PENDLETON — While Independence Day was work as usual for some, Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution resident Paul Reyes spent his morning breaking his normal routine.

Along with four others, Reyes, a U.S. Army Veteran, completed a popular Crossfit workout called Murph as a way to demonstrate his patriotism.

“Even though I’m incarcerated,” Reyes said, “I’m still a patriot.”

The workout was named after Lt. Michael Murphy, a U.S. Navy Seal who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. It’s a 1-mile run, followed by 100 pull ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats and another 1-mile run. The workout is completed in a 20-pound weighted vest. Weighted vests are not available in the correctional setting, so Reyes ran the Murph without it.

Reyes served two tours in Iraq, and in 2011 a  blast of an roadside bomb injured him. After his service, he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder, which he said contributed to his incarceration in 2015.

His prison job is training service animals for Joys of Living Assistance Dogs, a program in which incarcerated men train service dogs for persons with disabilities.

Some of the canines Reyes has trained now support veterans with PTSD.

The JLAD trainers work and live with the service animals. It is an all-day, nonstop job. But on July 4, Reyes was able to orchestrate some time away from training.

At 8:30 a.m., he donned running shorts and tennis shoes before hitting the recreation yard. He started with a 6 minute and 52 second mile around the crooked little prison track. After more than 43 minutes, an exhausted, sweat-drenched Reyes stopped the timer on his wristwatch: Murph complete.

In the evening, many facility residents attended the recreation yard. Some people there participated in a game of slow-pitch softball.

From the pitcher’s mound, a highlighter yellow softball was underhand tossed to a player with a tethered aluminum bat. The tether is a safety precaution. The clink of a pop fly, the cheers and heckles of spectators, the muted thud as a mitt closes around a ball thrown to first — the sounds of the game are universal.

Jerry Shaw, an incarcerated U.S. Army veteran, was a spectator. He said watching softball on the Fourth of July felt uniquely American. Shaw, 43, celebrated two Independence Days in Iraq, but now he celebrates from behind razor-wire fences.

“It’s not what I expected for my life,” he said.

There are about 180 veterans housed at EOCI, or approximately 13% of the population. Shaw said he wished the facility would do something to acknowledge veterans.

“Yes, I’m incarcerated. But I’m also a combat veteran,” he said. “That didn’t change.”

— East Oregonian reporter Berit Thorson contributed to this report.