Showing posts with label IED. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IED. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Travis Mills ignores how much he gives while prasing others

After reading about Travis Mills all this time it is easy to figure out this guy has a tiny little ego. He is always so ready to praise what others do for him while he is clueless on how much he gives. He is an example of what we look like isn't who we are. That after surviving the loss of all four limbs, he can still stand up for what he believes in. He isn't letting anything stop him. If you read Wounded Times, you've seen every news report on him and there are plenty. Too bad the military doesn't have an award for being an inspiration to others.
Quadruple Amputee veteran beats odds and motivates other veterans
WCSH
Samantha Edwards
July 15, 2014

BANGOR, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Staff Sergeant Travis Mills was serving in Afghanistan when an IED exploded causing him to lose all four of his limbs. Two years later and Mills is using his story to motivate other veterans. Travis approaches his story with a sense of humor.

Travis is not shy and has made a lot of friends along the way to help make his dream a reality; The Travis Mills' Project. It is a non-profit organization, aimed at benefiting and assisting wounded and injured veterans and their families.

Travis said, "For the veterans I think guys go home and it is not the same. When they went home from world war two and they had 30 or 40 guys from the same town. Now, you go home and you have maybe two or three because the war is not as big anymore."

The Travis Mills home will be unveiled in Manchester Maine in August. Travis describes it as a place for veterans to visit with their families to help reintegrate.

"Become more family oriented as well as bring guys out and talk about what they are going through and things like that. So that way there are less suicide rates, less ptsd. For me, family is what got me through," explained Mills.
read more here

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Mazda's MX-5 Cup race car driver amputee Marine

Marine races on despite combat injuries
Staff Sgt. Liam Dwyer competing at Laguna Seca
Monterey Herald
By Tony Karis
POSTED:05/02/2014
MONTEREY

Marine Staff Sgt. Liam Dwyer's current deployment is in one of Mazda's MX-5 Cup race cars driving for Freedom Autosport.
Marine Staff Sgt. Liam Dwyer, a team driver with Freedom Autosport, practices a vehicle exit with driver assistant Robert Pielli at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on Friday. Dwyer is combat-wounded Marine who was injured in Iraq in 2007 and in Afghanistan in 2011, when he lost his left leg.
(Vern Fisher - Monterey Herald)

"Racing is not cheap," Dwyer said. "I'm very fortunate to have Mazda and Freedom Autosport giving me this opportunity; without them I couldn't do it."

Despite the loss of his left leg from the thigh down and having little to no feeling in his right hand and arm, Dwyer is able, with some mechanical help, to drive. He makes his first professional appearance as a race driver this weekend at the Continental Tire Monterey Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
Dwyer's tours of duty were interrupted by injuries inflicted by improvised explosive devices. In Iraq in 2007, the left side of his body was seriously damaged when his Humvee hit a roadside bomb. He lost his left leg in Afghanistan in 2011 when he stepped on an IED while searching a compound. His rehabilitation began in 2012 and will last for another year before he returns to civilian life.

His prosthetic left leg is his biggest challenge in driving the car. A special prosthesis was modified to fit onto the clutch pedal with a quick-release pin in case of an emergency.
read more here

Monday, April 21, 2014

Nashville Double Amputee Rolling in Boston Marathon

Wounded Nashville vet in today's Boston Marathon
The Tennessean
Heidi Hall
April 21, 2014
(Photo: Photos by John Partipilo / The Tennessean )
What Marine-turned-marathoner Benjamin Maenza calls his arrogance, other people might call his valor. Or tenacity.

Or insanity.

Because Maenza finished his first marathon in 2011, only a year after an IED in Afghanistan efficiently shredded both his legs to above the knee. He used a handcycle to churn out those 26.2 miles without a day's training, and he was hooked.

At 9:22 a.m. today in Boston, the Lipscomb University student will start his seventh marathon. But this one will be like none he's finished before.

He will meet people who lost their limbs — not defending their nation overseas as he did, but because they simply wanted the exhilaration of running in the world's most famous marathon. Three people died and more than 250 were injured when a bomb exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line on April 15, 2013. Some survivors are expected back, some of them in handcycles such as Maenza's.
read more here

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Afghanistan Veteran Marine Amputee Taking on Mt. Everest

Boise veteran, wounded in Afghanistan, climbing Mt. Everest
KTVB.COM
by Brady Moore
Posted on April 15, 2014
Credit: The Heroes Project

BOISE -- More than 7,000 miles away from the City of Trees, U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sergeant and Boise native Charlie Linville is making the climb of his life.

