THE HEROES THAT INSPIRE OUR CALENDARS
One of Operation Calendar's missions is to raise money through the sale of our pin up calendars for seriously wounded troops and their families, and we are also committed to raising awareness of some of the challenges that our men and women in uniform and their families face. Many of the wounded require months and months of rehabilitation that is physically, mentally and emotionally difficult, and it is often financially debilitating to their families.
Click on the links below to learn more about some of these brave Heroes.
HEROES IN THE NEWS:
December 6 , 2008
Wounded East Lyme soldier hopes to be home for Christmas
The Day - New London, CT
Army Spec. Alex Lozano was on a routine security detail in Baghdad three weeks ago when he suddenly felt as though he had been hit in the stomach with a baseball bat. It wasn't a bat but a bullet, which pierced the torso of the 21-year-old East Lyme High School graduate...
December 4 , 2008
Brain-injured troops face long-term risks
MSNBC
Many of the thousands of troops who suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk of long-term health problems including depression and Alzheimer's-like symptoms, but it's impossible to predict how high those risks are, researchers say...
November 12 , 2008
Wounded Corpsman Trades Alcohol, Pills for Marathons
Army.com
Navy Corpsman Daniel “Doc” Jacobs didn’t know he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. But he knew he had a problem. Jacobs turned 21 that year and was recovering from the blast of a roadside bomb in Iraq and still was using a wheelchair. After his left leg was amputated, Jacobs said he started having a lot of pain. He had problems sleeping for several months, and when he did sleep, it was fitful and he had nightmares...
January 30 , 2008
Mental Health Injuries: The Invisible Wounds of War
IAVA.org
During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, American troops’ mental health injuries have been documented as they occur, and rates are already comparable to Vietnam.
These psychological injuries exact a severe toll on military families. Rates of marital stress, substance abuse, and suicide have all increased...
November 24 , 2007
Marine didn't recognize signs of brain injury
USA TODAY
Marine Lance Cpl. Gene Landrus was hurt in a roadside bomb attack outside Abu Ghraib, Iraq, on May 15, 2006, and faces medical separation from the Corps. He's also up for a Purple Heart. Along with 20,000 other veterans, he's not included in the Pentagon's official count of U.S. troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's because Landrus' wound was to his brain and hidden from view...
November 18 , 2007
Forgotten Heroes
Newsweek
After returning from Iraq in late 2005, Jonathan Schulze spent every day struggling not to fall apart. When a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic turned him away last month, he lost the battle. The 25-year-old Marine from Stewart, Minn., had told his parents that 16 men in his unit had died in two days of battle in Ramadi. At home, he was drinking hard to stave off the nightmares. Though he managed to get a job as a roofer, he was suffering flashbacks and panic attacks so intense that he couldn't concentrate on his work...
November 12 , 2007
Mild traumatic brain injury the 'signature wound' of the Iraq war
Santa Barbara News-Press - Santa Barbara, CA
The bomb, two large artillery shells buried at the side of the road, exploded just a few feet in front of the Stryker. Ten days later: Same Stryker vehicle, another patrol, another explosion, more injuries. Two months later: Sgt. Brian Kerrigan and Command Sgt. Maj. Jeffrey Du are still feeling the effects. It's referred to as mild traumatic brain injury, or mTBI, to distinguish it from more severe cases in which patients must relearn to walk or talk, or worse. They can have persistent headaches, feel restless and tired, be easily frustrated and irritable, and have trouble remembering things or doing more than one task at a time. All can lead to trouble at work and home, especially when symptoms are compounded by the anxiety, depression and other mental health issues that many soldiers bring home from combat...
November 10 , 2007
‘I Want to Live for My Guys’
Newsweek
An Iraq vet adjusts to life without legs. Marissa Strock spent six months training the Iraqi police force. On Thanksgiving Day that year, while patrolling the southern Baghdad area known as the "Triangle of Death," the Humvee on which she was the gunner was hit by a command-detonated IED. It was a violent blast that instantly killed both the team leader, Staff Sgt. Steven Reynolds, and the driver, Spc. Marc A. Delgado. Strock was thrown backward by the explosion and knocked unconscious. In addition to her leg wounds she had traumatic brain injury and a broken wrist, collarbone and arm, and more. Cranial swelling left her in a coma for nearly a month. Few expected her to survive. She subsequently had both legs amputated below the knee...
September 29 , 2007
Wounded veterans, their families suffer economically
Union Tribune - San Diego, CA
He was one of America's first defenders on Sept. 11, 2001, a Marine who pulled burned bodies from the ruins of the Pentagon. He saw more horrors in Kuwait and Iraq. Today, he can't keep a job, pay his bills, or chase thoughts of suicide from his tortured brain. In a few weeks, he may lose his house, too. Gamal Awad exemplifies an emerging group of war veterans: the economic casualties...
