Every Day Heroes

Army Lt. Col. Marc Hoffmeister is among four wounded warriors attempting to summit Alaska's Mount McKinley, or Denali, the highest point in North America, June 1, 2009. Courtesy photo

West Point Grad Leads Charge on Denali Despite Combat Injuries By Samantha L. Quigley American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2009 - Summiting the highest peak in North America, will make Marc Hoffmeister's other challenges, like earning his commission as an Army officer by graduating from West Point, seem like a mole hill, by comparison.

Mount McKinley, known simply as 'Denali,' in Alaska's Denali National Park, challenges even the most expert climbers. Hoffmeister and three other veterans will face those difficulties, as well as others resulting from their combat injuries, but he's not letting anything deter him from attaining his goal.

"I started planning this [climb] very early in my recovery and it's been both all-consuming and rehabilitative," said the team leader for 'Operation Denali.' "The drive to complete this 'mission' set the conditions for me to develop the skills I've always yearned to possess."

Nearly 15 years after graduating from West Point, the now-Lt. Col. Hoffmeister found himself in Iraq conducting a combined patrol with the Iraq army as an embedded trainer.

It was April 22, 2007, when the patrol was hit by a roadside bomb just north of Hillah, along alternate supply route Jackson. The blast severely damaged Hoffmeister's left arm, causing broken bones and nerve damage. He also suffered a traumatic brain injury and, as he puts it, "The pleasure of accompanying shrapnel popping out on odd occasions."

"I have more titanium than bone in my left arm now, and my elbow is more a collection of plates and screws than an elbow," Hoffmeister said.

He said he considers his rehabilitation ongoing because of slow nerve growth and recovery. He had a nerve transplant from his left leg and was initially hospitalized for two months. He then received home health care for an additional two months, during which his brigade commander in Iraq called and asked him to take over the brigade's rear detachment.

"He stated to me very simply that he figured, 'Anyone with two arms is still only half as good as Hoffmeister with one arm, so would [you] mind taking command of the brigade rear detachment?'" Hoffmeister said. "How do you say no to a question like that?

"So after a brief pity party, I got back to work and assumed command of the brigade rear detachment [with] the catheter line still in my arm [and] oxycodone and Lyrica tempering the pain," he added. "It was a godsend."

The duties gave him a purpose and a focus, and he could relate to the large population of wounded in the brigade's rear detachment, he said. It kept him looking beyond his personal obstacles and moving forward.

Hoffmeister's injury has forced him to figure out how to modify equipment so he can return to activities he enjoyed before his injury. For instance, all the gears that once resided on the left side of his bike have found a new home on the right. He also uses a padded glove and a wrist strap on his left hand to compensate for hypersensitivity and reduced grip strength.

His injuries also affected his climbing techniques. "It's forcing me to learn how to become a much more technically adept climber, as I can't rely on the strength or dexterity of my left arm or hand," he said. "So my lower body technique and positioning must change to reduce the strain and extend my endurance."

The injury, which causes constant pain, has provided Hoffmeister with a new perspective on life, as well.

"I embrace life's experiences far more than in the past because I am far more aware of the blessings that each new day brings," he said. "I've also realized that the combined virtue of my experiences being severely wounded and my rank and position have enabled me to assist other wounded warriors experiencing similar challenges.

"I feel a personal responsibility to assist, motivate or support my fellow wounded warriors in any way that I can," he added.

When asked what has been his greatest triumph since being injured, he's hesitant to provide a concrete answer, mainly because he's hoping that answer will change in a few weeks.

"I'll tell you after the climb!" he said.

Hoffmeister has served on active duty since graduating from West Point 17 years ago. He's the chief engineer for Alaskan Command/Joint Task Force Alaska at Elmendorf Air Force Base and lives in Eagle River, Alaska, with his wife, Gayle, and two Jack Russell terriers, Max and Bailey.

