thedrifter
07-02-07, 06:53 PM
Wounded Soldier Returns Home
Monday, Jul 02, 2007 - 05:20 PM
By Heather MacWilliams
E-mail | Biography
A Winchester Marine is home tonight after being severely injured in Iraq.
They came out in droves to shake the hand of a hero whose life-long dream was to become a Marine.
Last September that dream finally became a reality for Lance Corporal Matt Bradford.
A reality he could've never predicted just four months later.
Jan. 18 Matt and 11 others had just left camp on foot patrol when Matt stepped smack dab on top of an improvised explosive devise (IED).
"Right when I turned around to tell my squad leader something I turned right back around and I pretty much stepped on it then. It was like under the road so... And it was a trigger IED too," remembers Matt.
His fellow Marines carried Matt to their mass unit where they quickly donated blood to save their brother.
"The last words I heard were from my senior drill instructor, which was the platoon sergent, and then I woke up in Bethesda. After I got out of ICU."
Matt lost both legs and is now blind.
"By all rights he shouldn't be here," says his mother Debby.
("People are calling you a miracle. You are. You're a living miracle. Do you ever think about that?) Not really. I try not to," Matt says. "I can't sit down depressed because of my injuries ... because I wouldn't take it back."
Not only would Matt not take it back, he says he would go back.
("You'd go back in a heart beat? Why?) I'd be in first class over there. Unfinished business," says Matt, adding, "Plus I did it all for the flag. When I look at the flag that's what I did it for. Freedom."
Determined to go on....
("They say that everything happens for a reason. What do you think about that?) I don't know yet. Hopefully good reasons. Just being alive is good enough reason for me."
Determined to serve his country...
"But I don't like to give up on things. It's because I'm a Marine."
Ellie
Monday, Jul 02, 2007 - 05:20 PM
By Heather MacWilliams
E-mail | Biography
A Winchester Marine is home tonight after being severely injured in Iraq.
They came out in droves to shake the hand of a hero whose life-long dream was to become a Marine.
Last September that dream finally became a reality for Lance Corporal Matt Bradford.
A reality he could've never predicted just four months later.
Jan. 18 Matt and 11 others had just left camp on foot patrol when Matt stepped smack dab on top of an improvised explosive devise (IED).
"Right when I turned around to tell my squad leader something I turned right back around and I pretty much stepped on it then. It was like under the road so... And it was a trigger IED too," remembers Matt.
His fellow Marines carried Matt to their mass unit where they quickly donated blood to save their brother.
"The last words I heard were from my senior drill instructor, which was the platoon sergent, and then I woke up in Bethesda. After I got out of ICU."
Matt lost both legs and is now blind.
"By all rights he shouldn't be here," says his mother Debby.
("People are calling you a miracle. You are. You're a living miracle. Do you ever think about that?) Not really. I try not to," Matt says. "I can't sit down depressed because of my injuries ... because I wouldn't take it back."
Not only would Matt not take it back, he says he would go back.
("You'd go back in a heart beat? Why?) I'd be in first class over there. Unfinished business," says Matt, adding, "Plus I did it all for the flag. When I look at the flag that's what I did it for. Freedom."
Determined to go on....
("They say that everything happens for a reason. What do you think about that?) I don't know yet. Hopefully good reasons. Just being alive is good enough reason for me."
Determined to serve his country...
"But I don't like to give up on things. It's because I'm a Marine."
Ellie