Pasha Palanker

Our guest today is Pasha Palanker, a retired U.S. Army Special Operations Master Sergeant whose experiences have taken him from some of the most intense moments imaginable to a deeply personal journey of healing and growth. Pasha recently gained some unexpected attention when a crosswind gust slammed him into the jumbotron at Virginia Tech’s 2026 Spring Game during a planned parachute drop.

After facing some harrowing experiences during combat operations in Iraq, Pasha returned home to a different kind of battle as he struggled with the lasting effects of the trauma he faced overseas.  Today, he speaks openly about what it took to confront those challenges, take accountability for his life, and find a path toward recovery. And, yes, we’ll also talk about the recent mishap at Lane Stadium.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hey everyone, and welcome to Voices of Hope. I'm Ross Wilson and I'm Mike Wade. In each episode, we sit down to talk about what it means to live well, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

We'll look at how wellness shapes us as individuals, families, communities, and even the wider world around us.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Through real stories and honest conversations, we'll explore what hope looks like and how it grows right here in the New River Valley. Thanks for joining us. This is Voices of Hope. Our guest today is Pasha Polenker, a retired U.S. Army Special Operations Master Sergeant, whose experiences have taken him from some of the most intense moments imaginable to a deeply personal journey of healing and growth. Pasha recently gained some unexpected attention when a crosswind gust slammed him into the jumbotron at Virginia Tech's 2026 spring game during a planned parachute drive. After facing some harrowing experiences during combat operations in Iraq, Pasha returned home to a different kind of battle as he struggled with the lasting effects of the trauma he faced overseas. Today, he speaks openly about what it took to confront those challenges, take accountability for his life, and find a path toward recovery. And yes, we'll talk about the recent mishap at Lane Stadium. Thanks for having me on. Grateful to be here. Absolutely. So for those of you uh for our listeners who may not be aware, you were the parachuter who who crashed into the scoreboard at the Virginia Tech Spring game back in April. Um, can you just just for you know the sake of our curiosity, can you give us a brief rundown of the chain of events that afternoon? This shirt thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Well, before before I get into what happened that day, I'll just say that ultimately, whatever the reasons were, I'm responsible. There's no there's no excuses here. We get a ton of uh credit when everything goes well and we're land on the field and applause and all of that. So when things don't go well, uh it's we we get the credit for that as well. Gotcha. But what happened that day was uh so I have 1,100 jumps, dozens of jumps into stadiums all over this nation, Rose Bowl, Naval Academy, Stanford, University of Cincinnati. And I've never experienced anything like what happened that day with the winds. Uh, they drastically changed from just a few minutes prior to us exiting the aircraft. And um the direction, the speed, and and then the the wind shares that came in that was not forecasted, not expected. If this had happened just a few minutes before, the jump would have been canceled. Right, right. Because we have somebody sitting at the lip of the stadium measuring the winds. So what happened was I was coming in to land, as you can see in the video, it was pretty high up. Everything looked good. And um, as I started to get lower, I was getting pushed back. I was coming straight down, and then and then when the gust would come in, I would get pushed back. That means the winds were above 25 knots. Our limit is 14. Wow. That's why that's why it would have been cancelled. Right. So it looked like I was gonna land in the stadium. And even and even if I would have had a chance as I got lower with the winds coming down, the problem was there's the fang wire that holds the the net, the goal post net. Yes. And there was a big is a big risk for me to take. Do I try to make it? And then the flag that's 40 feet below me getting caught in there, and then and then I get slammed. So all of this is running through my head in the in a five, seven second span. So I had a lot of some choices to make. Could have hurt somebody, and there's a lot of kits there. My body weight would have hurt somebody. So then as I decided I'm gonna land off, uh, you know, I just I just initiated the turn, and you can see there's a crosswind gust that came in and just slammed me into the jumbotron. So that's what happened.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Yeah, that looked pretty severe that last um, I guess that last shear just hitting you so hard and pushing you into that. So um, man. And I think I I mentioned to you in an email that my uh what one of my kids was at the game, and I just remember him and his grandparents texting us and saying, Oh my gosh, you'll never believe what happened. And uh that was sort of in the middle and everything, but we're we were all so relieved to hear, you know, an hour or two later that you were you were okay, uh, maybe a little banged up. So I'm just curious, is your healing going well? And uh it's I think it's going as well as it could have been.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

