Fifteen Thanksgivings Later: A Double Amputee’s Story of Gratitude

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Speaker 5 I remember everything was red.

Speaker 5 Like all my vision was red. And I remember thinking like something really got rattled loose up, you know, up in my head.
And what I realized is that it was blood going down from...

Speaker 5 my my skull into my eyes. And so

Speaker 5 the piece piece of travel had gone through my helmet and into my forehead. So I remember wiping that free and looking down and seeing that my legs were

Speaker 5 still there. One was hanging off to the side, one was on my chest.

Speaker 6 That was retired Marine and Purple Heart recipient Gabe Martinez speaking about the life-altering event that took place 15 years ago this week after a series of IEDs exploded on a roadside in Afghanistan.

Speaker 6 Martinez lost both of his legs, but upon returning home, he's found new life and purpose with the help of Semper Phi and America's Fund and Adaptive Sports.

Speaker 6 Now he's an advocate for other vets recovering from traumatic injuries.

Speaker 7 In this episode, we speak with Martinez about that life-changing Thanksgiving Day in 2010 and the role veterans groups play in helping wounded warriors find a new mission here at home.

Speaker 7 I'm Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howe. This is a Thanksgiving week edition of Bornywire.

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Speaker 7 Joining us now for this Thanksgiving week special is Gabe Martinez, retired Marine and Marine Veteran Advocate. Gabe, first, thank you for your service and thank you so much for coming on the show.

Speaker 5 I appreciate you so much for having me.

Speaker 7 First, we'd like to hear your story. What led you to enlist in the Marines?

Speaker 5 So when I'm asked this question about what led me to enlist, you know,

Speaker 5 I sometimes feel like it's cliche because it's, you know, I was young in seventh grade when 9-11 happened, but that very much was the kind of the spark,

Speaker 5 as you'd say, to kind of get me to where I am today. I was in seventh grade and didn't know much about it.

Speaker 5 But I just remember seeing the faces on every adult in my family, in my classes, and really got curious and learned about terrorism. You know, learned about al-Qaeda at the time and the Taliban.

Speaker 5 And really from there, it kind of

Speaker 5 evolved for me, you know, as I got older,

Speaker 5 got into high school. And of course, in high school, everybody's talking about which college you're going to apply to and whatnot.

Speaker 5 And I knew I wanted to go to college, but there was still something more.

Speaker 5 And so I found myself at the recruiter station and I hit up every branch of service and found myself signing the dotted line with the United States Marine Corps in 2006.

Speaker 7 So you were still in high school when you enlisted. And when did your first deployment start?

Speaker 5 My first deployment starts in early January 2008. Yeah, just two years after I enlisted.
So my first deployment was

Speaker 5 a Marine Expeditionary Unit where we get on the Navy ships and we go out. They're kind of a security force in the waters.

Speaker 7 And so I was all over the Middle east so you complete your first deployment and then your second is to afghanistan and that's where your personal story really pivoted on thanksgiving day back in 2010.

Speaker 5 what happened on that day what do you remember most vividly about that day yeah so thanksgiving 2010 uh is obviously a day i'll never forget and i remember everything about it and i i'm blessed to note to still have that because a lot of guys you know don't recollect uh but yeah for me i was on my my second deployment uh in the marines i was in for about three years at that point and uh we were going to the helmet province of afghanistan

Speaker 5 and before that deployment i knew it was going to be you know a tougher deployment that was a real brutal year for uh some of the marine corps units out there it was the morning after thanksgiving in afghanistan so still thanksgiving here We were going to do a longer mission set.

Speaker 5 And so we were at a local base stocking up on supplies and whatnot. Everything out there is slow

Speaker 5 in a vehicle or on foot.

Speaker 5 So we're probably about an hour into the convoy when the first vehicle, which is equipped with ground-penetrating radar panels to see what's in the ground, stopped and said something was interfering with the

Speaker 5 computer system. And so he was instructed to reboot, reset the panels, and then proceed.

Speaker 5 So the driver did as instructed. He rebooted the system and started to move forward.
Convoy starts going.

Speaker 5 And then boom, an IED goes off, detonates the second vehicle, which is also another husky single man vehicle with a computer system.

Speaker 5 It gets struck.

Speaker 5 So when that happens, at the time, my job, I was part of

Speaker 5 a team that we would dismount. We look for secondary IEDs, tertiary, look for any enemy in the area, command wire, whatnot.
We dismount.

Speaker 5 We're looking for that.

Speaker 5 And at this point, I mean, there's debris from the, from the downed vehicle everywhere.

Speaker 5 And we clear from the vehicle back. You know, they're of no threat, essentially.

