Yesterday was my niece's highschool graduation... way to make me feel old!
It was at 9AM b/c her school sucks, haha... so we were all up really early for that.
Anyway, a guy I went to middle & highschool with was injured last August over in Afghanistan and he was finally coming home so our city was having all sorts of celebrations! He stepped on an IED and lost both of his legs and one of his hips. His left hand was also really damaged. Anwyay, he came home and we had a 5k for him in the morning (I was at graduation so I didn't participate). Then we made big banners for him and there was a motorbricade (sp?) that went all over where people lined up to welcome him home. It ended at City Hall where he (and others) gave a speech. It was just so awesome to show the thanks for his service and sacrafice. I am SO happy he made it home and so sad for the others who didn't.
Several parts of his speech was really cute/funny. He actually walked up to the podium
and when he gets there he goes "woo, up until now I actually thought being shot at was the most nervewracking thing, but this is kind of intimidating." haha. He talked about how his family just doesn't take things too seriously and it really helped him recover. He said when he woke up from his medically induced coma he had already known that he lost both of his legs, but he didn't know he had broken his jaw and they wired it shut. So he couldn't eat anything at all -- just water, gatorade and broth. So he was sitting there with his brother, his brother talking and him trying to mumble back when in walks his dad eating a McDonald's cheeseburger. His brother is appaled and is all "DAD! How can you come in here eating a Mcdonald's cheeseburger right in front of him when you know he can't eat anything!?" and his dad just goes "well you walk around in front of him don't you?"
He was just a great speaker and a nice guy and I'm so very thankful he was able to make it home and for all he did to protect my freedom and rights.
He's Lt. Dan and you know, on Forrest Gump there was also a Lt. Dan who lost both of his legs in war. So the actor who played him actually went up to Walter Reed and spent time with him and stuff. Pretty cool.
Then at night they had a concert where Army Ground Forces Band played. We took the golfcart over and it wound up POURING (its an outdoor ampitheater) but people still stayed to show their support. Just the gratitude and partiotism was overwhelming and I was moved to tears ALL DAY LONG.
Anyway, here's a video that tells more of his story and then has some video of the events from yesterday with parts of his speech over it. It's about 6 minutes long, so I understand if you don't watch it but I thought I'd share in case anyone was interested.
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my eventful day yesterday (w/ bonus inspiring story!)
!!!! 
are you serious?! wow.
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