Gayle also will make the climb with the Operation Denali team as a peer mentor. The group set out for base camp on June 1 and expects to complete their trek by June 22.
Related Sites:
Operation Denali
Denali
U.S. Army
Related Articles:
Wounded Warriors Set Out to Conquer North America's Highest Peak
Special Report: Operation Denali

And then there is this:

Army Lt. Col. Marc Hoffmeister, top left; Army Spc. Dave Shebib, top right; retired Marine Capt. Jon Kuniholm, bottom left; and retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Nyman -- all wounded veterans -- are attempting to summit North America's highest peak, June 1, 2009. Courtesy photo

Wounded Veteran Hopes to Inspire Others in Mountain Quest By Samantha L. Quigley American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2009 – The loss of his right arm while serving in Iraq made something as simple as eating a challenge for retired Marine Capt. Jonathan F. Kuniholm, who recently set out with three other wounded veterans to conquer Mount McKinley, also known as “Denali” because it’s located in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Reserve.

“Following the loss of my right arm in Iraq on New Year’s Day 2005, the most basic of things became a challenge -- writing my name, putting on a pair of pants in the morning, tying my shoes, cutting a steak,” he said. “After putting up a ceiling fan that spring with my 5-year-old son, I realized that as long as I was patient enough, I could do whatever I wanted.”

By the end of that year, Kuniholm had resumed many of the things he’d done before his injury, though he finds some activities difficult enough that he doesn’t pursue them much, including playing the guitar or sports with his son.

In fact, it’s affected just about every other area of his life as well.

“All of it is impacted in some way, from the moment I get up in the morning,” he said. “I can do many things, … and many take much longer or I do inexpertly.”

Kuniholm was dismounted from a riverine craft on the shore of the Euphrates River south of Haditha, Iraq, when insurgents used a homemade bomb to initiate what he described as a sophisticated ambush on the platoon. The platoon, which was not his assigned unit, handled the ambush effectively, but three servicemembers suffered serious injuries and one was killed. One sailor, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Juan Rubio, earned a Silver Star during the engagement.

Kuniholm had played his guitar the night before in a talent show. He described himself as pretty rusty, since he hadn’t played in months. In retrospect, he said, it was interesting, considering what would happen the next day.

“It took about a year before I was done with surgeries, fitted with prostheses, and ready to get back to my life,” Kuniholm said. “Prosthetic arms are, as I discovered, still very much a work in progress, and if you want to call that part of my rehabilitation, my work to improve prosthetic arms continues.”

This, he said, has become his new calling in life. Realizing the deficiencies in prosthetic arms, he began working as an engineer on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 program. He also started Open Prosthetics Project, a nonprofit group, to further innovations in arm prosthetics.

“While my professional goal is to improve the technology amputees all over the world use to replace their arms, I have a new personal goal as well,” Kuniholm said.

Human beings are incredibly resilient and capable of nearly anything they set their minds to, he said.

“People with disabilities have a greater set of challenges, and while the road may be longer and harder, [we] have just as few limits to what we can achieve,” he said. “Climbing Denali is a task that many able-bodied folks would never undertake. By being part of a team tackling that task while sharing the additional challenges of disability, I hope to inspire others with similar challenges.

“I hope as well to remove the limits placed on their expectations of what they can achieve,” he added. “This won’t make getting dressed, eating, or anything else any easier, but it’s my hope that it will make any challenge seem possible and less of a chore to undertake.”

Kuniholm already has started to set an example for others who have disabilities and big dreams.

With the help of his flight instructor, he recently renewed his pilot’s license and has returned to flying as a private pilot. Earning a private pilot’s license is possible for those with disabilities who have never flown before, he said.

The successes occasionally are tempered by the public’s reaction, which he said his cousin likened to being out and about with a pregnant woman.

“It’s undeniable [that I’m missing an arm], and many people assume that this fact means you want to talk about it,” Kuniholm said. “As you might imagine, being involved in prosthetic arm research, I’ll always talk about prosthetic arms, but I have had that conversation before, and sometimes it’s nice to talk about something else.”

Kuniholm lives in Durham, N.C., with his wife, Michele, and son, Sam, 7. He served as the engineer officer and platoon commander of the 2nd Platoon, 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, attached to the 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, in Iraq’s Anbar province from Aug. 17, 2004, until his injury.

He is part of a seven-member team -- four wounded veterans, two mentors and one guide – whose attempt to reach North America’s highest peak began this week.