Speaker 5 And now I have to clear. in front of the vehicle, like to get up and around the vehicle.
And I'm on the road.

Speaker 5 And like I said, I'm I'm sitting next to a 26,000 pound chunk of metal and I'm holding a metal detector.

Speaker 5 So that metal detector was kind of rendered useless at that point. So I did just as I had many times,

Speaker 5 I got down on the ground and kind of manually would

Speaker 5 sift through the earth,

Speaker 5 lose soil, kind of look for, interrogate, what we call it.

Speaker 5 And as I'm interrogating, you know, I'm not coming up with anything, but I remember one of my best friends,

Speaker 5 Sergeant Ibrahim Mattiah at the time, he was mentioning to me that he saw some disturbed earth ahead of the vehicle. So as I'm talking with him,

Speaker 5 I kind of deemed the area in front of me clear.

Speaker 5 So I stand up and that first step, like I said, my metal detector was rendered useless at that point since I'm standing next to a chunk of 26,000 pounds of metal.

Speaker 5 I stand up after clearing that and I take maybe one or two steps forward and and right after that, boom, the second IED detonates right beneath me it ended up being a 25 pound uh improvised explosive device packed in a glass jar and so the IED goes off and I remember getting tossed up into the air and then I landed in this crater that the IED had created

Speaker 5 and it was dusty and it was kind of a fog of war as you as you see as you you hear of yeah and

Speaker 5 i remember everything was red like all my vision was red. And I remember thinking like something really got rattled loose

Speaker 5 up in my head. And what I realized is that it was blood going down from

Speaker 5 my skull into my eyes. And so

Speaker 5 the piece of travel had gone through my helmet and into my forehead. So I remember wiping that free and looking down and seeing that my legs were...

Speaker 5 They were still there. One was hanging off to the side.
One was on my chest.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I remember

Speaker 5 being kind of angered and so I remember throwing one of my legs and

Speaker 5 right no sooner do I throw it I realized it wasn't completely unattached

Speaker 5 because that's when kind of reality sets in so I remember being in this hole my my medical bag was scattered everywhere And as I'm trying to pull myself out of the IED, the hole, boom, a third one goes off right behind me.

Speaker 5 And that ended up being being my best friend, Justin Gertner, coming up and he hadn't stepped on a third IED.

Speaker 5 And so he had lost both of his legs. And so

Speaker 5 I remember

Speaker 5 getting put on the litter, the stretcher, and as they call in the medevac helicopter, for now, three of us.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 as they have me on the the litter and they're taking me to the helicopter, the stretcher breaks and I fall off of the stretcher into the ground.

Speaker 5 And as they put me back on and they load me on the helicopter,

Speaker 5 I see kind of them bringing somebody else on. And that's when I learned that it was my buddy Gertner as they loaded him on right after me.

Speaker 5 From there, they fly us to the nearest medical or military medical facility with the means of, you know, surgery. And they fly us there.
They do kind of finish the amputations clean out the wounds

Speaker 5 and then kind of get us stabilized and it was there that i i remember seeing some sailors off in the corner with the satellite phone and i was able to muster to a a doctor like i wanted that phone

Speaker 5 and so he gives me the phone and somehow i'm able to

Speaker 5 coherently give him the number and he calls my wife. And so there I was calling my wife, telling her what happened,

Speaker 5 maybe within an hour of what happened, which is obviously not the norm. It's incredible.

Speaker 5 And so from there, Justin,

Speaker 5 he survived. He lost both of his legs and almost his arm.

Speaker 5 And then the driver of the vehicle was more

Speaker 5 concussed. And so from there, they fly us to kind of from that point on,

Speaker 5 it's wash the wound, stabilize, get us off as fast as they can so we get get to the United States. So from there, we went to Balgram, and then Balgram to Germany, Germany to Bethesda, Maryland.

Speaker 5 And all that happened within probably about 48 hours. And that's when I was 40 hours.

Speaker 5 It's just a total whirlwind.

Speaker 7 How much could you grasp what had happened? Was it real to you?

Speaker 7 Are you looking and saying, my life has changed forever? Or can you not understand it at that moment?

Speaker 5 I knew I had lost my legs.

Speaker 5 I remember as I was transported from, you know, A to point A to B, B to C,

Speaker 5 it was still a matter of like, am I going to live? Am I going to survive this?

Speaker 5 And then what does life look like for me? Like I had been 22 years old, you know, and my life was changed in an instant. And now I it was physically different.

Speaker 5 And so I didn't know what life looked like for me as an amputee.

Speaker 5 Quite honestly, I was oblivious to the fact of prosthetics. And so in my mind, I thought I was going to be stuck in a wheelchair, dependent on everybody else for the rest of my life.