I didn't I hit so hard when I I mean the I had the wind knocked out of me. It took me a little bit to just regain my breathing and figure out where I was. Thank god the parachute got hung up because it was it doesn't look like it from the videos because it looks like the bleachers are right there. There's a road between the stadium and the jumbotron, and it was like five or six stories down, and there's a fence with spike waiting for me at the bottom. Thank goodness that canopy got stuck on the jumbotron. And but as as I was I'm looking down, and these gusts, these wind chairs keep coming, and then when they do they in reinflate the canopy in it, it I feel being lifted up, and it makes me so I I spent quite a bit of time trying to manage the canopy from re-inflating, so I get blown off of the jumbotron and and go all the way down. Can't say enough good things about the fire department. The first truck was there within a few minutes, their letter was too short to get to me, and then the second one was right behind them, and and they got me down and and were incredible throughout the whole experience.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Well, it's obviously a situation that could have gone far worse.

SPEAKER_02 6:13

Yeah, but you know, that's like that's the story of my life. It's these unrealistic things happen to me, it looks terrible, and then I end up walking away almost unscathed, yeah. With something to to learn, to gain from the experience, then then I'm able to share that with others and and make an impact on this world. Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

I feel like that's a pretty good uh lead-in to our next question, uh, Pasha. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about the circumstances that led to you becoming someone who speaks publicly about resilience, um, as well as someone who advocates for reducing the stigma around mental health.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah, absolutely. Um so I'm I'm a retired um army master sergeant. I spent uh 17 years in the army, 14 of that in special operations, multiple deployments uh during my time in service. I've um I've been wounded twice. Uh I've had a face-to-face encounter with a suicide bomber, uh, where um, you know, he was just feet away from me, and you know, the logical thing for me was to duck for cover. But in that moment, I like this anger drove me to take action, which I did. And uh my action slowed down the suicide bomber, bought us enough time, created separation, and then he detonated about 10-15 feet away from me. Wow. So I've been through you know my share of traumatic experiences, physical injuries, and what's interesting is you know, physical injuries were quick to take care of that because we can't function when we're hurt physically, we're quick to go to the doctor. But when it comes to mental health, it's very easy to neglect. And um, so that's what that was me. I it took 10 years from my first traumatic experiences in combat until I hit my first rock bottom to for me to realize that I need to do something about it. And uh the first few years I was just not aware, you know. You don't know what the signs and symptoms of PTSD or just emotional trauma is. It's it's not what I thought was what I've seen in the movies, you know, waking up screaming in the middle of the night, which is not what I was going through. And then a few years into it, I was like, you know what, there's something there. Uh I should do something about it, but but then I was kind of ignorant. It's like, nah, it's just gonna go away on its own, it will take care of itself. Meanwhile, I kept slowly spiraling further down, and then the past few years, like I knew that I was I was struggling and I needed help, but I was afraid. I was afraid of the stigma that's associated with getting mental health help. Yeah, so I I didn't. And what it took for me was uh going back on another deployment back to Iraq, where I got hurt originally the first time, and it was 10 years, 10 years since getting hurt there once again, and at the same time, all the stuff that was bottled up deep down inside kind of unzipped and came up to the surface. And then by the time at home, uh physically I was I was injured, but it was not as big of a deal as emotionally, psychologically. I was just I was just completely broken down and fallen apart. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

