2008, he was wounded in a mortar attack while in a convoy.Vigliotta was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, and was experiencing ringing in his ears and bulging discs in his spine.”It wasn’t like a cut or hole in your body, but wounds from being close enough to a giant explosion that it throws you back about 20 feet,” Vigliotta said.He described the next year spent in a hospital in Germany and with the Wounded Warriors Project in West Point, N.Y., as “very hazy for me; I was heavily medicated.”After leaving West Point, Vigliotta began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, becoming panicked and basically isolating himself in his apartment.In August, he began attending an outpatient program at the Brockton VA hospital, where somebody asked participants if they wanted to spend a day at Gillette.Vigliotta said he jumped at the chance, expecting only a tour. Then they went on the field.”We had an hour, an hour and a half to just have a football, so we started scoring touchdowns and laying on 50-yard line,” Vigliotta said.The group then split in two and did drills with the Patriots alumni.”It was amazing, especially growing up around here and seeing the field where all the guys were that you idolized,” Vigliotta said. “They were telling me how they’re doing a Fenway Park one, hopefully that will happen, too.”