 Hi everybody I'm Ashley with DAV and I'm here today joined by DAV past national commander Dave Riley. Dave is a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, real adrenaline junkie. He can tell you more about that. He's been a past DAV Outstanding Disabled Veteran of the Year but I wanted to bring Dave on today to talk a little bit about gratitude while we're all kind of facing this COVID situation together and we're all isolated we want to make sure we're reaching out to our fellow veterans checking in on folks and I have a special reason for wanting to check in on Dave today but Dave I'd like to just give you the floor for a second and have you tell us a little bit about your backstory and who you are. Sure yeah so I was an army and then Coast Guard a rescue swimmer is in the helicopters in the Coast Guard for 17 years and I got a bacterial infection through my sinuses from the water down here in Mobile, Alabama while I was in turn septic and lost my limbs to gangrene that was in like 97 and so since then you know the VA sent me to my college I got my bachelor's from master's of computer science and really had so insidious that it finally caught up with the local DAV chapter so I was having problems and sent me up to go to the winter sports clinic in Aspen Colorado and that turned my life I mean and that is the that is the big surprise here is that today is Dave's 60th birthday and I think when we talk about all these hardships that we're all facing and going through right now it's important to kind of remember that it's not all negative and that there are a lot of things to be grateful for there are a lot of things to be positive about how old were you when when you contracted the 38 so so you've had some time to think about you know what could have been and what is now so I'm curious now you know here you are turning 60 was there a point at which you didn't think you'd make it here oh many times you know the message in there that you would share with your fellow veterans I mean it's easy to overlook a lot of the positive things that are in our lives right now and I think it's important that we we focus on that I mean it's a lot of us are home with with young kids we're trying to balance work we're trying to balance all these things and it's tough but is there a message that you would send out to your fellow veterans something that you'd want to say to give them a little boost well yeah you know one thing that comes to mind for me is this too shall pass you know uh this this this will be this will this will pass I can change it now Dave are you uh are you doing anything particularly special for your birthday anything to mark such a big milestone no I they open the pool up here at the campground so I might actually go in the pool finally but uh I'm able to take any trips yet I'm looking forward to uh supposed to go turkey on looking to maybe take off anything else you want to you want to throw out there Dave anything else the floor is yours oh thank you Ashley yeah I mean yeah I think that that's a great point I mean there's there's lots of folks out there lots of vets we all have friends from that we served with we have people that we can reach out to we're very connected socially it's a great time just get out there get on you know a social platform or a video platform and reach out um Dave as always it's wonderful to chat with you I hope things keep you know looking up I'm glad you finally have a chance to use your RV soon and you know happy birthday just enjoy every bit of it and we'll chat soon thank you Ashley thanks take care Dave