AFW2 helps Davis-Monthan chief redefine recovery through Warrior Games

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona – Chief Master Sgt. Danielle Spurlock had missed this power lift twice before.

At the2026 Marine Corps and Air Force Trials, the selection event for the Department of Defense Warrior Games, Spurlock’s third lift did not go up. Weeks later, she missed the same attempt at theTexas Parasport Sport Games, a statewide adaptive sports competition.

When she returned to the powerlifting platform at the 2026 Department of Defense Warrior Games, she had another chance to clear it.

Six months earlier, she had been coming out of radiation treatment, out of shape and unable to work out. Now, representing the Air Force in San Antonio, Spurlock completed a personal-record lift.

“It was a big moment for me and my coaches,” Spurlock said. “A full-circle moment.”

The lift represented more than a competition result. It represented a recovery journey that had taken her from a rare cancer diagnosis and three major surgeries to adaptive sports, mentorship and a different outlook on the future.

“Every single person that competes in the games from every service is on a different journey,” she said. “It’s not about competing for the medals. It’s about competing against yourself and trying to make yourself better in that next step of your recovery journey.”

Spurlock, now serves as the senior enlisted leader for the 355th Munitions Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona and had spent 25 years in the Air Force as an ammunition specialist.

In 2023, while serving as a senior master sergeant, Spurlock led Airmen on a deployment to an undisclosed location. And bringing those Airmen home safely remains one of the proudest moments of her career.

It was also during that deployment that she discovered a lump on her face.

It took nearly two years to receive a diagnosis. A few weeks before sewing on the rank of chief master sergeant in December 2024, Spurlock learned she had dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, a rare soft-tissue sarcoma growing near her right eye and the bridge of her nose.

“When you hear cancer, the first thing you think of is death,” Spurlock said. “You don’t think of the journey right away.”

The diagnosis was followed by a rapid series of events. Spurlock was sent to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Maryland where she underwent three major surgeries over three weeks. Doctors removed tissue from her face to obtain clear margins and performed extensive skin grafting.

At one point, the cancer’s growth into the muscle around her eye led Spurlock to believe she would lose it. The night before her third surgery, doctors told her they might have to remove her right eye because the cancer remained in the muscle. The possibility was devastating. But after further consultation, her medical team developed a plan to preserve her eye and treat the remaining cancer through radiation.

“I thought I was going to lose my eye that day,” Spurlock said. “They came in and said, ‘I think we’re going to save your eye and do some radiation afterwards.’”

The treatment saved her eye, although the surgeries and grafting affected her vision, depth perception and balance. She now wears an eye patch, and further reconstruction procedures are planned as her recovery continues. In the months that followed, Spurlock completed 48 radiation treatments. During that period, she was not permitted to exercise or raise her blood pressure above a prescribed limit.

For someone whose military career had been defined by readiness, leadership and taking care of others, the transition was difficult.

“I feel like everything was taken from me in that moment,” Spurlock said.

But she would later come to see the diagnosis not as the end of her purpose, but as a revector.

While at Walter Reed, Spurlock was automatically enrolled in the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program, known as AFW2. At first, she did not fully understand what the program had to offer.

A regional care coordinator introduced her to recovery paths that included adaptive sports, resilience programs and mentorship. But it was not until Spurlock attended her first AFW2 care event in January 2026 that the program’s full impact became clear.

In the program she joined wounded, ill and injured Airmen and their caregivers from around the country. Some had visible injuries. Others were managing cancer, post-traumatic stress, military sexual trauma, or illnesses that were not immediately apparent.

Spurlock said the experience created an uncommon kind of understanding.

“You can walk into a room with 100 people, and none of us know each other’s story, but we all know that we’ve been through something,” Spurlock said. “We don’t even have to tell the story, but we all understand each other in a way that no one else does or can.”

AFW2 provided more than adaptive sports opportunities. The program connected Spurlock with resources, care coordination and a community that supported both service members and caregivers. It also gave her a way to continue one of the passions that defined her decades of military service. Mentorship.

After completing AFW2 mentorship training, Spurlock became a mentor to two wounded warriors in different locations around the world. They speak regularly and continue to offer each other support through challenges unique to their recovery journeys.

“That gave me a new path in my journey to continue my passion for mentorship that I’ve had my whole career,” Spurlock said.

At the same AFW2 care event, Spurlock tried adaptive sports for the first time.

The sports were adapted to meet her where she was physically. An archery coach adjusted a compound bow so Spurlock, normally right-eye dominant, could learn to shoot using her left side. She tried wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby. She also climbed onto a recumbent tricycle, an option that accommodated the balance and depth-perception issues caused by her treatment.

“I was really nervous about it,” Spurlock said. “But they put me in that recumbent bike, and it was magical.” For the first time since treatment, she began to see not only what had changed, but what remained possible. AFW2 staff encouraged Spurlock to sign up for the Marine Corps and Air Force Trails even though she had only a month to prepare.

She entered swimming, cycling, rowing and powerlifting. At the trials, she learned that selection for the Air Force team depended on more than athletic results. Coaches and program leaders also considered an athlete’s recovery outlook, teamwork and treatment of others.

Spurlock made the team.

The next four months became an intense period of training. She lifted five days a week in her garage gym, completed rowing workouts on a rower and swam twice a week. She had little access to a recumbent bike, yet the fitness she built through her routine carried into the cycling competition.

At the Warrior Games, she earned a bronze medal in the cycling time trial and silver in the road race.

However, her greatest personal measure of success came in the water.

When Spurlock first returned to swimming, she could not complete one lap without stopping to catch her breath. Before the 100 meter freestyle at the trails, she insisted to her coach that she was not ready.

But his advice was simple. “Just swim. Don’t race, just swim.”

So she did.

She did not medal in swimming at the trials. But she kept returning to the pool. Eventually, Spurlock swam 750 meters without stopping. At the Warrior Games, she raced alongside a teammate who competes in triathlons and finished second to her in multiple events.

Spurlock beat her in the breaststroke!

“That was when I was like, ‘Man, I did this, and I can do more,’” Spurlock said.

That realization shaped her experience in San Antonio.

Although she came home with eight medals, she looks at success differently now. The medals reflect the work she put into training and they remind her of the recovery community that helped her rebuild confidence and discovery a new version of herself.

“I’ll never be the old me,” Spurlock said. “My body has changed physically, emotionally, mentally, through this journey.”

The process has not been easy, and it is not over. Spurlock has received two clear scans since treatment and continues to receive medical care and mental health support as she processes the pace and gravity of her diagnosis. She is also back on duty and continues to serve the Air Force and lead Airmen.

Spurlock believes that transparency is part of that leadership. When she arrived at Davis-Monthan, she stood before her unit and told them directly that she had cancer and needed treatment so she could return as the best leader possible for them.

“I think it’s important for our Airmen to see that even as leaders, we have times where we are vulnerable,” she said. “We are not always our best, and we are not always our strongest.”

Her message to Airmen is direct. Asking for help is not an end to a career or a sign of weakness.

For wounded, ill and injured Airmen, AFW2 can provide that help in many forms. It offers adaptive sports, mentorship, resiliency opportunities, caregiver support, transition assistance and a community prepared to meet people at different points in their recovery.

“Recovery can last a lifetime,” Spurlock said. “It doesn’t just end with, ‘Oh, you’re in remission.’ There’s so much more to recovery.”

At the Warrior Games, the third lift went up.

For Spurlock, it was a personal record. It was also proof that recovery can be measured in more than scans, surgeries or even medals.

Sometimes, it is measured in the moment an Airman realizes they can still move forward. One lift, one lap and one new purpose at a time.