Recently James Crosby's Father was placed on the Pvt Charles J Shutt Detachment's Wall of Honor on Memorial Day 2010, a wall to remember those of the Shutt Detachment who have passed. -- In the background I could hear new faces who couldn't make the connection of James Crosby and the Shutt Detachment even though the story was being told by Bill Byrne (who is now a retired detective), so below I put the story on the system for all who may pass by to know how the Pvt Shutt Detachment and it's members truly believe in the phrase Semper Fi and the concept of "always taking care of our own"

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At the Pvt. Charles Shutt Marine Detachment in Watertown, civilian and military volunteers from Watertown and surrounding communities help veterans of all ages. In the past year, a group of former Marine members of the Detachment teamed up with a car dealer and others to support a young Saugus Marine injured severely in the war to get back on the road to greater mobility.

The Shutt Detachment Marine veterans heard about then-Cpl. James Crosby, 19, after he was wounded by shrapnel in a rocket attack March 18 in Iraq. Crosby had spent just "a few days shy of a month there" in the combat zone before being injured. Flown out of Iraq to U.S. military hospitals in Germany and from there to Bethesda Hospital near Washington, Crosby eventually returned to West Roxbury Veterans Administration Hospital for treatment near where he then lived in Winthrop.

Along the way, Boston Herald columnist Jules Crittenden, "a reporter embedded with a division in Iraq, was given my name as a contact for local former Marines in the Boston area," said Marine veteran and Newton Police Det. William Byrne. Crittenden told Byrne, a former Commandant of the Shutt Detachment, "that James could really use some fellow Marine company and also filled me in on his disastrous financial condition," Byrne related. Young servicemen and women, Byrne explained, "typically can only get about $500 of a credit line on a credit card (because their pay is low)." And for the same reason, they end up using their credit cards for some everyday living expenses. "When James left for Iraq, he knew that his monthly pay would double (to combat pay levels)," said Byrne.

With Crosby's pay doubling he expected that his cards could be paid off. But only one month later, he was wounded and undergoing major medical treatment at various hospitals. And his pay dropped back in half to $1,200 a month regular pay. His credit card and other bills piled up. In addition, injured servicemen also sometimes have some medical treatment expenses deducted from their pay. "Not only was he paralyzed in a wheelchair, he was financially wiped out," Byrne said. "I contacted nine other former Marine friends of mine," said Byrne. "I asked them to meet me the next day at the VA hospital and to each bring $100. "We met James, shared some common talk and gave him $1,000 to help bail out his credit cards," said Byrne. "They helped by always visiting me when I was in the hospital. They brought me food every day. They took me out to go places.

They really were there for me!" said Crosby about the Marine veterans. When Byrne and his nine former Marine friends first visited Crosby at the VA Hospital, it was clear that the young veteran would need more help than they could provide financially on their own, especially once he was ready to be released from the hospital. He would have the usual expenses, just disability to live on, and he had no car and was in a wheelchair. So Crosby returned to Massachusetts to find Marines were ready to help him.

"On Aug. 19, we had a huge bash at The Rack in Faneuil Hall, Boston. We raised about $40,000 with the help of lots of people who turned out," said Byrne. The fund-raiser helped bail out Crosby from many pressing financial problems and a start in his new life. Along the way, Crosby had been improving health-wise and was eventually released from the Veterans Hospital. However, he still needed to make several day-long visits back to the VA hospital each week for physical therapy and other treatments, was still recovering, without a car and expecting for the foreseeable future to be in a wheelchair and heavily reliant on others. His father, Kevin Crosby - a Marine veteran himself - and brother, Jarred, a high school student, helped get him to medical visits.

But Crosby needed adapted living quarters and was eager to be independent. Eventually, he moved into a Saugus wheelchair-accessible apartment open to veterans and others. Since then, Crosby's regular hospital visits have decreased to two or three days a week and additional healing and pain treatments as needed. Recently, he tried out leg braces and crutches. Among other severe injuries caused by the rocket attack, Byrne explained, Crosby's spinal cord was severely damaged, but not severed.

Although it's not clear if that damage will improve with more treatments, he is learning to slowly maneuver his legs while most of his weight relies on the arm crutches. However, for now Crosby needs his wheelchair and has been navigating, with the help of his new mentors, some other major hurdles on the road to becoming more independent and mobile.

Meanwhile, Crosby wasn't just eagerly awaiting his car. He was in Washington, D.C. for Veterans Day, honoring other veterans and working to help others severely wounded, like himself avoid the financial problems he had faced. "My father and I and Congressman (Ed) Markey put together a bill to change the way wounded veterans are paid," explained Crosby. "When your quality of life is worse than when you went over. It (the pay cut he suffered) just seemed wrong." If OK'd by Congress, the Crosby-Puller Combat Wounds Compensation Act (co-named after the most decorated Marine of all time, the late Lt. Gen. Chesty Puller) would keep the pay level of seriously injured military at the same rate they received while in combat, until they are healed, discharged and receive VA benefits, or die, said Byrne. "James and his father," said Byrne. "Put a great deal of time into this bill, knowing that James was not going to benefit from it because he had already been discharged.

They did it to help future wounded service personnel." That legislation was introduced to Congress this week. And today, Crosby said, with his new car, "I can go anywhere I want to go." One place he goes is to the Veterans Services office in Boston - not to get help, but to give it. He works there two days a week helping do whatever I can to make the transition from active duty to veteran easier for other guys coming home. “It kind of gets me going again with life. And sometime in the near future I'm thinking of going to college," he said ------- story written in 2007

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