Stepping up to the plate and taking care of our own.
Via Stars & Stripes
Edward Joseph Lyons fought for America in World War I. His son fought in World War II.
“And I’m Edward Joseph Lyons, too, and I fought in Afghanistan,” said the youngest of the fighting Lyons. He was 20 years old when he stepped on an IED trigger on Nov. 13, 2009, setting off a storm of shrapnel that severed an arm and sent a shard of metal through his armor into his stomach.
Lyons didn’t eat solid food for more than a year. Surgeons rearranged his pancreas, and he jokes that scars on his stomach outline a six-pack he’ll never lose, no matter how out of shape he might be. But his wounds ended his Marine career, and Lyons thought his future was over, too.
Until a small town in southern Colorado offered him a chance to serve again.
Lyons, who grew up in Iowa, is one of four young people whose military careers were ended by battlefield injury or by illness who came to Montrose, a town of 20,000 that bills itself as a “no-barriers” place where wounded veterans can thrive.
A grassroots effort called Welcome Home Montrose has hit on a key strategy for wounded veterans: helping them understand their lives can still have meaning and a purpose. It expands on the military concept of service before self that the young veterans from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t leave behind when they are injured.
The project grew from an idea that Melanie Kline had while watching a TV show one Sunday morning about wounded warriors from the current wars. The segment featured Jared Bolhuis, a former Marine who returned from Afghanistan with traumatic brain injury, and Todd Love, a former Marine who returned from Afghanistan without his legs and one of his arms.