And I would imagine that there are layers of stigma that you're working through around that because you know there's the the one thing of just being a guy, you know, and not wanting to come across as being weak, and then there's the whole other component of that with being in the military uh and and being able to come clean and talk about what you're you're struggling with. I'm sure that was difficult.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yes, yes. So there absolutely layers, layers upon layers. There's also fears of losing your security clearance, uh, because you know that's one of the questionnaires question sections as part of your revalidation for security clearance. There's fear of losing your deployment status, getting pulled off of that, uh jump status, all kinds of things that that I was afraid of that turned out to be baseless. Right. Because after I I uh went and started to receive help, none of it became true.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

And and I'm just curious how, like looking back on it now, how did the struggles you were having with PTSD and and other uh mental health issues affect the people around you?

SPEAKER_02 10:53

The the first moment when I realized that I need to go help was seeing how I was transferring my PTSD symptoms onto my kids. When I started to see my anger in them and and how they would treat each other, that's when that's when like that ahamum just like I need to do something about it. Yeah. So it affects it affects us, but through us, it affects everyone else who we touch who's in our life. And and sadly, it's always the people that are the closest to us that get the brunt of our mental health struggles. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Pasha, you've you've shared that you survived numerous physical threats in combat and obviously your recent parachuting accident. Um, yet you've openly talked about your mental health struggles uh as being some of the most difficult to overcome. Why is it, do you think, that emotional suffering can be harder to confront than physical danger?

SPEAKER_02 11:53

You know, emotional suffering is is easier to ignore. Yeah, it's it's easier to underestimate because it's not immediate. And what happened with me is you know, that's what I would do. I would numb that pain instead of facing it. And as a result of that numbing, uh every day my life would get just a little bit worse. And I did not realize that until you know, days turn to weeks, weeks into months, months into years. And then slowly you lose yourself in that and you lose your identity in that process. Um, and then by the time you know that something should be done, you feel like you you're in such a deep hole that it's it's impossible to come out. So uh the bottom line is uh mental health, emotional trauma, it's just easier to ignore it than it is to ignore physical pain. And then on top of it all, the stigma that's associated with getting health for for mental health, it just uh it gives you another reason not to take care of it, and just think that it's it's uh it's gonna take care of itself.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Yeah, yeah, it does, and that's that's what makes what you're doing so important, I think. And you know, just getting the word out that uh this is this is the same as treating a physical illness or or an injury, yeah. To get people more comfortable with just um getting help for mental health needs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

You know, you know, I'll just use this example that I use quite a bit, and I think it helps to relate. Like, let's say I got shot in my in my thigh, like right, where it's just just the muscle, and a bullet is wedged in there, and um, there's no structural damage. I can walk, right? But the bullet is in there, so I just cover it up, bendage it up, and there's some pain there. But instead of taking the bullet out and cleaning the wound, I'm just gonna cover it and then take pain meds, and then and I can function, I can continue to function. But every day that that infection, all that damage in there, it's it's it's festering, it's it's it's growing, it's getting worse, and even though on the surface it looks good on the inside, like your body is is deteriorating. Yeah, you would never do that with a physical injury, but we we do that with our emotional trauma and with our mental health. That's exactly what we do. It is and and that's why we get to a point to where you know we break, you know, and those who don't break, they just go all the way to the end, they end up dying by by their own hand.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yep, yeah, so well put.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah. Well, Pasha, would I love to hear about your your healing journey? Would you mind talking a little bit about that and how you were able to turn the corner and what was some of the most impactful and important parts of that journey for you?

