Something worth sharing, and thinking about

For those of you who know the Former Boyfriend’s Godson Jack Crowley, …this article was in the Columbus Dispatch … we love Jack, we’re proud of him and  we are SO grateful that he is home safe.

Jack in Afghanistan (with a dog that looks very much like our Tillie)

His medal nests in a box that’s tucked into a drawer somewhere. Maybe it is at his parents’ house, maybe it’s at his Grandview apartment.  Jack Crowley doesn’t really know.

He pulls out his Purple Heart for military balls or a comrade’s funeral. Otherwise, the shrapnel scars that show and the many wounds that do not are reminder enough of the violence that befell him and his unit in Helmand province, Afghanistan, at about 1 a.m. on June 13, 2012.

Crowley, a Navy corpsman back then, and six others in his group of 10 were wounded as they returned to base after a routine reconnaissance mission. The men stepped on explosives planted by the enemy.  Critically wounded himself — with his medical bag obliterated by the bomb and his eardrums blown from the blasts — he tended to his comrades in total darkness.

One Marine died; two others lost both their legs. Crowley is not yet over it. But today, National Purple Heart Day, he takes a small measure of comfort in the gratitude of a nation.


“People hear about things, but I don’t think most of them really understand what happens to us over there,” said Crowley, 26, who left the military in March. “They just can’t.” This year, city and county officials decided to make a fuss over Purple Heart Day, an annual commemoration for the estimated 1.9 million American troops who have been awarded the medal that goes only to those wounded or killed by an enemy in combat.

The LeVeque Tower, City Hall and Columbus Commons are all lighted in purple this week. City officials on Monday designated the corner of Front and Broad streets as Purple Heart Way. And yesterday, the Franklin County commissioners designated Franklin an official Purple Heart county.To cap off the week’s events, the inaugural Fallen 15 Purple Heart 5K race will be run through the Arena District starting at Arch Park at 9 p.m. on Friday.

Crowley plans to run and hopes others will, too.  “Just because you’re beat and hurt doesn’t mean you have to sit in a chair in your house and feel sorry for yourself and complain about your life,” he said. “I’ve got to stay active, man. I’ve got to live.”
Others, such as Todd Fewell, will be at the finish line to greet those who cross.  Fewell is commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart Buckeye 500 Chapter in Columbus (with 174 members) and is retired from the military after a 24-year U.S. Air Force career. He earned his Purple Heart on March 31, 1990, when terrorists fired on his two-vehicle convoy heading up a mountain road in Honduras.  The bullets ripped through his leg but he recovered. He counts himself among the lucky.  He hopes those who show up to support the race Friday night remember those for whom battle didn’t end so well.  “You’ve heard, ‘All gave some, some gave all?’  ” asked Fewell, 48, of Reynoldsburg. “Well, it’s the ones who gave all that too often are forgotten.”

A new local veterans organization called the Fallen 15 is organizing the 5K.  Some Purmission is to get veterans — especially younger ones from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — engaged.  This race is only the start of the movement, Jackson said.
“These young veterans, especially, don’t go to the VFWs or the Amvets posts as much,” Jackson said. “So we want events and groups and activities where they can come together with one another but also with the community at large. They get the camaraderie and the action, and the community ple Heart recipients will be walking or running and others will be at the finish line to hand out the medals, said Marshall Jackson, a co-founder of the Fallen 15 and an Army veteran who did two tours of Iraq. He now is a major and works full time for the Ohio National Guard.  Part of the Fallen 15’s gets to show its appreciation. We’re all in this together, right?’

The article was written by Holly Zachariah and published in the Columbus Dispatch on August 7, 2014.