Team USA beach volleyball player Navy Reserve Lt. Commander Lauren Nilsen, who works at Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, takes a shot against China's Chang Liu during the 5th CISM Military World Games on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. China won the match, 21-8, 21-13, sending the No. 1 U.S. women's duo into the bronze medal match against Brazil's No. 2 squad. Brazil took the bronze with a 21-7, 21-9 victory. U.S. Army photo by Tim Hipps, IMCOM Public Affairs Military World Games volleyball, 9-11 anniversary bring nurse full circle By Tim Hipps Installation Management Command RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Between competing in the Conseil International du Sport Militaire’s 5th Military World Games and her role in the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, Navy Lt. Commander Lauren Nilsen has come full circle. Nilsen helped Team USA win an unprecedented gold medal at the 2001 CISM World Volleyball Championships in Viterbo, Italy. Ten years later, she teamed with Air Force 1st Lt. Brooke Cultra of Ramstein Air Base, Germany, as Team USA’s No. 1 women’s beach volleyball squad at the 2011 Military World Games on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. She remembers both events like they were yesterday. “We beat Italy – in Italy – for the gold,” Nilsen said. “And it happened to be a week before 9-11.” Nilsen comes from a large family of police officers and civil servants on Long Island, N.Y. “My whole entire family is Army or police officers – my mom, my dad, my stepfather, my uncles, my brothers in law, my cousins,” she said. “There’s fire department, too.” She was daydreaming about her home in Kauai, Hawaii, the Garden Island of Peace, as she traveled Sept. 9 from Italy to LaGuardia Airport to visit family and friends in New York City. “I remember it was the most beautiful September day, just still and gorgeous,” Nilsen recalled. “We saw the first tower get hit, and I knew that my sister was in the city working. She got on one of the last trains that left Grand Central Station.” Nilsen and her sister’s husband, a policeman, drove to meet her at the safe haven of Shea Stadium. “I just remember hearing on the radio the whole way: ‘Tower 1 down; Tower 2 down; plane into the Pentagon; plane down in Pennsylvania,” Nilsen said. “And as we reached Shea, we could just see the huge cloud over the city.” The rest of the day and night was surreal to Nilsen. “The whole day, even that night, I just couldn’t even sleep,” she said. “Because on Long Island, you’ve got LaGuardia, Kennedy and Islip, so you’ve always got aircraft in the air, and they shut down everything. No one has ever seen no aircraft in the sky. It was just a really eerie feeling. “And I think a lot of us thought there was a lot more to come. I remember waking up the next morning really sweaty and hoping it was just a bad dream.” After enduring the attack, Nilsen decided to forego “the good life” in Hawaii and moved back to New York, where she completed school and pursued two of her “civilian dream jobs” as a corporate nurse and working with alternative medicine. “I landed both of them,” Nilsen said. “I got offered to be the nurse for Mayor Bloomberg’s company, and for one of the top integrative doctors in the nation.” It didn’t take long, however, for Nilsen to land in Afghanistan as a civilian nurse. “I just remember taking care of my high-profile doctor’s patients and just watching the war,” she recalled. “And I was like: ‘Lauren, just go back into the military.’” Nilsen re-entered the Navy Reserve and accepted a mobilization deployment to Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, where many U.S. and NATO Soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment. She reported in 2009 for a nine-month tour and remains there today. “I’ve been a nurse for 18 years and that’s the best nursing of my life, the most humbling,” Nilsen said. “I never thought I would ever see, much less be a part of, taking care of our American troops and heroes with battle injuries. But I did that for about nine months and I was in a position where I could go back to the States and use my GI Bill to get my master’s degree, or pursue my coaching, or other pursuits. “But I decided I would regret it for the rest of my life if I did not go back there to work for another two years to take care of our wounded warriors. I ended up working as a Navy Reservist out of Stuttgart. I work for the Department of the Army as a civilian contractor at Landstuhl,” she said. “I’m on one of the medical trauma units where we’re still getting all the inbound from downrange. “I think it completes a circle for me because in 2001 I was in the World Championships, and being a part of 9-11 in New York – and having it directly affect my family and myself, it shifted the way I lived life – just gave me a different perspective. “My life wasn’t as charmed any more. I was more considerate and intentional, I think. And 10 years later, here I am at the Mili