September 28 , 2007
Veterans of PTSD
PBS
Bouts of fierce anger, depression, and anxiety that previous generations of soldiers described as "shell shock" or "combat/battle fatigue" now earn a clinical diagnosis: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In the show, we spent time with Iraq War veteran Michael Zacchea, a Marine lieutenant colonel who trained Iraqi troops and fought in the battle of Fallujah. Haunted by the violence he saw there, Zacchea and other soldiers diagnosed with PTSD now face what could be a lifelong struggle to leave the horrors of war behind and reclaim their once-peaceful lives...
August 22 , 2007
Words Unspoken Are Rendered on War’s Faces
The New York Times
One of the more shocking photographs to emerge from the current Iraq war was taken last year in a rural farm town in the American Midwest. It’s a studio portrait by the New York photographer Nina Berman of a young Illinois couple on their wedding day. The bride, Renee Kline, 21, is dressed in a traditional white gown and holds a bouquet of scarlet flowers. The groom, Ty Ziegel, 24, a former Marine sergeant, wears his dress uniform, decorated with combat medals, including a Purple Heart. Ms. Berman photographed several others beginning in 2003. Spc. Luis Calderon, Spc. Sam Ross, Spc. Robert Acosta, Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch...
Photo Gallery: PURPLE HEARTS
August 16 , 2007
Rowan soldier wounded in Iraq
Salisbury Post - Salisbury, NC
Pvt. Joshua Karnes was injured by a bullet or shrapnel in Iraq. It took nearly 100 stitches to close the wound. The incident happened last Thursday when members of Joshua's infantry unit were going from building to building in one of Baghdad's seedier neighborhoods. They were searching for insurgents...
August 4 , 2007
Concert to benefit recovery of injured Fayetteville soldier
Northwest Arkansas Times - Fayetteville, AR
Pfc. Adam Watkins, 21, was seriously injured May 21 when the Army Stryker vehicle he was driving ran over an improvised explosive device. Watkins suffered secondand third-degree burns to his arms, back, head and buttocks as well as some second-degree burns to his face. He also sustained a compound fracture of both tibia bones in his lower leg and broken bones in one foot. Since arriving at Brooke Army Medical Center, Adam has undergone several skin graft surgeries as well as surgeries on both legs...
July 15, 2007
Shot while ‘minding my own business'
MSNBC.com
Deierlein was shot by a sniper while attempting to provide security for garbage collectors in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya in East Baghdad. Deierlein recounted the incident in this e-mail message sent to his friends, family and colleagues from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. "I was shot by a sniper on Sept. 9. The round shattered my pelvis and sacrum."...
July 15, 2007
Military burn unit filled with pain, hope, humor
Union Tribune - San Diego, CA
Sgt. Merlin German burned over 97 percent of his body. Nearly 17 months in the hospital. More than 40 surgeries, and counting. Practically everyone who has met the Marine describes him with one word: miracle...
June 24, 2007
Marine begins fight of life
McClatchy Newspapers
Marine Sgt. David "D.J." Emery Jr. never saw the suspicious-looking man whose torso was wrapped in explosives. The man spread his arms wide, like a bird taking flight, and triggered the blast. For weeks, the young warrior's mother, his young wife and the doctors in the intensive care unit of the Bethesda National Naval Medical Center outside Washington had kept him clinging to this side of death...
June 24, 2007
Wounded GI Endures Blindness, Paralysis
The Washington Post
He lies flat, unseeing eyes fixed on the ceiling, tubes and machines feeding him, breathing for him, keeping him alive. He cannot walk or talk, but he can grimace and cry. And he is fully aware of what has happened to him. Four years ago almost to this day, Joseph Briseno Jr. was shot in the back of the head at point-blank range in a Baghdad marketplace. His spinal cord was shattered, and cardiac arrests stole his vision and damaged his brain...
June 23, 2007
‘Slow progress’ for Army officer wounded in Iraq
The Times-Tribune - Scranton, PA
First Lt. Thomas J. Hromisin suffered a devastating blow when he was wounded in Iraq on May 29, just about seven weeks after he was deployed to fight there. Now, the Army officer from Pittston and his family face a new test of their faith. Lt. Hromisin, who already had lost use of his left eye when he was shot in the head, underwent four hours of surgery Thursday in an attempt to save his right eye. But that apparently was unsuccessful...
June 9, 2007
Wounded soldier celebrates his luck: Despite losing his legs in a bombing in Iraq, Hanson man moving ahead with his life
The Patriot Ledger - Quincy, MA
Brian Fountaine has suffered, struggled, healed and triumphed for a year now. ‘‘I’m just happy where I am right now,’’ said Fountaine, an Army sergeant and Hanson native who nearly died when two bombs ripped through his Humvee just outside Baghdad last June 8. He lost both his lower legs to the explosions...