In January 2011 Staff Sgt. Linville was conducting an IED sweep in Afghanistan when he was hit by an explosive device. That blast caused head trauma and devastating injuries to his right foot and hand.

Two years later, despite multiple attempts at rehabilitation, his right leg was amputated below the knee. But now, he's climbing 29,029 feet to the summit of Mt. Everest.
read more here

UPDATE
If you think this is not dangerous,,,,,,
At Least 13 Sherpas Dead as Avalanche Sweeps Mount Everest

An avalanche swept down a slope of Mount Everest on Friday along a route used to ascend the world's highest peak, killing at least 13 people in the mountain's deadliest disaster.

NBC News confirmed that all of the dead were Sherpa guides.

The guides had gone early in the morning to fix the ropes for hundreds of climbers when the avalanche hit them just below Camp 2 around 6:30 a.m. local time, Nepal Tourism Ministry official Krishna Lamsal told The Associated Press.
click link for more on avalanche


Marine vet not caught in Everest avalanche

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Marine battled back, yet fell to suicide

Marine battled back, yet fell to suicide
Infantryman who lost legs in combat seemed to be triumphing, but invisible wounds proved fatal
UT San Diego
By Gretel C. Kovach
MARCH 28, 2014

Farrell Gilliam was buried in Fresno Jan. 21, carried to his grave by Marine pallbearers and friends.
(Courtesy Gilliam family.)

He rarely spoke of it. Not to his family or best buddies, fellow Marines or medical staff watching over him.

But Cpl. Farrell Gilliam had endured far more by the time he died this year at age 25 than most people could comprehend.

The Camp Pendleton infantryman survived three months of combat in 2010 with the “Darkhorse” 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment in Sangin, Afghanistan — one of the deadliest battlegrounds of the war.

Amid firefights and insurgents’ bombs, Gilliam saw limbs strewn across the ground. He loaded broken, bleeding bodies for medical evacuation, and grieved for the friends they could not save.

Gilliam’s tour ended early when his legs were blown off by an improvised explosive device, or IED. “Farrell’s Fight,” his struggle on the homefront that his big brother helped him chronicle online, included more than 30 surgeries and three years of rehabilitation.

It was a story of triumph over wounds that would have been fatal in earlier conflicts. A story that was coming to an end, but not how anyone who knew him expected.
read more here

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Iraq veteran, triple amputee inspires crowd in Montana

Iraq veteran, triple amputee inspires crowd at MSU
GALLATIN COUNTY
NBC Montana
By Grace Ditzler, KTVM Reporter
Mar 26 2014

BOZEMAN, Mont.
Bryan Anderson has survived the odds, being one of only a few triple amputees to make it back from Iraq alive.

In October of 2005, an IED explosion left him without both his legs and left hand.

"And that really kind of forced me to live in the moment, focus on what was in front of me," Anderson told a crowd of a few hundred at Montana State University on Wednesday. He shared his story, and what life is like now.

Anderson spent 13 months in rehab before returning home, and says the hardest part of his recovery was the fear of the unknown.

"Getting past the fact that you don't know what's going to happen in the next few months or next year after rehab, but you just kind of have to go through it," he said.
read more here

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Bomb sniffing dog adopted by contractor he saved

Layton man injured in Afghanistan adopts 'hero' dog
Deseret News
By Emiley Morgan
Published: Saturday, March 15 201

LAYTON — On May 9, 2010, John Logie, his body full of shrapnel, was loaded into a helicopter and flown from Afghanistan to Germany after being injured by an improvised explosive device.

He said his K9 partner, Balto, watched as he was loaded up.

"He's looking at me like, 'Where are you going, Dad?'" Logie recalled.

Saturday, the same dog stared down the same man, as Logie arrived to pick up Balto from the Delta Cargo warehouse at the Salt Lake City International Airport as his new owner.

"This is my hero right here," Logie said as the dog was released from his kennel. "He saved my life multiple times and now it's time for him to go home and sit on the couch."

Logie said he began working with Balto when he went to Afghanistan in 2009. Working as a contracted handler first with the U.S. Special Forces, then the Canadian Military, the pair spent almost a year together searching for explosives and clearing the way for troops until the day Logie was injured.