Related Sites:
Veterans Coalition Operation Denali Web Site

Related Articles:
Special Report: Operation Denali

[source]

Thank you ALL for your service.

Operation Overlord

June 6, 1944 is a date in history heard before.
More than sixty years have passed long since.
It has become a day almost mythical in lore.
Crosses dot Europe’s landscapes in time’s mist.
Allied forces united closely in that World War.
Now seamed faces float back as they reminisce.

One hundred sixty thousand troops sailed away.
One hundred ninety thousand delivered them.
Leaving the safety of ships and planes that day,
They hit the beaches, promising to do their best.
The day was the last sunrise of life for too many.
More than ten thousand fell, many to eternal rest.

Try to picture it all through those frightened eyes.
Five beaches were the very Gates of Hell that day.
Sword Beach, Juno, Gold, Omaha, and Utah Beach,
Pointe du Hoc loomed ahead in the gloom of dawn.
Warriors knew blood would flow; many would die.
Imagine how silence fell as soldiers quietly prayed.

Some faced towering cliffs and mines on sticks.
The enemy was protected by bunkers of cement,
Barbed wire, mines, walls of mortar and bricks.
Obstacles lay beneath waves of raging violence.
Months of planning were held in limbo, at bay,
As Mother Nature’s desires defined all that day.

Airborne troops had to sail in the winds that blew.
Soldiers descended rope ladders into bobbing boats,
Knowing that fickle waters controlled their moves.
Artillery suppport prayed guns landed on that coast.
Soldiers and sailors had no control, only a job to do.
Not one thing that day dispelled thoughts of gloom.

Brits, Yanks, Swedes, and Canadians had to attack.
Freedom Fighters were inland, reclaiming native soil.
The largest assault ever must break Germany’s back.
The Germans had to have the westward surge foiled.
Historians tell the stories; it is not merely myth at all.
Lives and blood lost that day saved the known world.

Personal tragedy is not always in official print.
A day of remembering shows in creased brows.
A real story is beneath sterile historical reports.
Look into the faces of that generation and know
That the terror of the day lives in their trembles.
If they will speak, listen well, then pass it along.


The stories are there, the real history, dramatic.
One survivor is burdened by six decades of guilt.
He waded from Hell unhurt, still it is traumatic.
Another felt a friend explode; he was scratched.
A few steps further and then another was killed.
Later he learned his shrapnel was bone fragments.

A soldier saw his brothers exit the landing craft.
Still too far out, they stepped down twenty feet.
They drowned struggling to be free of battle gear.
Twenty nine amphibious tanks were to hit a beach.
Two made it; the others became an armored reef.
Belgian gates and Teller mines defied the assault.

Rangers scaling cliffs hung in enemy bullets’ way.
Airborne soldiers drifted with the whim of winds.
Miles from landing zones they marched to the fray.
Gliders soared but winds often blocked the descent.
Troops fought on, giving all, marching for us today.
The beginning of that War’s end started on D-Day.



Mike Mullins, 6/4/09

Michael D. "Moon" Mullins, author of "Vietnam in Verse, poetry for beer drinkers." "ViV" won the Gold Medal for poetry, 2007, from the Military Writers Society of America. The book is available on line from amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, books-a-million.com and iUniverse.com.
It is available as an audio-book from the author. Please contact me at this e-mail address; mullins.m.1@comcast.net or via land mail at POB 456 Windfall, In. 46076.
Vietnam Veteran, Delta 3/7, 199th Light Infantry, '68-'69.
Vice President of the Military Writers Society of America

Every Day Heroes (MY heroes)

Paying respects: from left, Dennis Boardman, Jack Watson, Fred Harman, George Butler, Jock Hutton and, front, Douglas Baines

Paratroopers salute D-Day heroes

Commemoration of the 65th anniversary of D-Day began today with more than a hundred British paratroopers descending from the Normandy skies.

For the veteran paratroopers watching, it was a chance to catch up on old times. There were hugs, tears and tales of extraordinary bravery to be told while soldiers from 3 Para landed in the fields around them.

Dennis Boardman, 84, pointed to the spot about 300 yards away where he had landed, close to Ranville, the first village liberated on D-Day.

