Soldier: Power of family helps him build new life

By SHERRY HALBROOK
The theme was “family,” and the event was the annual Veterans Committee Luncheon held September 15 at the 31st Annual PEF Convention in Niagara Falls.

“We have birth families, our marriage families, our PEF families and our (military) service families,” PEF Veterans Committee Chair Richard Fletcher told 117 veterans and guests at the luncheon.

Each of these families can be an important source of support and encouragement, he said, when times are tough. No one in the room understood that better than the keynote speaker, U.S. Army Sgt. Rick Yarosh.

“Unfortunately, we have no union in the military,” Yarosh said. “But the Army and the union are alike because they both become like family and they both are fighters.”

The son of two state employees (his father, Tom Yarosh, is a PEF member and his mother is in the Civil Service Employees Association), Yarosh faced the most painful and terrifying challenges imaginable in his early 20s, but said his many families helped pull him through it.

In September 2006, Yarosh was riding in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle on a Baghdad road when an improvised explosive device went off under the full gas tank. His face was engulfed in flames as he climbed out and jumped off the exploding vehicle, breaking his leg and severing an artery.

“Lying there, I was ready for the Lord to take me,” Yarosh recalled. “But the Lord wasn’t ready for me.”

In an attempt to put out the flames and get away from the Bradley’s shells that he knew would be going off any minute, Yarosh began rolling over and landed in a nearby canal.

“The canal was polluted and gave me cholera and a fungal infection that has cost me most of my hands, but it saved my life,” Yarosh said.

Once his fellow soldiers got him onto a helicopter and to a field hospital, Yarosh said he was given an injection and kept unconscious.

“I remember nothing from the next two or three months,” Yarosh said. “But I’m told they had me at the burn center in San Antonio, Texas within 32 hours.”

Yarosh spent the next six months in hospitals, where his broken leg was amputated, infections treated, burns healed, and he began physical therapy.

“My dad stayed beside me for two years, and my mom was with me for seven months. That’s what got me through. I wouldn’t be here if my parents hadn’t been with me. I don’t know how I knew they were there when I was unconscious, but I did know. It made all the difference.

“That was your doing,” Yarosh said. “They got time off from work to be with me because of what you in the unions do for them. They made the difference for me, because you made the difference for them.

“It’s awesome to see you have a veterans’ group in your union to help your members who serve. You are going to see more of them coming back like me.

“I’ve seen other guys (severely injured soldiers) who are going to sit in their rooms and refuse to leave them for the rest of their lives. Their families weren’t able to get away from their jobs to be with them when they needed it most.”

Yarosh said his family’s love, encouragement and support have given him the confidence to build a new, stronger sense of who he is.

“Everybody has a purpose in life,” Yarosh said. “I’ve decided my role is telling my story to help others overcome the challenges they face.

“In high school, I was terrified of public speaking. But after what’s happened, I’m not afraid of anything. It’s let me step up to the plate.

“It feels good to do something with my life.