03 September 2012

Quadruple amputee SSG Travis Mills fulfills promise: Greets his combat unit at homecoming


"Travis has said all along that he would be there standing tall when his fellow soldiers in the 82nd Airborne returned, and he stayed true to his word. Travis and Kelsey were there late last night to welcome home the returning soldiers from his unit." Photo: TavisMills.org.

From the Dallas Morning News:

Standing on his new prosthetic legs, wearing artificial arms and dressed in combat fatigues, Staff Sgt. Travis Mills showed up in the pre-dawn darkness to greet soldiers as they stepped off the plane in Fort Bragg, N.C.

He was fulfilling a promise he had made to himself just weeks after an April explosion in Afghanistan left him a quadruple amputee.

Mills flew last week from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., to North Carolina to meet his fellow paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. They had just completed a tough seven-month assignment in southern Afghanistan.

He shook hands and received hugs, trying hard to control his emotions. Mills spotted Sgt. Daniel Bateson, the medic who first came to his aid. Mills embraced him. “Here’s the guy who saved my life,” he shouted.

And then there's this:

Mills has been inspired by Todd Nicely, a Marine veteran who lost his arms and legs after stepping on a buried bomb in Afghanistan in 2010. Nicely visited Mills and told him, “It’s hard, but it gets better.”

Mills and Nicely have signed up for the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Run in New York City on Sept. 30. The 5K run/walk honors the memory of Siller, a New York City firefighter who was killed while trying to rescue workers at the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Check out the rest of the story and the photo gallery at the link.


To follow Travis Mills on Facebook, go to: Support For Travis Mills and Family.
For daily updates and information about donations, visit travismills.org.


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Combat medicine advances deliver quadruple amputee Travis Mills from the brink
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