Marine of the day

Jules Crittenden had the Marine of the Day today

Standing Tall

I met USMC Lance Cpl. James Crosby in June 2004. He was 19. He was a kid from a blue-collar background in Winthrop, Mass., and his body was a mess. But I could tell within minutes of meeting him that he was no ordinary kid, and I was pretty sure I’d hear his name again. From the Boston Herald archives:

“I WILL walk again,” Crosby said last week at the West Roxbury Veterans Administration Hospital, where the Winthrop native has been in physical therapy, fighting infections and undergoing surgeries since mid-April.

Everything changed for Crosby on March 18 at Al Asad airbase. He had been in Iraq a month. He was on a truck, after making a PX run and calling his wife. He heard a whistling noise.

“I looked over my shoulder and saw three big fireballs, maybe 10 yards away,” Crosby said. “I felt the blast. My chest felt like it was exploding. It was happening in slow motion. All sound stopped.

“My legs went out. I hit the ground. The sound started again. I grabbed a guy’s pant leg and said, `Hey, tell my wife I love her.’ The corporal comes over and says, `Crosby, get up.’ I said, `I can’t, my legs don’t work.’ ”

At the aid station, as they cut away his clothes, he asked a nurse, “Is it still there? Is it still there?”

She said, “It’s still there. All your parts are still there.”

…

The shrapnel had cut into his back below his flak jacket. It shattered his fourth lumbar disc, severing some nerves.

His weight is down 50 pounds, leaving his 6-foot frame gaunt. He can’t stand on his own, but he has some movement and the doctors are hopeful he will walk with leg braces. A part of his intestines was removed, and he remains on a colostomy bag.

Crosby was 17 when he enlisted in the Marine Corps in October 2001.

“My father was a Marine. All my life, I said, I want to do it,” he said.

Now Crosby said he is beginning to fully understand what it is to be a Marine.

“They made me into a person who demands success,” he said. “I’m still a Marine. I’m obligated to do the best that I can.”

He spends up to four hours a day in rehab. He says it is harder than boot camp.

“You change your outlook. I’m alive. I’ve got to use what I’ve got.”

He admits to down times, on bleak mornings when he awakes to his new reality.

“You look in the mirror. Where did my body go? Where did I go?” Crosby said. “You question yourself on past decisions. But you can’t do it. It will eat at you. This is what I signed up for. I’m not the only one. This is the life of a Marine.”

And he is beginning to think about a future. He has plans.

“I want to go to college,” he said. “There are so many things I want to do. I want to be successful, to be able to provide for my family. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Crosby had a tough go. His young wife left him shortly after he left the hospital and his father died of cancer shortly after that.

Within a year of coming home, Crosby fought successfully with his congressman’s help to ensure that war-wounded soldiers and Marines don’t lose their hazardous duty pay the minute they are medevac’d out of the war zone … a deep financial hit to military families at the worst possible time. At 25, he now works for the Massachusetts Veterans Affairs Department as the head of SAVE, Statewide Advocacy for Veterans Empowerment, an outreach program to find and get services to veterans in crisis, with suicide prevention as one of the primary goals. “It’s a way for me to continue the mission that I was taken out of at such an early stage,” he tells NECN. Vid at the link.

He has fought on to walk, not quite achieving that dream, but he stands tall with the aid of crutches and a Segway. Not that someone like James Crosby needs help standing tall.

The Valour IT push is on, to give laptops to wounded servicemen. At the invitation of Cassandra at Villainous Company, whose Marine husband is forward deployed in Afghanistan, we’re with Team Marines this year. Pushing the Marines ahead is just the fun part of the drive. It all goes to everyone in all branches. Give as you can.