"When you're over there in that kind of condition, the dog is pretty much on your hip 24/7," Logie said. "You sleep with him, live with him, eat with him… He's got a good sniffer on him. He found a lot before I got hurt."

On May 9, 2010, Logie said he and Balto were sent out to clear a compound near some grape fields where explosives were often buried. Picking up some IED residue from a nearby building, Balto pulled Logie toward the structure — and away from a powerful "primary" IED.

Logie hit a secondary IED, which sent shrapnel through his left arm and leg, parts of his right leg and arm and damaged his hearing. But he believes hitting the less powerful explosive spared his life.
read more here

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Bionic Marine's prosthetic arm has sensors

If you ever saw Lee Majors in The Six Million Dollar Man you'd be thinking the same thing I was this morning. Incredible story of how great minds can come up with things that replace what human parts are missing. From prosthetic legs allowing them to walk to blades get veterans running again. This is about an arm with sensors allowing a young wounded Marine's hand to move!
US Marine receives first prosthetic arm controlled by implantable sensors
FoxNews.com
By Amanda Woerner
Published January 20, 2014

After U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. James Sides lost his hand while serving in Afghanistan, he was desperate to get back to his old way of life. Despite the fact that he had mastered the use of his prosthetic, Sides was frustrated by his inability to fluidly do simple things like pick up a water bottle or get money from the ATM.

“I always felt I was holding up the line,” Sides told FoxNews.com. “I’d have to move my thumb, grab groceries, move the thumb back, then close my hand.”

Sides incurred his injury on July 15, 2012. He was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan when a booby-trapped improvised explosive device (IED) detonated underneath him. As a result of the explosion, Sides lost both his right hand and the vision in his left eye.
read more here

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Thousands turn out to support family of fallen Air Force Capt. David Lyon

A hero's welcome
Community gathers to honor Lyon, family
Bonner County Daily Bee
By CAROLINE LOBSINGER Staff writer
Posted: Sunday, January 12, 2014

SANDPOINT — As he walked into a coffee shop, the man turned around and asked why everyone was downtown, why there were so many flags.

“We lost one of our own in Afghanistan,” someone in the crowd lining First Avenue called out. “We’re welcoming his family home. We want them to know we love him. We want them to know we’re here for them.”

Several thousand Bonner County residents did just that Saturday as they turned out en masse — packing First Avenue, Cedar Street and the Long Bridge — to show their support for the family of Air Force Capt. David Lyon, who died Dec. 27 in Afghanistan when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device.

Lyon was buried Wednesday in the Air Force Academy cemetery and his family was returning home from his funeral service.

Friends and community members wanted to do something to let Lyon’s family know how much he meant to people and how appreciative they are of his service. Word of the planned tribute spread quickly via social media and word of mouth.

Local veterans groups got involved. Soon, Boy Scout troops made plans to line the Long Bridge and form an honor guard. The Sandpoint Lions spread out throughout the downtown and along the bridge to share their flags. Homemade signs, from a simple “Bless You” to “David Lyon: Hometown Hero, Always Remembered. Never Forgotten.”
read more here

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Airman from Idaho killed in Afghanistan

DOD Identifies Air Force Casualty
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Release No: NR-098-13
December 28, 2013

The Department of Defense announced today the death of an airman who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Capt. David I. Lyon, 28, of Sandpoint, Idaho, died Dec. 27, 2013, from wounds suffered when his vehicle was attacked with an improvised explosive device in Kabul, Afghanistan.

He was assigned to the 21st Logistics Readiness Squadron, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Combat wounded Iraq veteran and family see new home

Veteran, family get first look at donated home
Bank and foundation team up to provide houses
Ocala.com
By Carlos E. Medina
Correspondent
Published: Monday, November 25, 2013

The last 12 years have tested Jamie and Della Whitaker.

Jamie Whitaker survived three tours in Iraq and just as many IED attacks. Badly wounded in one, Whitaker struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder. He also suffered a series of heart attacks starting in 2011, which required bypass surgery and a defibrillator.

All the while, Della Whitaker has worked hard to keep their three children, including the youngest, Jonathan “Zeke,” who has autism, safe and healthy. She also has cared for her husband as he deals with his health issues. The family of five have done it while living in a 900-square-foot apartment in Georgia. Jamie Whitaker grew up in Lake City.

On Monday, the family arrived in Ocala to see, for the first time, their new 1,700-square-foot house, donated to them by Bank of America through the Military Warriors Support Foundation.