"We dropped about 12.30am and we had taken the whole village by 2.30 in the morning," he recalled, "I always say to myself that for the last 65 years I have been living on borrowed time. I should be with my buddies in the graveyard down there but for the grace of God I am still here."

...

This really IS a must read, right to the end, where the typical, warped British sense of humour is still evident in these amazing heroes. Go here and meet them.

These EVERY DAY heroes make this English woman SO proud. Thank you all for your incredible courage and service. With heroes like you, there will always be an England.

Tori Stafford: "Love You Forever"

Stafford memorial: Family says goodbye

Sat, June 6, 2009

By PATRICK MALONEY and RANDY RICHMOND, SUN MEDIA
(London Free Press)

WOODSTOCK — Nearly 1,000 friends, family and total strangers gathered yesterday to remember Victoria (Tori) Stafford, the girl whose abduction 59 days ago set on edge a city now united in grief.

Her family held the memorial so the public could celebrate the child most only knew as the girl on the poster, a smiling image that had looked out from nearly every local business window since the nightmare began April 8, when Tori vanished after school.

But the event also gave those loved ones a chance to honour Tori, their “spunky little princess” and “diva with attitude.”

“She was my best friend in the entire world,” her mother, Tara McDonald, told 800 people gathered at Woodstock’s Calvary Church for a community memorial.

“I would give my life if just to hear her sweet voice one more time, to hold her in my arms, to smell her hair or smush her nose.”

There is more here.

I have been following this story, since the day Tori disappeared on her way home from school. Hoping for a good outcome. This is not to be. The latest news report reached out and grabbed me for many reasons.

At today's memorial for Tori, her mother quoted some lines that I read over and over to my own child. Still today, these words from a Canadian author, are most surely part of many childrens' bedtime story ritual:

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be". ... (Robert Munsch)

Prayers of peace for Tori, and all who love this precious child.

Dear Heather: Americans -and others - support you

I thank God that our US military - and their families - know that they ARE cared about and supported; no matter how their President behaves.

via Janet on FB..and on Michelle Malkin here

Monument honouring Canadians unveiled in France

Canadian Second World War veteran Sam Wormington, 88, shows his medals in Caen, France, on Thursday, prior to the start of ceremonies marking the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Canadian troops honoured for role in D-Day invasion

World leaders gather in France to commemorate 65th anniversary

British paratroopers from the 3rd Parachute Battalion land in a wheat field outside the village of Ranville, western France, Friday, as troops re-enact part of the bloody Allied landings of D-Day. (Francois Mori/Associated Press)A monument commemorating the role of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Allies' success on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944 was unveiled Friday in France.

The statue and plaque were unveiled in a ceremony held at the Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles-sur-Mer.

This year's D-Day ceremonies mark the 65th anniversary of more than 130,000 Allied troops storming the beaches of Normandy on the morning of June 6, 1944, a turning point that led to the defeat of Germany in the Second World War.

The success at the beaches along the Normandy coast couldn't have been achieved without the support of the Canadian navy, Canadian historian Jack Granatstein said.

The Germans had fortified the coast of northern France as part of their Atlantic wall, Granatstein said.

"It was a fortress of obstacles, mines and protected by shell fire. Every landing craft that went ashore had to dodge obstacles, carrying troops, picking their way as best they could through mines and hedge rows that were designed to put holes in their ships," he said.

Canada had one of the largest navies in the world during the Second World War, with more than 106,000 young men and women serving...

This is a great article, so go read it here. (And yes, I'll have more tomorrow).

Twenty years ago today

An indelible image of courage, one lone protester facing down a tank in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, June 1989. He would become known simply as 'Tank Man' or 'The Unknown Rebel'. The massive student protests were brutally put down on June 4th when the Chinese army attacked with tanks and trucks, firing indescriminately at the unarmed protesters, killing and injuring thousands. The Unknown Rebel confronted the tank column next day as the army withdrew. Neither his identity nor his fate have ever been established, reported by some to have been executed, and by others to be still alive. This music comes from the CD 'Image Conscious', music loosely hung on enduring news images. Music and video by Plug. [here]

"Tell the world..."


And I must ask: WHAT have we learned?

(And there is this)