SPEAKER_02 14:47

Yeah. Um, so for me it happened in in 2020. I was um I was in another and it and it's been like my first rock bottom was in 2015, and then I decided to go get help, and the help that I was getting made me feel better. And what happens is you the things that make you feel better, once the problem goes away, you stop doing them, so then you slowly start falling back into it, right? And then it it just there's just something about it. I could feel myself falling back into it, and then even though I was aware, knew what was coming, it's like nah, this the ignorance is still there. But what happened with me was I was getting better, stopped taking care of myself, started to get worse, and then it got amplified by uh a parachuting incident in 2018 while I was still in the army where I'm physically hurt again. I can't really take care of myself. Um, like my routine is broken because of my physical injury. I get forced into medical retirement from the army, and then on top of it all, COVID happens, and then I'm isolated at home. I have a very hard time with stimulation from from uh all the explosions that I have experienced during my career, and I have four boys. So being at home with a lot of light noise movement stimulation, I would lock myself in the office and spend my days like in the fetal position, basically, just trying to make it through the day while feeling this suffocating tension in my chest, like there's two 45-pound plates on my chest all the time. So spending a few weeks in that place, eventually my mind started to go numb and I started to shut down. I stopped caring about consequences, and I just started to feel like like you know, suicide became logical and it made sense. I'm not able to be dead to my kids, and I'm being forced out in the army. That logic was there, it was flawed because of who I was, but it was there. So instead of taking the suicide route, I I took drove myself to ER where I got admitted to psychiatric facility. And while I was there in the psychiatric facility, it wasn't pleasant, but it was what I needed, it was what I needed. I felt my mind start to settle down and I started to kind of think about my life. And what I realized was, and this was my my kind of awakening moment turnaround pointless. I felt like a victim of of my circumstances. I felt like the doctors were letting me down, I felt like VA was over medicating me. I felt like it was, you know, I was treated unfairly by being forced out of the army. I felt like I had more to give, and I was a victim, victim, victim. And as a victim, all I saw were problems. Yeah, and uh that just that was uh the fuel for my spiral. And so and I I decided that that was enough. I was the one that volunteered to serve. Yes, the care was not great, but ultimately it was my my responsibility to get better. Once once I've decided to take responsibility, that's when everything turned around. It's just instead of once you take responsibility, you start being a victim. And instead of focusing on the problems, I started to see solutions. Yeah, and that's when when I got out, I got into self-development. I started listening to podcasts and read books and just learning more about human nature, and then most importantly, trying to find different things that would give me relief from what I was experiencing, yeah. Healthy things, not things that would numb me, but things that would heal me. Right. So that was that was my turnaround point. And uh if you guys want to, we can get into some of the things that helped me.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean, so often it's it just feels impossible to move past that one point of like, well, this is hopeless, but then moving to the point where you can drive yourself to the ER or whatever the case may be. Yeah, and I mean, amazing that you were able to do that. But yes, I would I think I would, and and our listeners would love to hear what's something that somebody else going through a mental health struggle should keep in mind. Like, what would you tell them about how to face those struggles and then eventually just reconnect with some kind of joy or meaning or purpose in their life? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

