Wounded warrior shares experience with 4th graders

By Jen Cowart
Posted 6/6/17

By JEN COWART The students in James Gemma and Stephanie Gallagher's fifth-grade classes listened intently and respectfully last week as Cpl. Matthew Bradford, a Marine who lost both his legs, his eyesight and partial use of one hand in 2007 when he

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Wounded warrior shares experience with 4th graders

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The students in James Gemma and Stephanie Gallagher’s fifth-grade classes listened intently and respectfully last week as Cpl. Matthew Bradford, a Marine who lost both his legs, his eyesight and partial use of one hand in 2007 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in Iraq, shared his story with them. The students recently spearheaded a fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior charity and raised $1,274 over five weeks’ time. Coincidentally, during that time, Gemma found out through a friend that Bradford and his wife Amanda, a Rhode Island native, would be back in Rhode Island for a visit with family prior to Memorial Day. Gemma reached out to the Bradfords to see if they would be willing to speak to his class, and they graciously accepted the invitation.

“I thought that it was a great opportunity for the kids to see first-hand what our veterans sacrifice for us and where the money we raised is going to,” Gemma said.

Bradford had, in fact, received funds from programs similar to the Wounded Warrior program, including the Semper Fi Foundation and Operation Enduring Warrior.

As Bradford spoke to the students, he put them at ease as he reminded them that his robotic legs and acrylic eye did not make him any different from any of them. He showed them that the eye actually has custom designs on it, such as the University of Kentucky logo that he was currently using, and he invited them up close to take a look at it.

“We’ve been at war for 15 years now,” he said. “There are a lot of people out there like me. I am completely blind in my right eye and pieces of shrapnel peppered my left eye, so I have 100 percent vision loss.”

He joked with the students.

“It’s my only A-plus in life,” he said.

The students would soon learn that Bradford has gotten quite a few "A-pluses" since his injuries and was in fact an incredible athlete and a recent college graduate.

Gemma commented that he has seen video of Bradford playing golf, and as an avid golfer himself with two fully functioning eyes, he’d be lucky to golf as well as Bradford.

Bradford explained to the classes that he attended a school for the blind in Chicago, where he learned many of the things he can now do well.

“At the Blind School, they teach you independent mobility, like walking with a long cane,” he said. “I’m stubborn though and I wanted to do it on my own. My therapist was amazed at how fast I can pick up and learn a new area. I try to paint a picture in my mind of what a room looks like.”

Gemma asked him if his stubborn nature was an asset to his recovery.

“I am hard-headed and I try to do things on my own. I call it being a Marine,” Bradford said.

When asked by a student if he ever got discouraged, he responded that there were certain moments in his day-to-day life where he wished things were different.

“This year all three of my kids graduated at school, and I wished that I could open my eyes and see,” he said. “It sucks sometimes, but I have made the best of it. I have achieved a lot since this all happened, and sometimes you all should just close your eyes and see what you can do.”

Bradford said that when he was first injured, he wanted his legs back over having his vision.

“But, I realized that maybe it worked out this way because the Lord above didn’t want me to see my amputations,” he said.

Despite those amputations and his lack of vision, Bradford regularly competes against his wife in Spartan races, which include obstacle courses which might put an able-bodied athlete to shame.

“The organizers who assist us are wearing gas masks, trying to put themselves in our place,” he said. “They walk you up to the obstacle and describe it to you. The obstacles are all outdoors and elite athletes run these races. The hardest one I did was in the rain. My legs came right off, there was so much mud. You have to do things like climb over six, eight and ten-foot walls, throw a spear, go across the monkey bars, do a low crawl 100 feet uphill, climb an A-frame on a rope net, and climb up an inverted wall.”

Bradford has also become skilled and certified in scuba diving and sky diving.

When asked by the students how he first felt when his accident occurred, Bradford described his mindset at that time, when he was just 20 years old.

“I had no end goals at that time, I’d done minimally in school because I had planned to serve in the Marine Corps,” he said. “I knew I could either be depressed and mad which would eventually lead to suicide or whatever, or I could look at this as a challenge, and know that whatever things you could do, I could do too.”

To that end, Cpl. Bradford recently graduated from the University of Kentucky, with degrees in Media Arts and Studies, and History. He cited the use of various types of technology as being one of the things that helped him conquer that task.

“At Blind School, we learned how to use email and social media,” he said.

Through his journey over the past ten years since his accident in Iraq, Bradford has been inspired by many people, and has gained some important perspective.

“I’ve met some of the greatest people in my life,” he said. “At the hospital in San Antonio, there were veterans there who were burn victims and there was one there who had burns over 70 percent of his body and he said to me that he’d rather be burned than blind. So then I thought, ‘What do I really have to complain about? This guy is going to have surgeries all his life.’ These people were worse off than I was and they had some of the best attitudes in the world. I needed to have a positive attitude. These people were my heroes, the best friends I ever made in my life. They are my motivation.”

Despite all he has lost, Bradford still feels blessed by his wife and children and by his accomplishments.

“I have lived out my dream. I have done what I wanted to do, I have defended the freedoms that you will all grow up with, that my children will all grow up with,” he said. “Every day I am reminded of that when I put my legs on. These things were lost for freedom. It is all worth it in the end.”

In 2011 Bradford had the opportunity to return to Iraq.

“It was one of my biggest accomplishments, going back there,” he said. “When I left, I was taken out in a medivac. Walking on that ground, and being able to fly back was my greatest accomplishment. The pilot got a note on the way back that Osama bin Laden had been killed. That was the ultimate reason we had all joined and it felt like closure, like a job well done.”

When asked by Rhodes Reading Specialist Kristie Butler if Bradford had any final words of wisdom for the students in regards to overcoming obstacles that might come across their own paths of life, Bradford responded with a quote he had just recently come up with.

“Aspiring to be perfect by never accepting failure can make the impossible possible,” he said, proud of his inspirational words.

He reminded the students of the freedoms they have thanks to those who have fought on their behalves.

“You are all the future. You are the future politicians, the future presidents. You can be anything you want to be, but you need to build the world with kindness. You live in America and you can do anything you want to do."

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