Blind Marine re-enlists
After all he's been through, the only real regret Marine Cpl. Matthew Bradford says he has now is not being able to return to combat duty in Iraq.
But Wednesday, Bradford, 23, made Marine Corps history, becoming the first blind double amputee to re-enlist. In keeping with service tradition, Bradford was honorably discharged and allowed to say a few words as a civilian before re-enlisting.
“Sign me up, sir!” he told Lt. Col. David Barnes, who administered the oath of enlistment, extending Bradford's military career by another four years.
The outdoor re-enlistment ceremony was held a few hundred feet from the Center for the Intrepid, dedicated just 11 days after Bradford was seriously wounded in Iraq.
It was at the cutting-edge rehabilitation center, funded with $50 million in private contributions, that he began his arduous and painful journey in June 2007 to learn to walk again with prosthetic limbs.
He'll soon leave Fort Sam Houston to work with other wounded Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C. At the Intrepid Center, he had memorized the number of steps it took to get wherever he was going in the third-floor physical therapy department. The center became his “comfort zone,” said his mother, Debbie Bradford.
“He's got to grow past it,” she said. “He knows he can always come back.”
So with a brief ceremony, delayed by about 20 minutes after the post was on lockdown for a visit by Vice President Joe Biden, Bradford's new phase of duty began. He said he wants to stay in the Marines “for as long as I can.”
Bradford, who 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.