Story

Jordon McCloud – Grade 10 Mrs. Amberg – lesson #7 ELA – “Doors to Stories” Domiciles Project: Door # 13 Gouverneur High School One For the Others Hi. I’m Lawrence Tuttle, a soldier in the U.S. Army, and the other day I was eating some pizza, and watching the news. Now, I know it’s not exciting watching the news (maybe the pizza part) but they were talking about the war in Syria. This made me remember back when I was in that war. I was thirty years old with a wife and a son. Being overseas was very stressful for the whole family. One day someone had tried to blow up our base, killing two people, one being my friend. That was honestly the first time I had ever seen anyone die. I vowed that day that if anyone needed my help, I would not hesitate to help them, no matter what. It was my life for theirs. Then one day, in combat, there were mines everywhere and we needed to capture a nearby building. So some of the guys ran in to do so, but as they were entering a bomb came out of nowhere. It was like it just appeared; nobody saw it coming. Anyway, it blew in the front door and part of the foundation, and part of the walls. The building was falling apart with the guys still inside. I was waiting for them to come running out, but I didn’t see anyone. I immediately ran for the nearest hole in the wall not even noticing that there were guns and mines going off around me. All I wanted to do was basically not lose anyone else, so I ran for it. Once in, I saw that most of the men in there were fine except one, who was pinned under a piece of the foundation. I ran over there and tried to help them pull this man out. Finally, after five to ten minutes, we got him out and they started to head to the nearest medical tent. I stayed behind to make sure that they got out safely. When I saw that they had, I started to run, when the ceiling above me started to really fall in blocking my closest exit. I turned towards another hole in the wall and ran as fast as possible. Unfortunately, we didn’t check that area of the building for mines. So as soon as I stepped out, “BOOM!” All I could hear were shots fired and I saw some people running towards me. Last thing I saw was a helicopter landing near me. In the chopper I can remember this huge pain coming from my leg. I looked down and I couldn’t see anything. It was like it was invisible, but hurt really bad, and there was blood everywhere. Then everything just went quiet and dark… I woke up two days later in a hospital bed with my wife and son standing there, along with every man I had saved that day. Even the one that was pinned under the foundation, all he had was a broken leg and some scrapes. Then I saw the doctor on the other side of my bed. The doctors told me that my right leg was severely damaged from the knee down, and I lost a lot of blood. I looked down and it was gone, just completely gone from the knee down. I looked at the doctor again and he said that it was so torn up and mangled that they had to amputate. The worst part of the whole experience was that I had to sit in the hospital for two months. My son told me all about his track and field events. See he’s a track star (or to me he is.) He’s gotten many first, second, and third place ribbons. I had never actually gotten to see him race or anything when I was active duty and deployed all the time. Then one day I finally got to go and it just blew me away. My favorite part was when he got first in his high jump because I actually got to see him do it. He made me so proud. Thanks to the Wounded Warrior Project. They made it so I could go to my son’s events with just a stub, because they helped me get a prosthetic leg. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I even have a prosthetic leg for walking. I also still have a wheel chair for when I don’t feel like putting on a leg. Yeah looking back, in a way, I’m glad I’m finally home for good, with my son, beautiful wife, and nifty Medal of Honor for helping those in need, even though it put me in harm’s way. I also don’t have to eat any more of those MREs’ or meals-ready-to-eat, I get pizza now instead. So all in all, I never would have had it any other way, and I don’t think my family would have either.