by Barry Fixler
The young man died on the roof that morning, but the heroic Marines wouldn’t give up on him. They performed CPR on him and revived him, his parents said, and four of them carried him down off the roof to a waiting Humvee that drove them through the hostile city. From the edge of the city, an Army Blackhawk helicopter evacuated him to Al Quaim for emergency medical treatment, then on to Balad.
Doctors there looked at the Marine and saw little hope. But a physician who was a general saw the wounded man move his arms and legs in a way that indicated he was not brain dead, his parents said, and the surgeon had him moved from the triage group written off for dead to an operating table where he removed the bullet from the Marine’s head. The general did not give up.
They stabilized the Marine enough to fly him to Germany but he still wasn’t expected to survive. His parents were flown to Germany so that maybe they could be with him before he died.
Even as the parents were en route to Germany, parishioners at their church in upstate New York began organizing a prayer for him that quickly spread through the Internet to thousands of people. The prayer request was also picked up by talk shows. “Please pray for (this Marine) tonight,” was a plea heard and acted upon by millions of Americans as the parents flew across the Atlantic to see their son possibly for the last time.
When they arrived in Germany and rushed to his side, they didn’t even recognize him; his head was swollen and his face was covered in gauze and bandages.
The tattoos on his chest and arms were the only way that they could be sure that it was him. But the young man was tough, and his condition stabilized enough to fly him back to the States and a Navy hospital in Maryland.
The doctors in Iraq and Germany were wonderful. They did a great job just in keeping him alive, and they were good when he first got back over here and he was in a Naval hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. But the Marine’s progress stopped after he was transferred to a VA hospital in Virginia. It just stopped. His body was contracting into a fetal position, and he was getting bed sores.
His parents were understandably frustrated. It was as if their son was stowed away on a shelf in a VA warehouse to rot and die. His parents said that he was so neglected at the VA hospital that it was not uncommon for them to find him covered with flies.
“How can we stand here and watch our son deteriorate and die?” his mother asked herself.
The wounded Marine was wasting fast, and so his parents started contacting politicians trying to get their son out of the VA hospital and into a private hospital where he could get more attention. Finally, U.S. Representative Sue Kelly was able to get him moved to Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw.
That’s when my wife told me about him.
“You got to be kidding me,” I said to her. “A Marine at Helen Hayes?”
“I think he got shot in Iraq,” she said. At the time he was the only active-duty Marine that we knew of who ended up in Helen Hayes.
I had to immediately go visit him. His mother was there hovering over him, and her son was curled in a fetal position just staring into space, unable to talk.
I introduced myself to the mother, and I tried to tell the Marine how proud I was of him, but he couldn’t communicate back, and that made me uncomfortable. I came back two days later and I brought a red Khe Sanh hat that was very dear to me. I gave it to him.
Now, he couldn’t talk, but he could look at me, and he did.
“This hat is very dear to me,” I told him. “I went through the Siege of Khe Sanh, and here’s this hat.”
I kissed his mother—we really didn’t know each other yet—and told the Marine again how proud I was of him. After about fifteen minutes, I left.
When I went back a week later, his mother had put up a shelf to hold all of the gifts that people had given her son. She re-introduced me to him.
“Son, do you know who Barry is?” she asked him. His eyes zeroed in on my Khe Sanh hat.
“Oh my God, Barry!” she said. “My son knows you! He knows you because he’s staring at your hat!”
That was a sure sign of progress to her, that her son knew what was happening around him.
I kept going back just to show my support and let the young man know that people out there cared about him. Here was a Marine who was wounded protecting our country, and I wanted him to know: Americans do care.
I was getting to know his mother a little, but I had no idea that the family had financial problems. She told me about how the doctors in Germany had wanted to pull the plug on her son, but she refused to give up on him. And again at the Navy hospital in Maryland, the neurosurgeon had advised them to take him off life support. “Even if he lives, he will never recognize you,” the doctor said. “He won’t know you’re his parents.”
“I will not let my son die,” the mother insisted. “He may not remember that I am his mother, but I will never forget that he is my son.” So the neurosurgeon did his best, and when the Marine came out of a four-month-long coma after the surgery, his mother was there by his side. Doctors said he wouldn’t remember his parents, but he looked at her and whispered, “Mom.”
One day his mother and I were in the Marine’s hospital room and she started talking about how she wished that the federal government was as interested in her son’s well-being. She felt as if they were being brushed under the carpet.
“I feel like I’m a leper,” she said. “You call the government and you get no one to talk to. You know, I need help. How about when my son gets better? My son needs physical therapy; my son needs mental therapy. My son is going to have special needs, and my home is not equipped for that.
“My house is old. It’s not equipped. The government promised us fifty thousand dollars, but we haven’t seen it. Right now, I can’t bring my son home.”
That caught me off guard, that the government was dropping the ball and that she thought that its promises are meaningless. She was as frustrated as could be.