Speaker 7 Yeah. And to be clear,

Speaker 7 where was the injury exactly? And how much could you, can you walk and how much can you, how much mobilization do you have in your legs?

Speaker 5 So, yeah, so when the ID went off, it took my right leg. above the knee and my left leg below the knee.
Okay. And then, as I said, like I had this skull fracture.
You could see the scar.

Speaker 5 And so that fractured my skull and slightly damaged the frontal lobe.

Speaker 5 And so,

Speaker 5 like I said, like I was, I wasn't even sure of prosthetics and kind of how I would be able to be independent rather than dependent on everybody.

Speaker 7 Now,

Speaker 7 you started off saying that you're glad that you remember this day that a lot of people don't when they have a traumatic incident like this.

Speaker 7 I it's probably surprising for people to hear that you want to remember exactly what happened. Why is that important to you?

Speaker 5 It's important to me. And like I say,

Speaker 5 I'm glad that I do recall it all in great detail because

Speaker 5 it gives me a good perspective. I mean, here I am 15 years later and

Speaker 5 life's not perfect for anybody and there's ups and downs. And I always have that.

Speaker 5 that perspective of and the clarity from 15 years ago when I was you know within inches of losing my life and not experiencing the ups and the downs that I am 15 years later.

Speaker 5 And so for me, it's kind of that maybe reset or, you know, that kind of perspective to

Speaker 5 kind of ground myself again and bring myself to reality and be grateful for what

Speaker 5 I have and what I've endured up to this point.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I actually wanted to ask you about that next. How did your mindset shift during the early days of recovery?

Speaker 5 I mean, like I said, there's good days and bad days.

Speaker 5 Definitely early on, I was,

Speaker 5 there was a lot of unknowns. I mean, my whole life was drastically changed in an instant.
And I didn't really know what life looked like for me, especially now having no legs.

Speaker 5 Lost both my legs at 22 years old. I was recently married.

Speaker 5 And so. Life was very uncertain at that point.
In my mind, I figured that was pretty much it. You know, I didn't have legs, so I was figuratively literally like half the man as I once was.

Speaker 5 And so my mentality at that point was

Speaker 5 I was glad to be alive, but I didn't know what it looked like. And so that's when I was literally the day I woke up in the hospital in the United States was when I met the Simpfy in Americas Fund.

Speaker 5 And they were able to answer a lot of that for me, you know, because fortunately slash unfortunately, they had a lot of experience with my situation. So, yeah, my mentality then

Speaker 5 is similar to how it is now. And it's just, it's, it's gratitude.

Speaker 5 Despite ups and downs,

Speaker 5 it's extreme gratitude.

Speaker 7 Now, so as part of the recovery, my understanding is you got involved in adaptive sports. And that was part of your,

Speaker 7 the way that you managed to move forward and find new, sort of, a new life for yourself. Can you explain that period of your life?

Speaker 5 Yeah. So as you said, adaptive sports was

Speaker 5 a big part of my recovery. And I attribute that quite often to kind of my mentality today and kind of, you know, being mentally tough.
Because after I was wounded, having those uncertainties

Speaker 5 through the hospital. while I was still active duty and through Semperfine America's Fund, I was introduced to adaptive sports.
And my wife still still to this day says I was like a yes man.

Speaker 5 Like I, I said yes to anything and everything, whether it was, you know, rock climbing, skiing, things I've never even done before. I found myself doing it.
And it was,

Speaker 5 it was great for my recovery because it, it, it showed me what I could do.

Speaker 5 And really, there weren't any limits to what I could or couldn't do because, you know, Marines are good at adapting and overcoming and being in rec therapy like that and seeing the adaptability of whatever sport it is or activity I wanted to do, there was an alternative.

Speaker 5 And really, there was no limits anymore. And it opened my eyes as to what I could and could do, really.

Speaker 7 Are there, you know, across the country, I would think it maybe is pretty different depending on which area of the country you're in, but is there access for other people that have traumatic injuries to be involved in these kinds of sports leagues?

Speaker 5 100%. I mean,

Speaker 5 if you're you're saying people as a whole civilian or military um i know that there's plenty of non-profits out there uh for even civilians um i know the simperifying americas fund they do have uh their team semperfy which is you know kind of their a branch of it which is for you know recovery through sports i think is their is their slogan and it it it

Speaker 5 It strikes true because as I just said, like part of my recovery, the sports was a, a big aspect of it.

Speaker 5 And so for anybody that's wanting to do it, I mean, if they're eligible through the fund, you know, obviously being military, that's certainly one way.

Speaker 5 And then I know there's other nonprofits like Challenge Athletes Foundation. They help kids and youth and, you know, civilians greatly, just the same.

