BENSON, Neb. (KMTV) — Although it may have looked like any other afternoon of golf. For Army veteran Gary Chalupa and some of his brothers, it was a moment two years in the making.
As Gary Chalupa puts it, 'sometimes life just gets in the way'. In July of 2021, Gary went on his annual golf bus trip, with his brothers and friends.
"We drive someplace, play golf for three days, then come home," Chalupa said.
That year, Gary had been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He underwent chemotherapy and got vaccinated against COVID-19, ahead of the trip.
"We went to Kearney that year and coming home Tuesday I had a scratchy throat," Chalupa said.
Days later, he was diagnosed with COVID-19 at a hospital in Lincoln. At the time he was living in Texas, after recovering in Nebraska, Gary and his wife went home. A short time later, he found himself in the emergency room again.
"The doctor said right away he had to put me on a ventilator, he gave me enough time to call my wife and say goodbye," Chalupa said.
That was August of 2021, doctors induced a coma and Gary remembers waking up in November of that year. In all, Chalupa spent 193 days in the hospital.
"I couldn't stand up. I couldn't raise my arms. I couldn't feed myself. I had no muscles at all," Chalupa said.
But through it all, this veteran had a mission on his mind. First, leaving the hospital, then, getting back to the golf course with his brothers.
"You know in the military, the job is not done until the goal is met," Chalupa said.
Now, two years later, Chalupa made his way home to Omaha. And he made his way back to the tee box, playing nine holes, for the first time.
As he turned the corner on the 9th hole of the Benson golf course, an entire gallery of faces were there waiting for him and cheering for him; people he hadn't seen in years.
"It kind of meant that I am human, made me shed a tear," Chalupa said.
"Welcome home brother," said Randy Chalupa, one of Gary's brothers.
"It's the friends and family," Gary Chalupa said. "Sometimes life just gets in the way, but you overcome, you do something different."
He told 3 News Now's Molly Hudson that this was just the first round of golf with many more to come.
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