Um, so I'll just tell you what happened, what happened with me and kind of how I started to discover things. So when I got out of the psychiatric facility, I was okay for about a week, and then I started to feel that world closing in and collapsing on me again, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go back to where I just came from. And I had this forest gump moment where I'm just gonna go run. I live, there's a trail by me that's 150 miles, so I texted my wife. It's like there's eight hours of daylight, I'm gonna run four hours, and hopefully I can make it back. And if not, call non-emergency number and just tell them where to look for me. Wow. So luckily, there's well else where you can pump water along the way, and I had a little camel back and a few cliff bars, but I ended up stumbling my way like 36 miles or something like that. And I've never had a marathon before that. And I felt beat up physically, but emotionally, I felt like a sense of relief and peace for for two weeks. I felt really good until it started to come back. So then I was like, I'm just gonna go run again, not 36 miles, but I'm gonna go on a five-mile, eight-mile run. And this is how I discovered running was was became my lifeline. Because it would starve my anger out of energy, it would help me clear my head and keep me grounded and present. Right. So anytime I'd feel that tension, I would just go for a run. If I couldn't run, I would walk. It's it's just any kind of physical activity where you're moving for for an hour and it doesn't have to be exhaustive, it's just just moving. So once once I discovered running, I started to look for a nonprofit where I could get mental health treatment. And once I started to look for it, I found it. And then I got into therapy. I talked through some of my traumatic experiences, which helped to loosen their grip on my life. And then I learned about the impact of sleep, nutrition, exercise, how important it is for mental health and how they all feed into each other. Sleep is the most important thing because if you don't sleep well, you don't have the energy in the morning. If you don't have the energy in the morning, you're gonna have shorter bandwidth to deal with life stressors. And if your bandwidth is not there, you're gonna snap at people around you, you're gonna not do well at work, which will make you feel like crap. When you feel like crap, you're the way you're gonna make yourself feel better is usually by eating some junk food. Junk food drains you out of more air. Energy, so you're probably not gonna exercise and then to to finish off your day because you feel like crap, you're gonna drink to go to go to sleep, which ruins your sleep, and then you wake up the same way in the next morning. So yeah, so just reversing that, you know. So finding the time to exercise, paying attention to what I eat, and then cutting back. I never stopped fully drinking, but I stopped drinking to uh to numb my pain. And uh you know, that was it's it's that simple, man. It's just it's just paying attention to yourself and your body and just showing up, showing up for yourself. Um the most important thing is for for those that are struggling is you can't expect for things to get better overnight, it just doesn't happen that way, right? Yeah, what what what we need is to feel like today was just a little bit better than yesterday, and to know that you showed up for yourself in the smallest way, and then you start to feel that feeling of making progress, and that feeling is what you're after. That feeling is intoxicating, it's encouraging, because because that means tomorrow you're gonna show up for yourself again, and then slowly, one day one day at a time, like we destroy ourselves slowly one day at a time, and we rebuild ourselves slowly one day at a time. That's how you turn things around. There's no it's it's so simple, but simple does not mean that it's easy, absolutely not, but it's it's that simple, just finding a way you can show up for yourself every day in this in in the smallest way that you possibly can, so that there's no excuses not to do it.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Yeah, Pasha, do you still run these days? I do, but not as much as I used to. I used to routinely, you know, run, do five to ten miles uh at least twice a week. Now instead of running a few years ago with taking my son to a wrestling practice, I discovered jujitsu while I was waiting on him while he was wrestling. I was on my phone and I felt like guilty that I'm on my phone. Well, I could be training in the adult class jujitsu. It was very humbling experience. It didn't matter what I did in the army. I had these 20-year-old kids just uh you know have their way with me, but I stuck to it, and now it has become such a big part of my life. So that's cool. So as long as I'm healthy, and most of the times when I'm not healthy, jujitsu has taken uh has replaced running in my life. But with that said, I'm I'm going to Scotland next week to do this 54-mile race through the Scottish Highlands with a bunch of uh veterans. Wow. Oh man and friends. Yeah. Oh, it's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

That's fantastic. Um, Posha, if you could sit down with the version of yourself that was struggling the most, and when you found yourself in the darkest moments of your life, um, if you could go back and sit down with that person, what would you tell him?

SPEAKER_02 25:16

Keep going. Yeah. It doesn't matter how how bad it gets, keep going, take responsibility and learn how to show up for yourself uh every day in the smallest way and and and find one small thing to be grateful for. Great advice.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

It's it's hard to be uh whiny when you're and and feeling sorry for yourself when you're grateful at the same time. So yeah, it's like it's one replaces the other. That's why gratitude is so important. And and we it's once your mind is in the gratitude state of mind, you're gonna find more things to be grateful for instead of more things to complain about. Right. And it's just part, it's it's a huge part of this recovery process, gratitude. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Okay, so you've mentioned several already, you're you know, running in now jujitsu. Um, what are some of your other favorite ways that you maintain your overall wellness, physical, mental, everything else?

