Overcoming Adversity

Prosthesis helps Medal of Honor hero stay with Rangers

By C. Todd Lopez

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 12, 2011) -- "There was a little bit of a meat skirt, for lack of better words, hanging around the edges. It was oozing. I could see the radius and ulna bone sticking up maybe about half an inch."

Petry re-enlists:  Then-Staff Sgt. Leroy Petry re-enlists with the Rangers during a ceremony in May 2010 at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Petry, who will have the Medal of Honor placed around his neck July 12, 2011, by the president of the United States, recounted the moment after his hand was taken from him by a grenade during a May 26, 2008, combat operation in Afghanistan.

"It was vivid -- where I could see the black marks from where the burns were. And a little bit of the dirt and the smell of explosives. I sat up and I grabbed it. And it's a little strange," Petry said. "But this is what was in my mind: 'Why isn't this thing spraying off into the wind like in Hollywood?'"

Someone Like Me by John W. Quinn

John Quinn takes us on his life journey.  A journey that is complicated by his cerebral palsy.  In a well-written, intense book we follow John as he overcomes obstacle after obstacle to succeed in life as an independent person.

When he decides to join the military, he was told "Uncle Sam can't use someone like you."   Did that stop John?  You see, the Navy didn't know that John had cerebral palsy.  They only knew he couldn't pass one portion of the physical. 

 A pivotal comment from his friend Phil was all it took to spur John on.