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“That was awesome, just hanging with him on the boat. He’s a veteran, and like all vets, when we get together, we talk, laugh, joke and tease each other. He’s just like one of the guys, it was an amazing experience,” he tells PEOPLE. “He makes you feel like you’ve known him forever.”
“At the gold medal match, as he was about to put the gold medal on me, he grabbed my beard and shook it!” Garrett said with a laugh of his interaction with Harry. “He said a few words to me and gave me a big hug. It’s awesome to feel that he recognizes me, comes up and treats me like I’m one of his friends. Like all veterans do, [when] we don’t talk to each other for maybe months or years — when we get together, it’s like we never left. That’s what it feels like when I talk with him.”
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In the same spirit, the athlete hopes to pay the warmth forward — on the ground in Düsseldorf and beyond.
“I had a buddy — well, we’re buddies now – but I just met him tonight. He was struggling before a race, so I just asked him if everything was okay. He was having problems, so we just started talking, and he started telling me, he’s got his demons, and I was like, ‘I know what you’re talking about,’ ” Garrett tells PEOPLE. “It looked like he was about to pull out of the race, and I said, ‘Hey man, I’ll be right there with you swimming.’ He stayed, and he’s still competing. It’s just things like that.”
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“Even just now when I looked out, everybody’s got a smile on their face. Every competitor that’s out there, they’re smiling. And they’re from all different countries,” Garrett tells PEOPLE of what he sees. “And they’re from all different countries. I’m so grateful that Prince Harry put this together for us veterans to come together and use this as part of our healing process. And we are, we’re healing, because everybody is smiling.”
source: people.com