At that time, I thought that the government would take care of him as best as possible for his lifetime. I was never wounded, so like many Americans, I didn’t know much about VA hospitals. Whatever exposure that I had to the VA was decades old, from Vietnam, and I just figured that the VA takes care of everything. Not true.
Now we’re at war again, and seeing men and women sent home wounded is new to a lot of people. Times have changed. Problems have changed.
Hearing the fallen Marine’s mother talk about it all made me decide that I would try to do something, whatever I could.
We were a couple of months away from the first anniversary of my shootout in the jewelry store, and the local community had been so wonderful to me in the time since: awards, dinners, honors, phone calls. The recognition had been overwhelming, beyond my imagination, so I already had been thinking about what I might do in return to show my gratitude.
Boom, a light went on: The wounded Marine! The Marine was in trouble and his parents were in trouble. I would give back through him.
I would not give back by saying thank you for my store; I would give back by saying thank you through the wounded Marine. I focused on him. His parents were feeling like lepers, as if America didn’t know that they existed. I said, “Well, you are going to exist now.”
“The government dropped the ball,” I thought, “but I am an American, and America is not going to drop the ball. We’re going to come up with the fifty thousand dollars that his parents need so that they can get their house ready and bring their son home.”
The first week or ten days were frustrating, like beating my head against a wall, but I was relentless. When I’m plugged in, I am focused, focused, focused.
Unfortunately, not many people in Rockland County knew who the wounded Marine was. Just his name alone meant nothing to anyone.
So I had his mother give me pictures—her son in his dress blues, that sort of thing—and put them on everything that I had printed, gave a face to the name: “This is our Marine. He got shot in Iraq protecting our c
ountry, and now he needs our help and his family needs our help.”
I took out newspaper ads. I had thousands of fliers printed. I even bought billboard space.
Then I went on a speaking tour, from the Rotary to the Boy Scouts, to the Marine Corps League to the Veterans of Foreign Wars and to the American Legion, and so forth. I even spoke to the motorcycle club where I’m a member. It was all about the injured Marine.
A week later, the big idea hit me. I would have a Valentine’s Day sale in my store, and all of the proceeds from the sale and the fund-raiser would go to the young man and his family.
I placed a huge Plexiglas box in the store where people could make their donations. It was decorated with an American flag and pictures of the Marine; that was his spot.
The young man’s name started getting out on the streets.
I had a tent erected in the parking lot outside the store because it was too small and so many people were coming in. I had coffee and hotdogs in the tent; it was February, so I had a portable outdoor heater, too. Twelve Marines came in their dress blues to show support. They were from my old unit in Garden City, New York; from South Jersey; from Newburgh, New York.
I needed the Marines, their wounded comrade needed the Marines, and Marines came, just to stand there all day in their dress blues and thank everyone and be proud. Semper Fi.
I only planned to have the tent there for two or three days, but that turned into seven, and then ten. I finally had to take it down because it took up the whole parking lot, and that made my neighbor store owners nervous. They knew it was a fund-raiser and they knew where I was coming from, but I couldn’t take business away from everyone.
Guys would come in and say, “I don’t have a girlfriend or a wife to buy jewelry for, but can I make a donation?”
The money came from all directions and in all denominations: $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100. It was very contagious.
One guy called to ask how much I charged for an appraisal. He had no idea what was going on. I told him $100, and when he came in and saw all of the commotion, he asked what it was for and I told him. He not only gave me the $100 for the appraisal, he doubled it and said, “That goes to the Marine.” He couldn’t believe that the government wasn’t taking care of our wounded veterans.
The parents knew that I was raising money for their son, but I didn’t promise them a certain amount of money, like the $50,000. In fact, I hadn’t even told them about the Valentine’s Day sale, but his father still heard about it on his construction site in White Plains, New York. I had only met the father once, briefly, and he came over to the store while everything was going on. It caught him totally off guard. When I told people who he was, they all turned around to shake the man’s hand and his knees almost buckled. He couldn’t shake hands. He had to hug everyone.
One morning a construction worker showed up at the door of my store. He was huge, and he was covering his eyes, and I saw him and thought, “No way am I letting this guy in.”
I came to the door, and he kept his eyes covered and just held out three $100 bills. He tried to compose himself and said, “I just found out what you’re doing for that wounded Marine. I don’t know him personally. In fact, I never heard of him, but I just can’t believe the government is not doing what it’s supposed to do.”
He just handed me the $300 and bolted. He was overwhelmed and his emotions took over, and he didn’t want me to see him crying.
The guy had no reason to be ashamed. The young man’s story touched many people, and they came from everywhere to offer their help to a Marine whom they didn’t even know. It was a totally new experience for me.
Another time, early in the morning, I didn’t even have the store lights on yet and heard knocking at the door.
