Grateful American
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(WILLIAM D. MOSS)
In 2006 with President Bush in a meeting in the Roosevelt Room at the White House along with representatives of various military support nonprofit organizations. I was there representing Operation Iraqi Children (OIC).
(AUTHOR’S PERSONAL COLLECTION)
In Baghdad in 2008, sitting in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces, which he called the Victory over America palace. It was bombed in early 2003 during the shock and awe campaign at the beginning of the Iraq war.
(WILLIAM W. SEO)
Distributing Operation International Children (OIC) school supplies at a school near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, November 2009.
(TOMAS R. DELVALLE)
Me and the Lt. Dan Band playing for the Marines at Camp Leatherneck on our 2009 tour to Afghanistan. A very dusty day. We’re on a makeshift stage on a flatbed truck.
(AUTHOR’S PERSONAL COLLECTION)
On the set of CSI: NY, season 7, with Hill Harper (l) and Eddie Cahill, 2011.
(JENNIE FORNEY)
Visiting USMC Lt. Col. Bryan Forney in the intensive care burn unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, March 7, 2013. He had just been brought to the hospital after a helicopter crash.
(© JULIA ROBINSON)
With USMC Corporal Christian Brown on April 9, 2017, in the specially adapted home donated by the Gary Sinise Foundation as part of the R.I.S.E. program. December 13, 2011, Christian stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED) in Afghanistan, losing both his legs and sustaining multiple traumas to both hands and arms.
(BOB VINCENT REEL HEROES MEDIA, WWW.REELHEROESMEDIA.COM)
At the 2016 Snowball Express event for children of our fallen heroes. They’ve been through so much. Wonderful to see them smiling and laughing, so I let them jump all over me. Anything for these kids!
(US ARMY PHOTO)
December 21, 2017, in Ninawa, Iraq, visiting with soldiers of the Texas National Guard. I had the pleasure on that trip of traveling to both Iraq and Afghanistan with my friend General Mark Milley, Chief of Staff of the Army, on my left.
(© JULIA ROBINSON)
With World War II veteran Carmen Schiavoni at one of our Gary Sinise Foundation’s Soaring Valor events in 2017. He flew 30 combat missions over Europe with the 8th Air Force as a waist gunner on a B-17. It’s always an honor to be with these heroes.
(© JULIA ROBINSON)
Here I am serving baked beans to our troops at Naval Base Ventura County in 2018 as part of the Gary Sinise Foundation Serving Heroes program. Always a pleasure to let them know they’re appreciated.
(TIM LUNDIN/TDLPHOTO.COM © TIMOTHY LUNDIN PHOTOGRAPHY 2018)
Onstage October 7, 2014, with the navy at a concert at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. One of the Gary Sinise Foundation’s Invincible Spirit festivals.
(US AIR FORCE PHOTO)
Just outside the base hospital at Camp Anaconda, Balad Air Base, Iraq, 2007. I’d just visited troops in the hospital, then came out and wrote this message on a busted concrete wall.
(US AIR FORCE PHOTO)
Thanks from a grateful American.
1. Usually, this condition is referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder. But I refuse to call it a disorder. Take any person, put him or her in combat, and they’re going to experience post-traumatic stress. The result is not a disorder. It’s a natural response.