Speaker 7 You've become a strong advocate for fellow injured veterans. What are some of the biggest challenges they face after coming home that people might not realize?

Speaker 5 I'd say some of the biggest challenges that veterans, especially in my situation, face after coming home is

Speaker 5 you're,

Speaker 5 I don't want to say disconnected, but we inevitably find ourselves not quite as connected as we were to, you know, our fellow service members, the facilities.

Speaker 5 You know, there at the hospital, I was surrounded by, at the time, I was one of 150 Marine amputees at the Naval Medical Center. So I was surrounded with a lot of people in the same situation.

Speaker 5 And then I retire and I find myself, you know, a thousand miles away back home in Colorado, and I'm not surrounded by that anymore.

Speaker 5 And so I'd say that's kind of the biggest and first challenge that veterans in my situation would face is

Speaker 5 not really having that camaraderie anymore.

Speaker 5 Maybe even feeling alone or insecure with their disability.

Speaker 5 And so I'd say that's probably the

Speaker 5 biggest thing. And it unfortunately creeps up on you.

Speaker 5 You know, I'm 15 years post-injury. And I'd say, you know, halfway through, I found myself kind of experiencing the same thing.

Speaker 5 And so that's why the Semperfind Americas Fund means so much to me because they were able to get me connected again.

Speaker 7 What are some of the ways that they do that? Like, you know, just logistically speaking, how does this play out in terms of what they offer people that are recovering?

Speaker 5 Yeah, so the Centrified Americas Fund, they offer like many kind of, like I said, branches within their own organization.

Speaker 5 Like there's the recreational side.

Speaker 5 Every service member within the organization is assigned a case manager. And they have case managers that I say this all the time, you know, the fund is more than a fund, they're family.

Speaker 5 And when you're connected with that case manager, you have that person that connects with you, checks in with you, kind of sees where you're at, and they get to know you on a personal level.

Speaker 5 So you are introduced to so many of the internal services that they provide. I've experienced that for my TBI, my, obviously the, the prosthetics.

Speaker 5 I just came home from a R ⁇ R weekend with my fellow double amputees that I served with. They flew us out to San Antonio.

Speaker 5 For three days, I was just kind of, I was able to be with my brothers again and kind of get that reset again

Speaker 5 but there's so many things that the fund can do they've helped me in pretty much physically mentally emotionally financially they've they've they've kind of checked all the boxes what about the technology side of it had there been advances in the last 15 years in terms of prosthetics

Speaker 5 oh man prosthetic wise like medical technology is something that's always evolving and i've seen some incredible advances, especially with upper extremities,

Speaker 5 being able to crack an egg, play Jenga with your articulating fingers on a prosthetic. Like, wow.

Speaker 5 It's even, you know, they're able to tap into kind of, you know, your neurological systems to interact with it.

Speaker 5 The prosthetics are, you know, for lower limbs, like my legs, microchip processor knees in it. And it's, it's, I have an app on my cell phone for my leg.

Speaker 7 Amazing.

Speaker 5 And so it's always evolving. I mean, it's, and it's something that I very much look forward to to kind of seeing it continue to evolve and see how I could benefit from it.
Incredible.

Speaker 7 I wanted to ask you about the Thanksgiving element of this. This is coming out Thanksgiving week.
And, you know, obviously this. probably changes forever how you look at that holiday.

Speaker 7 You mentioned gratitude a lot, which seems appropriate for Thanksgiving. How has it changed your perspective on the holiday season?

Speaker 5 I would say it's changed my perspective very much. Every year, I'm brought back to, especially for me, given that my, my alive day, we call it the day or anniversary of when we were wounded.

Speaker 5 So for me and my alive day being either on or around Thanksgiving is

Speaker 5 it's it's it was one of those blessings in disguise because it brings me back to that day 15 years ago, however many years ago, and like I said, gives me that reset perspective.

Speaker 5 I'm able to look around and see my family, my kids, you know, my wife and family, parts of kind of how my future has evolved from 15 years.

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Speaker 5 even though every day is not perfect even though you know many days I wish you know I had my legs or it just didn't happen to me It gives me so much to be thankful for.

Speaker 5 And then being on Thanksgiving just kind of amplifies that, you know, while I'm surrounded by family and friends and

Speaker 5 all the chaos that ensues with that, I mean,

Speaker 5 it's a huge blessing and it's a great reset for me to kind of have that perspective.

Speaker 7 Just a remarkable story. We appreciate you so much just taking the time to talk with us and happy holidays.

Speaker 5 Thank you, you two. Happy holidays.

Speaker 7 That was retired Marine and Purple Heart recipient Gabe Martinez. And this has been a Thanksgiving edition of Ponywire.