![\"Randy](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Randy-Abbott-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n(Marshall Rand) Randy Abbott is a paralyzed former Marine who teaches other paralyzed people, especially veterans, how to surf despite their condition. That’s laudable enough especially if you add to the story that he was mugged a few weeks back and someone stole his surfboards. But that’s where his trouble began. The media picked up on that story<\/a>;<\/p>\n Randy Abbott gets around in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the waist down. But that hasn’t prevented him from surfing three or four times a week. You see, it wasn’t that long ago doctors told him he would never surf again after a back surgery went terribly wrong.<\/p>\n After spending fourteen years as a Marine Corps recon scout sniper, Abbott’s body got pretty banged up. When he got out of the service he needed back surgery. But during that surgery his spinal cord ended up getting accidentally severed, leaving him paralyzed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another article<\/a> says that he joined at 16 years old;<\/p>\n The kid who enlisted in the Marines at age 16 \u2014 and carved waves in Indonesia, Todos Santos and Mavericks before a 2007 back surgery gone bad cost him the use of his legs \u2014 has rolled a long way toward acceptance of life\u2019s cruel uncertainties.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Some folks have told me that he’s not really paralyzed, that he uses the wheelchair because of pain from an operation he had in 2007 which doctors botched badly. I’m no doctor, so I won’t go there. But military records I do know;<\/p>\n He served about 7 years, not 14. He joined the Marines in 1984 which made him 19 (I redacted his birth date, so trust me) not 16 when he joined. He refueled vehicles, not as Recon Marine, but as a fuelman. So his operation being the result of the years that he spent jumping from airplanes and helicopters, busting brush and being the most Marine he could be is pretty much BS. He had the operation 17 years after he got out from running a Marine Corps gas station. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – unless you try to tell folks that you’re some kind of trained killer that the Marines used up and threw away.<\/p>\n But it was the article about the stolen surf boards that brought him to the attention of some folks who call themselves “A Buncha Damn Cowboys”. They say they’re members of the Scout Sniper and Marine Recon community and they get all of the credit for this research. I figure that I’d better credit them so they don’t come in the night. But they’re the ones who are upset most about this.<\/p>\n Oh, yeah, here’s a speech he gave at a Travis Manion Charity Run;<\/p>\n And his obligatory Scout Sniper tattoo that proves everything I’ve said about him is a lie;<\/p>\n ADDED: <\/strong>So, Randy wanted me to call him ![\"RandyAbbottDD214_1\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/RandyAbbottDD214_1-249x333.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"RandyAbbottDD214_2\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/RandyAbbottDD214_2-249x333.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n![\"TM2\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/TM2-249x333.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"TM3\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/TM3-249x333.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"TM4\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/TM4-249x333.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n![\"randyabbotssstat\"](\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/randyabbotssstat.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n