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Yeah, what one of the easiest things it's it's keeping a journal. I use journal for gratitude. I use journal till, you know, talk to myself about what happened today, uh, the mistakes that I made, and how I can do better next time and what I need to do to fix them. And with a journal, there's you know, if a lot of people can't run, it's raining outside. There's there's lots of excuses for things that are hard to do, and journaling is not one of them. That's one of the easiest ways to learn to show up for yourself. And and I'll tell you, like, I I you know I learned about journaling from a bunch of podcasts, it just constantly I kept seeing it on a repeat. And my first my first journal entries were like the date is like there. I I did it. I wrote an entry in the journal, and it would go like that for for weeks there. I showed up for myself and nothing else, I wouldn't put anything else. But then the fact that I did that, I told myself I was gonna do it, and I did it without any substantial stuff in there, just made me feel better about myself. Yeah, I said what I did what I said that I was gonna do, right? And just that in itself goes a long way, and then uh you know, and then eventually, just like well, I I started to add more substance to what I was writing in there. It just happened naturally. But the bottom line was I I showed up and it's effective, and it and it helps if you can't sleep at night. If you just pick up pen and paper in that journal and you just write it out, whatever is running through your head on repeat, it's like pulling it out of your brain and putting it on paper, and then you find relief.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah, that's so true. Helps with sleep. I've done that before where I have woken up in the middle of the night and had to write something down, and then magically, yeah, it helps react to sleep. So it's so simple. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Um, well, you are a guest on the Voices of Folk podcast, and we obviously could not let you um end your time with us without asking what the word hope means to you.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Hope um is believing in the in a brighter future. Hope is moving forward one step at a time, even though you don't know where you're going.

SPEAKER_04 28:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

As long as there's hope, and there should always be hope, you just gotta keep moving. If you keep moving, you'll find a way out.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Yeah, I like it. Well, Pasha, this has been a great conversation and one that um I know I'll look back on and uh I know that listeners will will enjoy, you know, hearing all the things that you've been able to do to um improve your life. And we really appreciate the time that you spent. I will just say, do you have any final words of wisdom before we end our time today?

SPEAKER_02 29:15

I'll just say, like, if if you're listening to this podcast and you heard this message, you have what it takes to drastically change your life for the better. And whatever it is that you're going through, if you choose to take responsibility and you start facing your demons, your problems, you have to develop strength that you wouldn't have otherwise if you didn't go through what you're going through. And for me, looking back on my life, I'm grateful for everything that I had to face because it developed parts of me that never would have been developed. And at this point, it feels like I have superpowers compared to people that have not gone through what I went through. And that applies to everyone who's dealing with something uh that nobody else uh understands or can relate to. Right. Yeah. So face your demons one one step, one day at a time, and you'll you'll develop strengths that you never would have had otherwise. Uh, and then one day you'll be grateful for for what you're going through right now.

SPEAKER_03 30:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Well, that's a great way to wrap up our conversation. Pasha, you um you've really given us a lot to think about, and we're uh just so grateful for your time. We uh certainly appreciate your service to the country. Um are so glad that no one, including you, was seriously injured in the in the spring game incident. Uh, and we just really um appreciate the time that you've spent with us today and wish you all the best moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. And and I gotta say, I got so much love from the Hokie Nation. Yeah. So many requests to come back and and uh jump into the stadium. Uh I just I you know, I gotta express my gratitude to to all the people that were there in the stands and and the love and support they've given me. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Well, again, we're glad we're glad that you could be on today, and we thank you so much for your time, Pasha. All right, guys. Happy to be here. Thanks for listening to Voices of Hope. If you enjoyed today's conversation, we'd love for you to rate and review the podcast and help us spread the word. Voices of Hope is a production of New River Valley Community Services. To learn more or listen to past episodes, visit nrvcs.org slash podcast. And remember, hope grows when we share it. So keep the conversation going, and we'll talk to you next time on Voices of Hope.