“We’re home,” said Della, as she hugged Jaime upon entering the house.
read more here

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Fort Hood Soldier Blown Up Then Charge For Gear

Ft Hood Soldier Charged For Gear After IED Blast
KCEN News
By Sophia Stamas
Posted: Oct 21, 2013

You can't put a price tag on surviving a deadly attack overseas, but one Fort Hood soldier knows the cost of the helmet that saved his life all too well.

"I had a couple shrapnels in my side plates and in my helmet," Army Sergeant Michael Williams said about the gear that protected him on June 13, 2011.

Now, more than two years after the day he was wounded by an improvised explosive device in Iraq, he got a "bill" for his shrapnel-pierced helmet.

"I automatically assumed that, you know, that's the gear that I got blown up in, that I almost died in, and I lost two buddies in, and I didn't think anything of it."

A few months after the blast injured his back and head, Mike says he cleared his missing gear with supply personnel, but admits he didn't continue to regularly check on his status regarding missing gear, like he should have.

Then when he went through finance to medically retire in September, he got a statement of charges.

It lists $280.80 for his helmet, $25.99 for his neck pad, plus $335.42 for other gear that someone stole from a shipping container on the way back from the deployment.
read more here

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Madigan Army Medical Center nurse killed in Afghanistan

Madigan Army Medical Center nurse killed in Afghanistan
Seattle Times
Posted by Nick Provenza
October 8, 2013

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD (AP) — A nurse from Madigan Army Medical Center and three of her fellow soldiers in a special operations force were killed by an improvised bomb blast Sunday in Afghanistan, the Defense Department said.

Lt. Jennifer M. Moreno, 25, of San Diego, was based at the hospital at Joint Base Lewis-McChord and volunteered as a member of a cultural support team with a special operations task force that deployed in June.

Also killed in Sunday’s blast in the Zhari District of Kandahar Province were Sgt. Patrick C. Hawkins, 25 of Carlisle, Pa.; Sgt. Joseph M. Peters, 24, of Springfield, Mo.; and Pfc. Cody J. Patterson, 24, of Philomath, Ore.

Hawkins and Patterson served out of Fort Benning, Ga., with the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Peters belonged to the 5th Military Police Battalion out of Vicenza, Italy.

Serving with a special operations cultural support team is one of the few ways for female soldiers to go outside the wire on combat missions with all-male Army Ranger or Green Beret teams, The News Tribune reported.

“We’ve lost a superb officer and a caring nurse who served with marked distinction and honor throughout her career.” said Madigan Command Col. Ramona Fiorey. “We are all deeply saddened by the tragic loss of this great American solider.”
read more here

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Four soldiers were killed in Afghanistan today

Four US soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan
NBC News
By Gil Aegerter, Staff Writer
October 6, 2013

Four U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack in southern Afghanistan on defense officials said Sunday.

The International Security Assistance Force did not identify the nationalities but the four were Americans killed by a bomb in the early hours of Sunday, U.S. defense officials said.
read more here

Monday, September 23, 2013

Spc. James T. Wickliffchacin died of wounds from IED

DOD Identifies Army Casualty
No. 677-13
September 22, 2013

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Spc. James T. Wickliffchacin, 22, of Edmond, Okla., died Sept. 20 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his dismounted patrol during combat operations in Pul-E-Alam, Afghanistan on Aug. 12.

He was assigned to the 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, Fort Stewart, Ga.

Friday, July 26, 2013

Iraq War veterans chilled by country's slide into civil war

'I risked my life, for what?': Iraq War veterans chilled by country's slide into civil war
NBC
By Bill Briggs
NBC News contributor
July 25, 2013

As they watch Iraq’s mounting body count and potential slide into civil war, some Iraq War veterans are more intensely questioning why they went, what it all meant, and whether the deaths of 4,486 U.S. troops on that foreign soil were worth the permanent cost.

Others are concerned about the impact that Iraq’s summer unraveling may have on the morale of active-duty troops who once fought there and who now are trying to finish the equally grinding mission in Afghanistan.

And 10 years after the Iraq invasion, the deployment and re-deployments of 1.5 million Americans, the subsequent execution of ex-leader Saddam Hussein, the rise of new acronyms like IED and PTSD, and a jarring suicide epidemic, a portion of former Iraq War troops say the mental-health struggles faced by so many younger veterans may consequently deepen.

