Profile
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34,634
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Age:
30
Joined:
Mar 18, 2007
Latest Activity:
1 day ago
Subscribers:
1,955
About Me:
Back in April of 2003, I was serving as a United States Marine Corps Infantryman (MOS 0311) during the initial invasion of Iraq. On April 12, 2003, just 3 days after we'd taken the capitol city of Baghdad, my platoon was ambushed by Fedayeen Saddam fighters (i.e. Saddam's Baath Party loyalists) in a small Iraqi suburb just North West of Baghdad, in an area that had yet to be cleared by Coalition Forces. There were well over 100 of the enemy fighters and my platoon consisted of just over 50 Marines and a few Navy Corpsmen. We immediately pushed forward out of the ambush zone and took the fight to the enemy, killing a large number of them in a 2-3 hour firefight in an urban neighborhood.
About 45 minutes into the fight I found myself in the backyard of a house, shooting it out with half a dozen or so enemy fighters. I wound up taking a round fired from an enemy's AK47 in the chest, just under my left armpit. The bullet traveled downward through my torso, shredding my spleen (which had to be removed), puncturing my left lung, lacerating my stomach and left kidney, severing my aorta that runs down the length of the spine, blowing out a chunk of my vertebrae, and completely severing my spinal cord (which is about the diameter of a dime) at the T-12/L-1 level, which left me completely and permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Although I've faced MANY challenges since that 12th day in April, 2003, I'm extremely lucky to be alive, and I'm very aware of that fact. I wasn't expecting to survive my wounds, and so whenever I awoke in Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland a week and a half later, it was honestly the biggest surprise of my life.
I'm currently into shooting and firearms training, as you can see by my videos. It's something that allows me to keep that Warrior Spirit intact, and is also the closest thing to being a Marine Infantryman I can do. Unfortunately, for some reason they won't let me go over to Afghanistan and kill some Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists... don't know why, lol!!
But I really enjoy training and attending carbine and handgun courses. Getting out to the range and fucking shit up downrange motivates the hell out of me, and I love to do it. It's also really great meeting people at the range and especially at training courses who are like-minded and interesting. I primarily shoot the AR15 carbine and Glock 19/26 9mm handguns. Those are my two weapons of choice and are what I perform best with. I also just think they're a blast to shoot!
It's definitely harder shooting a carbine from a wheelchair, without a doubt. Things are just SO much simpler and easy when you're able-bodied though, whether shooting or anything else. So I do have to work a little harder to keep up with my peers on the range, but honestly I usually outperform the majority of shooters out there. I actually took "Top Shooter" in my Magpul carbine course out of 17 other students.
I'm also VERY passionate about using my mistakes made and lessons learned in combat to help out my fellow Brothers-In-Arms in both the Military and Law Enforcement. In the March 2010 issue of SWAT Magazine, I wrote an article entitles "Al Tarmiyah Firefight! Lessons Learned The Hard Way," in which I tell the story of how I was wounded and the mistakes and "training scars" I made that I strongly feel led to my being unnecessarily and severely wounded in combat back in 2003.
If you'd like to read that article I wrote, you can either go to SWAT Magazine's website and buy the March 2010 back issue (in either print OR download the pdf. file format online), or you can simply click on the following link that'll take you to the M4Carbine Internet forum, where I originally wrote the article before it was seen and I was offered to get it published in SWAT Mag.
http://www.m4carbine.net/sh...
I also wrote another article for SWAT Mag in April of 2010. It was an After Action Report (AAR) of the Magpul Dynamics Carbine 1 carbine course I attended, which is where my Magpul videos here on my YouTube Channel were taken. Here's the link to the Magpul Dynamics AAR:
http://www.m4carbine.net/sh...
I plan to continue training and attending firearms training courses, and will make videos of them when I can and post them here on my channel. I don't have an actual "purpose" here with my channel. I'm not trying to get subscribers or become a YouTube Partner or anything, although I certainly wouldn't turn it down because I'd have more money for ammo, lol!! But I'm simply having fun doing what I normally would do anyways, I'm just additionally making videos of it and posting them here on YouTube to see if anyone who enjoys the same things I do is interested in watching them. In other words, this is all just a good time for me, nothing really serious or anything.
I hope you all enjoy the vids I post and thanks for watching them!
S/F
Country:
United States
Occupation:
Med. Discharged USMC Infantryman (MOS 0311)
Interests:
Shooting and Firearms Training, Reading, Writing...
Books:
"Lone Survivor" and "House To House"
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(40)
Subscribers
(1998)
Channel Comments
You sir, are a fine example of American patriotism, tenacity, and a never quit, never say die attitude. A giant salute to you and your brothers in arms keeping this country safe and doing us proud. God bless, and keep up the good work.