First Blind, Double-Amputee Marine Reenlists

Semper fi: Whatever rough patches America is going through right now, it can’t be all bad when it still produces men such as this:

[Marine Cpl. Matthew Bradford, age 23] grew up in Winchester, Ky., and Dinwiddie, Va., had made up his mind that he was going to deploy as many times as the Marines wanted him to when he was hurt a few months into his first tour of Iraq.

A rifleman, he was on patrol in Al Anbar province and trying to help clear an area of roadside bombs when one of them exploded right under him the afternoon of Jan. 18, 2007.

Bradford lost his eyesight, and he had a fractured right hand and fragmentation wounds to the lower abdominal area. But what he said he hated the most was losing his legs. He required amputations below the knee on the right leg and above the knee on the left.

His physical therapist, Matt Parker, said Bradford put his complete trust in his rehabilitation team, at a time when the Intrepid Center was “extremely busy” with a first wave of severely wounded troops.

One of the first tasks was to use exercises to strengthen his trunk area.

“Every day, he would show up faithfully at 1 o’clock, despite having a full belly after lunch,” Parker said. “He’s done things most able-bodied people can’t do.”

During President George W. Bush’s visit at the Intrepid Center in November 2007, Bradford caught the president’s attention while climbing the center’s 35-foot artificial rock wall.

“Good man, isn’t he?” Bush said, according to news reports.