“You think about the guys who lost their lives in World War II, at least there was a higher purpose for risking your life,” said Andrew O’Brien, an Army convoy gunner who served in Iraq during 2008 and 2009, surviving an IED blast. He attempted suicide in 2010. “Now that I’m hearing about this, all I think about is the guys we lost in Iraq. It’s hard to not think that it meant nothing.”
read more here

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Bad contracting may have turned deadly in counter-IED program

Bad contracting may have turned deadly in counter-IED program
Stars and Stripes
By Heath Druzin
Published: July 23, 2013

KABUL — Of all the dangers American troops face in Afghanistan, shoddy contracting is not one for which they have a battle drill.

But poor contract oversight, cited in several reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, has not only wasted money in Afghanistan; in one case, it may have led to the deaths of U.S. troops, according to the latest report.

The report released on Tuesday detailed fraud and negligence in the installation of grates to block insurgents from placing bombs in culverts running under roads.

“The loss of life because individuals were not doing their job is horrific and unacceptable,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan John Sopko said in a statement. “This case shows so clearly that fraud can kill in Afghanistan. We will find out if contracting officers did not do their job and if that proves to be true and Americans have died, we will hold those individuals accountable.”
read more here

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Thieves Take Disabled Vets' Hunting Gear

Thieves Take Disabled Vets' Hunting Gear
Detroit Free Press
by Tammy Stables
Jul 15, 2013

Thieves shot down an effort by South Lyon volunteers to help disabled military veterans by stealing nearly $18,000 in equipment used to transport gear and veterans into the woods to hunt.

Swiped sometime between July 3 and 5 was a $4,000 unmarked, black custom enclosed trailer carrying a $13,800 Polaris six-person utility vehicle used by Operation Injured Soldiers volunteers.

Loran Symonds, 44, who injured his back lifting bombs onto Harrier jets in Baghdad, Iraq, and Bahrain during Operation Desert Storm, calls the outings "therapy." He describes the theft as "like walking up and spitting in someone's face."

"Vietnam veterans, those guys aren't able to walk long distances," said Symonds of McMillan.

"(Soldiers) who are returning now who had it a lot worse than what I did -- with all the IEDs -- they're coming home with missing limbs. So this thing was like a lifeline. For someone to steal that, it's unbelievable."

Pamela Bijansky, one of the founders of Operation Injured Soldiers, said the trailer disappeared from outside the group's office at her dry-cleaning store, Parkside Cleaners, 22645 Pontiac Trail in South Lyon.

Two trailers next to the stolen trailer displayed the words "Operation Injured Soldiers," but the stolen trailer did not have the plastic signage applied.
read more here

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Soldier survived 7 roadside bombs

Soldier survives 7 roadside bombs
By CJ Baker
Powell (Wyo.) Tribune via the AP
Jul. 14, 2013

POWELL, WYO. — A U.S. soldier born in Powell and raised in Cody has drawn national media attention for his continued military service — even after several close calls with life-threatening explosions.

During the July 4 episode of the ABC news program “Nightline,” host Terry Moran described Army Staff Sgt. Chad Joiner as “one of our American heroes” and “a man amazingly still on the front lines, despite repeatedly cheating death.”

The piece by Muhammad Lila highlights a staggering statistic: roadside bombs exploded underneath Joiner’s vehicles seven times during his three deployments in Iraq.

“God has a plan for me. There’s an obvious reason why I’m still here,” Joiner, 31, told “Nightline.” “I don’t know 100 percent what that reason is, but He obviously has something in store for me.”
read more here

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Veteran credits nurse with saving his life in Long Binh Vietnam

Vietnam vet thanks nurse and others for saving his life
Chesterfield veteran credits nurse with saving his life in Vietnam Richmond Times-Dispatch
BY PETER BACQUƉ
July 5, 2013

Want to know what the Fourth of July holiday is really about?

Ask Bill Haneke. Ask Cathie Solomonson.

In 1968, during the Vietnam War, a mine nearly killed Haneke, who was an Army captain.

He lost his right leg, half his left foot, his left eye, half his nose and four fingertips from his right hand. His skull and his jaw were shattered. He had wounds over 90 percent of his body.

“I was Bill’s nurse,” Solomonson said. As a 22-year-old Army lieutenant, Solomonson served with the 24th Evacuation Hospital in Long Binh, Vietnam, in 1968-69.
read more here