Another one of the amazing young people featured in the Alive Day documentary is Marine Corporal Michael Jernigan. Mike lost much of his skull, both eyes, parts of his right hand and sustained various other injuries as a result of a roadside bomb blast. Mike is an engaging conversationalist. He has a vibrant personality and exudes positive energy. I was so impressed by his attitude after all that he has been through. In fact, it was enjoyable just to watch him interact with those around him at the event. In spite of his blindness, he seemed to bring light into the room by his very presence.
Corporal Jernigan wears one glass eye. The scarring in the other eye socket was so profound that he is not able to wear a glass eye in that eye socket. On the night of the Alive Day event at Washington's Navy Memorial Museum, Corporal Jernigan wore a strangely beautiful eye embedded with a ring of diamonds. He explained the significance of these diamonds when he told us that upon his return to his wife, she left him as a result of his injuries. He chose to grind the 1-karat diamond ring into smaller stones and have them inset into his eye as a reminder of what he had lost due to the bomb blast.
That story could sound bitter—but in Mike's case it is not. He has a fantastic outlook and is using the reminders of his injuries to motivate himself to press on to the future.
In his own words:
One of the greatest challenges since I came home is learning how to live independently and recuperating in a life without vision.
Currently, I am a spokesperson for a guide dog school, Southeastern Guide Dogs, which has started the Paws for Patriots program. We are providing guide dogs for those visually impaired in Afghanistan and Iraq. I will be starting school in August. I have been traveling quite a bit, and I am constantly changing my daily routine. One of the greatest challenges since I came home is learning how to live independently and recuperating in a life without vision. As for the future, I would like to finish school and I am looking forward to working again.
When we were checking out of the hotel the day after the Alive Day - Home From Iraq event, we met Corporal Jernigan in the hotel lobby. I introduced my family. Mike showed my son his eye and told him about some cool other eyes he has including one with a skull and crossbones on it. David was duly impressed. And so was I.
I was greatly honored to be included in this event. We Americans can be very proud of our military men and women. They are outstanding representatives of our nation.
Richard,
ReplyDeleteI've enjoyed this series you've presented.
My husband has a glass eye which he acquired after a car accident, just a few months before 9/11. In many ways, the whole process was one of the greatest bonding experiences that we've had as a couple. For my husband, he shined forth like the son, even telling the crushed surgeons when they told him that they would have to take the eye that he would get a new one someday.
And we get lots of humor value out of it, too. He takes it out and forgets sometimes, and he has a purple prosthetic for fun, and he's been wearing that one for the last 6 months. (He even wore it to the nameless apologetics conference!) Geek scientists can get away with that sort of thing, I think.
May God give everyone who returns home from this war great grace to persevere through these things and find meaning in their loss.