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MAF Blogger Danny
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I just had the privilege of speaking with Debbie Lee as she just came from Walter Reed Medical Center VA Hospital.

She described the visit that she, Deborah Johns and others from Move America Forward paid to wounded vets and talked with me about some of the things she saw. It was an amazing little story and I feel very lucky to be able to relate it to all of you out there.

When the Move America Forward group arrived at the hospital they were ushered into the main building where military or their families might be receiving treatment for any number of things, whether it be a simple physical, maternity, getting blood work or any other sort of every day ailments like an ear infection or sore throat.

One important factor in this visit is that the rules for visitation had changed since the last time the Debs visited Walter Reed last year. This time around, rather than be allowed to roam the halls freely, the group was strictly held together and could only visit one room at a time, as a party. There was limited opening for visitors too, so only a few MAF members went in, joined by some visitors associated with Gathering of Eagles and some of the other pro troop groups that are converging on Washington DC at this very moment.
Debbie tells me that the guide who went with the group everywhere during their visit was talking about how often visitors come in. He mentioned that Stevie Nix visits about twice a year and brings iPods for the wounded troops! Wow!

The group spent several hours making their way through four floors of the main building there, all the while meeting individual soldiers and their families who were often visiting at the same time. Meeting a wounded vet is different every time. Sometimes they are alone, sometimes they are with family, sometimes they are alone, but get visited often and prefer that the group visit with another soldier who doesn’t get as many visitors. Even wounded and in recovery these guys look out for their brothers.  The mood of the visits depends on the personality and what stage of healing the soldier is in too. For the most part though, Debbie said all the soldiers were grateful, upbeat and positive. That’s very relieving to me personally. Another thing was that Debbie wasn’t really sure if she should tell the vets that her own son had died in Iraq, not knowing if they would be oversensitive to that sort of story, but according to the VA Hospital guide, and also in her experiences with actually talking to the soldiers there, she has found that most of the wounded vets love to hear Marc’s story and often connect to Debbie on a much more personal level when they realize what her son sacrificed and how much they all have in common because of that sacrifice which they all share.

The group spent several hours just at this building, they met with the wounded vets, talked with them, shared stories and delivered cards and notes of encouragement. They also dropped off the cookies, beef jerky, and bags of candy that we had all packed up in boxes. The hospital prefers this method over individual packages that contain one of each thing, because this way they just lay all the jerky in a pile, all the cookies in another pile, all the books, candy and little gifts in different piles. That way the soldiers all just come in a line and pass by the table taking only the items they will actually use.

The party left the main building, after going through about four floors of the unit, and proceeded down the road about a miles walk to the next building or house as they call it here. The next house, their guide told the group, was most often overlooked by visitors because the men and women recovering there were at a later stage of recuperation and the building is a little out of the way, so typically visitors don’t go to see those soldiers. But Move America Forward did, so they proceeded to the seldom visited house, the name of which I cannot recall at this time. There, we found out the name, Abram House.

As they approached, Debbie recalls that the group could see several fire trucks in front of the building and droves of soldiers milling around the front. They were the wounded vets who were living in that barracks and they were standing around because someone had pulled a fire alarm or there had been a routine drill or something like that. The Move America Forward entourage began talking to the troops standing outside, while the fire department checked out the barracks, and also started handing out the cards, cookies, jerky, books, etc etc, etc. After a while the coast was clear and many of the soldiers started going back into their barracks. It was decided that the group would move on to the next building, Malone House. 

Debbie was talking to the last guy who was standing outside, and they were JUST about to leave when the veteran she had been speaking to made a comment about Debbie’s shirt. She was of course wearing her Navy Seals shirt, because Marc was a S.E.A.L. The young man Debbie had been talking to said that he had served with some Navy SEALs. It was then that Debbie first told the man that her own son Marc has been a SEAL and that he was in fact the first US Navy SEAL to have been KIA in Iraq.

Before Debbie could even begin to tell Marc’s story, the young US Army Specialist Brent Matchison, 22, asked if it has been in Ramadi, which is exactly where Marc died. Now at first Debbie thought that this guy had just read about Marc. Being the FIRST Navy SEAL to have been KIA, Marc’s story is somewhat well known in the community. But this soldier insisted “I served with your son, I knew Marc.” Debbie didn’t know how that could be, since this guy was in the Army and Marc was in the Navy, but Brent knew exactly the name of the Army Captain whose detail it was that Marc’s SEAL team was attached to.

It was then absolutely clear that this young guy, only 22 years old, from Villa Hills, KY served in the Army unit that Debbie’s son had been assigned to. Brent and Marc had lived and fought together in Iraq before Marc sacrificed his life for Americans everywhere. After much hugs and tears Debbie had acquired yet another surrogate son. It also turns out that Brent has lots of photos of Marc in Iraq, photos the likes of which Debbie has never seen, so it was an absolute Godsend that these two found each other!

The group continued on to the Malone house and dropped off more treats, books, cards and other gifts to the lobby there. Debbie said that she saw two soldiers at Malone house that actually remembered Move America Forward from the last time they visited Walter Reed. Altogether Debbie estimates she spoke (personally) to about 50 soldiers and families. But we did not even scratch the surface of all the soldiers out there, and Debbie said she wants to go to Bethesda, MD to the VA hospital there, next week.

We were talking, Debbie and I, a bit about the general feeling she gets whenever she visits a VA hospital. Aside from the happy greetings and grateful soldiers, I mean. Debbie got the impression that a lot of these soldiers are visited quite frequently by any number of groups or individuals, not family, visiting the soldiers for charity, just like Move America Forward. Some of the wounded vets, Debbie said, had already been visited twice or three times today even before Move America Forward got there. This represents (to me) a sense that there is a huge community out there involved in giving to the troops and supporting the troops with prayers, care packages, letters and cards, and visits. And there are a LOT of groups doing it. I have never seen any statistics on this, but if I did, I get the feeling that those stats would show a massive, really huge, underground movement of these charitable groups out there actively supporting the troops.

The thing is, and this is why I was surprised to have Debbie tell me it, the idea of the American people ACTUALLY SUPPORTING the troops (more so than saying it or putting a little yellow ribbon magnet or sticker on your car bumper) is hardly EVER mentioned by the mass media. It seems like we see all the stories about protesters but never the supporters who are actively working to help the troops. Actively but QUIETLY working. These groups don’t care about getting their faces on TV for doing good work and helping the troops, to them, like for us, the main objective is to get results that help our troops recover, or to do their jobs better or be more comfortable in doing that job.

It’s just encouraging to know though, that even though they don’t get publicized, those groups are OUT THERE. They’re doing great things to help our troops, and they’re doing it HEAVILY. Out there, across America there is a MASSIVE movement to support our troops, quietly mobilizing to help and support the mission to win in Iraq by giving our fighting men and women the tools and support they need to WIN the war on terror.

Finally I just have to comment about how BLOWN AWAY I was about Debbie’s story tonight. I just can’t believe the coincidence of it. I mean, it’s not a coincidence, it simply can’t be. This had to be fated, undeniably an act of God, at least in my eyes. I mean all those soldiers were going back into the barracks and the group was just about to move onto another building. Brent could have easily been standing right NEXT to the guy Debbie talked to last before moving on. He could have gone back in the barracks 15 seconds earlier and NEVER talked to Debbie. But none of those things interfered, and Debbie got to meet another of the brave men who served with Marc. Absolutely astonishing that The Fight For Victory Tour is blessed with such miracles.