Team USA beach volleyball player Navy Reserve Lt. Commander Lauren Nilsen, who works at Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany, attempts to block a shot by China's Chang Liu during the 5th CISM Military World Games on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. China won the match, 21-8, 21-13, sending the No. 1 U.S. women's duo of Nilsen and Air Force 1st Lt. Brooke Cultra (No. 2 in foreground) of Ramstein AFB, Germany, into the bronze medal match against Brazil's No. 2 squad. Brazil took the bronze with a 21-7, 21-9 victory. U.S. Army photo by Tim Hipps, IMCOM Public Affairs Military World Games volleyball, 9-11 anniversary bring nurse full circle By Tim Hipps Installation Management Command RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – Between competing in the Conseil International du Sport Militaire’s 5th Military World Games and her role in the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, Navy Lt. Commander Lauren Nilsen has come full circle. Nilsen helped Team USA win an unprecedented gold medal at the 2001 CISM World Volleyball Championships in Viterbo, Italy. Ten years later, she teamed with Air Force 1st Lt. Brooke Cultra of Ramstein Air Base, Germany, as Team USA’s No. 1 women’s beach volleyball squad at the 2011 Military World Games on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro. She remembers both events like they were yesterday. “We beat Italy – in Italy – for the gold,” Nilsen said. “And it happened to be a week before 9-11.” Nilsen comes from a large family of police officers and civil servants on Long Island, N.Y. “My whole entire family is Army or police officers – my mom, my dad, my stepfather, my uncles, my brothers in law, my cousins,” she said. “There’s fire department, too.” She was daydreaming about her home in Kauai, Hawaii, the Garden Island of Peace, as she traveled Sept. 9 from Italy to LaGuardia Airport to visit family and friends in New York City. “I remember it was the most beautiful September day, just still and gorgeous,” Nilsen recalled. “We saw the first tower get hit, and I knew that my sister was in the city working. She got on one of the last trains that left Grand Central Station.” Nilsen and her sister’s husband, a policeman, drove to meet her at the safe haven of Shea Stadium. “I just remember hearing on the radio the whole way: ‘Tower 1 down; Tower 2 down; plane into the Pentagon; plane down in Pennsylvania,” Nilsen said. “And as we reached Shea, we could just see the huge cloud over the city.” The rest of the day and night was surreal to Nilsen. “The whole day, even that night, I just couldn’t even sleep,” she said. “Because on Long Island, you’ve got LaGuardia, Kennedy and Islip, so you’ve always got aircraft in the air, and they shut down everything. No one has ever seen no aircraft in the sky. It was just a really eerie feeling. “And I think a lot of us thought there was a lot more to come. I remember waking up the next morning really sweaty and hoping it was just a bad dream.” After enduring the attack, Nilsen decided to forego “the good life” in Hawaii and moved back to New York, where she completed school and pursued two of her “civilian dream jobs” as a corporate nurse and working with alternative medicine. “I landed both of them,” Nilsen said. “I got offered to be the nurse for Mayor Bloomberg’s company, and for one of the top integrative doctors in the nation.” It didn’t take long, however, for Nilsen to land in Afghanistan as a civilian nurse. “I just remember taking care of my high-profile doctor’s patients and just watching the war,” she recalled. “And I was like: ‘Lauren, just go back into the military.’” Nilsen re-entered the Navy Reserve and accepted a mobilization deployment to Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, where many U.S. and NATO Soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment. She reported in 2009 for a nine-month tour and remains there today. “I’ve been a nurse for 18 years and that’s the best nursing of my life, the most humbling,” Nilsen said. “I never thought I would ever see, much less be a part of, taking care of our American troops and heroes with battle injuries. But I did that for about nine months and I was in a position where I could go back to the States and use my GI Bill to get my master’s degree, or pursue my coaching, or other pursuits. “But I decided I would regret it for the rest of my life if I did not go back there to work for another two years to take care of our wounded warriors. I ended up working as a Navy Reservist out of Stuttgart. I work for the Department of the Army as a civilian contractor at Landstuhl,” she said. “I’m on one of the medical trauma units where we’re still getting all the inbound from downrange. “I think it completes a circle for me because in 2001 I was in the World Championships, and being a part of 9-11 in New York – and having it directly affect my family and myself, it shifted the way I lived life – just gave me a different perspective. “My life wasn’t as charmed any more