Injured Marine Finds His Voice Again With MusiCorps
Program helps wounded warriors who want to learn to play music.
— -- Marine Lance Cpl. Tim Donley is a gifted musician, but while he was deployed in Afghanistan, a bomb blew up resulting in the loss of both his legs and seriously damaging his right arm.
Donley’s injuries were almost too much to bear, especially for a talented singer who loved to play guitar.
"After I got hurt, I couldn't even listen to music at all," he told ABC News' Martha Raddatz. "It was too hard."
But now, Donley has found his voice again as part of MusiCorps band of wounded warriors.
MusiCorps is the brainchild of composer and pianist Arthur Bloom.
"I was invited to Walter Reed to meet a soldier who was injured in Iraq, he used to play drums, he was blown up by a roadside bomb and he lost his leg," Bloom said. "He was concerned, 'How am I going to play the drums again without my leg?'"
After that meeting, Bloom committed to helping that solider along with any other wounded warrior who wanted to learn how to play music, and MusiCorps was born.
Since then, MusiCorps has grown, and gained the attention of some famous rock stars, including Pink Floyd's Roger Waters.
Waters first played with the MusiCorps band at the 2012 Bob Woodruff Foundation Stand Up For Heroes benefit concert. Since then, the band has played with musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, Sheryl Crow, and the Kansas City Symphony.
This fall, ABC News met the band as it rehearsed at Omega Recording Studios in Maryland in preparation for a sold out benefit concert in Washington D.C.'s Constitution Hall.
There, Waters ran the band through rigorous rehearsals. "I don't treat them like wounded guys, I treat them like musicians," Waters said. "And that is why they're so good."
And though the band plays at a professional level, Bloom and Donley, that's just the beginning. The two hope to expand the reach of the music rehabilitation program in the coming years.
"Now we work with about 50 a year. And Walter Reed is still full of very injured patients," Bloom told Raddatz.
For Marine Tim Donley, life is great right now. He recently got married, and is enjoying performing and helping to teach the country a little more about injured service members.
"When people let me know that I help them understand a little more about all these guys and what they go through," Donley said. "It doesn't get any better than that."