Raising the money took almost two years. Along the way, [Hank] Detering and the river runners won the backing of the American Legion and the Marine Corps, which helped select the men who went. The group set out Friday with the good wishes of many, including, via Twitter, U.S. Sen. John McCain.<\/p>\n
Organizers were still working out a few logistics late last week (how do you charge the battery on an artificial leg in the wilderness?) but it was all coming together for a group that had become the Grand Canyon Warriors.<\/p>\n
Whether the trip will change their lives, Detering couldn’t predict. No two people come off the river with exactly the same experience, he said, but just getting these men on the river achieved one of his goals. If the trip makes a difference in their lives, all the better.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been to the Grand Canyon about 20 times, but always saw it from the rim,\u201d said [Benjamin North, a sergeant currently stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., with the wounded warrior battalion], who served a tour in Afghanistan. \u201cThis will be a different perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been on my bucket list,\u201d said Levi White, a staff sergeant who was deployed and wounded in Iraq. \u201cI\u2019ve never had a chance to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrique Fearon, a sergeant who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, listened to his buddies and then admitted he wasn\u2019t too excited about the idea at first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kinda had to be forced into it,\u201d he said. \u2018Then I took it on and I started researching it and I figure it\u2019ll be something I can put on my \u2018been there, done it\u2019 list. Not a lot of people can say they\u2019ve done this.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
They all deserve this chance, even TSO, I’m more than a little jealous of this opportunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bobo sends us a link from the Arizona Republic about the progress of 23 wounded Marines … A Grand Canyon trip for 23 wounded Marines…and TSO<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":61652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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