My Country To Defend

A.E. Dimond
Format: Hardcover, Paperback, eBook all available
Paperback Price: $21.95
Published: iUniverse, 2004
All formats include a 19-page photo gallery
ISBN: 0-595-33484-9

 
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SPOTLIGHT ON THE WOUNDED

   To be riding in a Bradley one minute, and then sunk thirty feet in the trappings of unforgiving steel  it was like dropping out of the sky at altitude in a metal morgue. The injury reports trickled in slowly to Johnson, and all of them were ghoulish and grim.
   Sergeant Kenneth Dixon had suffered a broken back, and it appeared he might be paralyzed. They were not so invincible, no matter their reactive armor and their training and their discipline and their youth. Hearts could stop beating, spinal cords could be severed, so that one minute one was riding along in a Bradley and the next minute life was over.
   Or maybe it wasn't over  maybe it was just morbidly altered. Diego felt a lurch in his chest that made him dizzy. Close your legs. Give me some room. It brought shame just to remember someone saying that.
   It meant they could move; it meant his physical form was still perfect, unaltered and whole.
   Diego thought of Dixon, perhaps never walking again, and he curled his own legs tighter in sickness.

  From My Country to Defend

SGT Kenneth Dixon was a member of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment and served in Alpha Company with PFC Diego Rincon. The incident portrayed in My Country to Defend occurred just one night before Diego's death. SGT Dixon has made an inspiring journey as a paraplegic  just one of many soldiers who have paid an enormous personal price for the country's security, and the freedom of the Iraqi people. It is hoped that this tribute to the wounded will, in some small way, say "thank you" from a grateful nation.

You can read about SGT Dixon's participation in the 24th National Veterans Wheelchair Game by visiting http://www1.va.gov/vetevent/nvwg/2004/NationalProfiles.cfm.