“I know you’re in there, Barry! The guy over at the deli said you got coffee already! I know you’re in there!”
I saw a construction truck in the parking lot, and the guy at the door was holding out $500.
“I just heard what you’re doing for that Marine who was shot. I don’t know him, but I know that you’re doing this for a wounded Marine, and here’s five hundred dollars.”
“Well, thank you, thank you,” I said, “but don’t move! Give me your name, something. I have to send you a thank you.”
“No, no, I don’t want a thank you.”
“Well, give me something.”
“I don’t want a thank you,” he said, “but I’m going to give you my card. I’m in construction; I do cement work. I only want a call that I can come and help with anything that Marine needs. I’ll help with construction. That’s the only reason that I’m going to give you my card, in case the Marine and his family need my kind of help.”
I’m telling you, it was contagious. When I spoke to the VFW, the crowd mostly was World War II guys who were in their eighties. I had talked to my wife, Linda, at home before the speech and told her that I was sure that the VFW would give something for the Marine, probably $100 or $200, and that would be really nice.
“You know what?” she answered. “They are America’s greatest generation; they’ll give you four hundred dollars.”
“No way! They aren’t going to give me four hundred dollars. They’re old and on fixed incomes.”
Those World War II guys at the VFW didn’t have a clue about the wounded Marine; they’d never heard of him, but his story touched their hearts.
“Alright,” the post commander said. “We’re going to make a donation!”
They started talking among themselves after I finished my speech, and the group leader said, “We’ll take five hundred dollars out of our checking account.”
I protested the large amount of money, but another member trumped me.
“We should take out a thousand!”
“No, no, no! I didn’t come here for that kind of money!” I said.
“I think we should raise it to fifteen hundred dollars,” another man said.
“No, no, no!” I argued. “C’mon, you guys are on fixed incomes. You don’t have that kind of money. Maybe a few hundred dollars, not fifteen hundred.”
“Hey, don’t listen to him!” someone else said. “Let’s go to two thousand.”
Then the post commander took charge.
“I’m going to give Barry a check for twenty-five hundred dollars for this wounded Marine,” he declared, and then while I protested again, he asked for a show of hands in favor or against. Every hand shot up in favor of $2,500. The VFW gave $2,500.
I couldn’t wait until the next day to show the Marine and his mother the check.
I felt as if I had hit the lottery. I could have sold $20,000 in jewelry over the counter of my store and not felt as good as I did holding that $2,500 check for a Marine in need. That’s the high that I got.
I probably spent $10,000 of my own money to get the word out. Some people asked me why I spent my money on advertising when I could have just given it to the Marine and his parents. I told them that my $10,000 just would have been a Band-Aid, that the family needed a lot more.
And I wanted people to know about the Marine and his family, and to know that many others like him are out there. And I wanted the family to know that America cares. Giving them $10,000 couldn’t have done that. I was focused on raising $50,000, for the Marine and his family, from the public, and I wasn’t going to give up until I did.
We raised almost $19,000 in the first week, and things snowballed from there. The local TV stations caught on and came to do stories. Newspapers jumped in. The Marine’s name started to become recognizable around my area.
We counted the donations at the end of every week, and I wouldn’t even touch the money with my own hands. I’d have it put in a big bag and drive it over to the hospital for the young man’s parents to count.
We raffled a motorcycle that netted $22,500. A friend of mine, Colonel Jack Hussey, solicited pledges and swam across the Hudson River. He raised a little over $20,000 just by doing that.
Betwee
n those two events, benefits, the store donations and the contributions from the different organizations where I spoke, we topped $100,000, and word spread so far that the Marine was featured on HBO. His became a household name. People know he exists, that his family exists, and they have shown that they care more than the government ever did.
The Marine can talk now, and he is still making progress as his brain heals and reorganizes itself. Doctors are amazed at his progress. Groups and individuals from all over the country make sure that he and his family receive the care and attention that they need. If we had left everything up to the government, he would still be in a hospital staring at the ceiling.
I have been especially gratified to see what all of this has done for his parents, to see the change in his mother as her son has gradually progressed from that sad state he was in.
But I can’t leave things at that. We only helped one Marine, one family, and far too many veterans like him are out there suffering with their overwhelmed families. There are wounded warriors who sacrificed their lives to protect America from terrorists and are wasting away in VA hospitals. America needed them and now they need America. They need people to step up and give them a face, a voice and support.
That’s why I have pledged to raise $1 million from the proceeds of this book to help wounded combat veterans and their families. I take my pledge very seriously. I’m focused.
But I’m just one American, and $1 million is just a start. I need you. They need you.
In my heart, I feel that I can definitely and positively raise $1 million from this book to give to wounded combat veterans. I figure, if I could raise $100,000 just for one Marine and his family, I can, with the help of America, make a difference for our many other wounded veterans and bring attention to the brave young warriors who sacrificed everything and have received not nearly enough in return.