CLAY: We’ve been certainly honoring veterans all throughout today’s program. We’re joined now by a man with a very inspiring story who has done and been doing incredible work ever since he came out of the armed forces. He is Richard Yarosh, who is a sergeant. He joined the Army in 2004, inspired by the story of a fallen soldier near his hometown of Windsor, New York. Sergeant Yarosh, we really appreciate you joining us here, and I want to let you tell us about a day that your life changed forever when you were part of a military mission in Iraq on September 1st of 2006. And thank you in advance for your service.
SGT. YAROSH: Well, thank you very much. It’s an honor to be with you today. It’s a special day, that’s for sure, getting to read some of these names and getting to really let people hear the names of the some of the most important Americans that we’ll ever know. So, gosh. It’s been 15 years. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years. But September 1st, 2006, when I was on patrol in Iraq, a day of infamy.
But also it’s also a day that is the best day of my life because it led me to amazing places but that day my vehicle Bradley fighting vehicle that I was riding in I was gunning hit with an IED and the IED went through the bottom of the vehicle into the turret where I was sitting and also in the turret is where we have our fuel tank.
So the IED hit the fuel tank covering me, my two buddies who were in the vehicle with me and the vehicle and fuel and instantly we were on fire. I knew I had to get out of the vehicle if I had any chance to survive, it was the first thing I had to do climbed out through the top. Once I got to the top then I knew I had to get to the ground, and the problem was I had to jump because I had no other of time; I didn’t have time to climb down.
I had to jump. And it’s about ten feet off the of ground. So when I jumped and I landed, I couldn’t brace myself for the landing because the smoke and the fire. So I couldn’t see the ground. So when I landed, I broke my legs and actually severed an artery in my leg. And when I was in the hospital, they amputated my right leg below the knee.
Then I rolled into a canal that I had no idea was there, but the canal had just enough water in it to put the fire out. Eventually a couple of my friends found me, carried me up to the top of the canal. And about a half an hour later the helicopters got there, took me and my two buddies to the hospital, and that helicopter ride was unfortunately the last time that I ever saw and talked to my good buddy, Sergeant Luis Montes, ever again. And I was honored to be able to read his name today. And it’s a name I say every single day of my life. But I was honored to read it in front of a whole big group of people today.
BUCK: Sergeant Yarosh, it’s Buck. I want to know if you would just tell us, then, about your road to recovery and what happened when you came back stateside and how you went from dealing with this obviously incredibly traumatic incident in combat to now being somebody who goes around the country and speaks and inspires others.
SGT. YAROSH: Yeah. In the beginning, it didn’t start like that. I wasn’t inspiring anyone. I wasn’t inspiring myself. I was a mess. I ended up being in the hospital for six months, and then when I got out of the hospital, I didn’t even know if I wanted to leave the hospital because when I was in my hospital room and people came into my room, no one was surprised by what they saw because they saw me every day.
My doctors, my nurses, my family, visitors who had been there many times. But now I was about to leave that, I’m burned 60% of my body. My face has been totally reconstructed, half of my nose is gone, I have — my ears are gone, my lips are different, half of my hair is gone, my face is totally burned. And when I left the hospital, it was very obvious that people were noticing.
I mean, they honestly would have had to have been blind to not. And it was tough for me, especially with children because I came home to a grateful nation and adults were waiting for me with open arms. But children did not see that. They saw me as a scary monster, and aid day where my life was changed forever in the sense that I was shown acceptance from a little kid.
I was in a restaurant and this little girl was sitting with her family across from me staring at me, afraid. I could tell she was afraid, and her grandfather was sitting with her, and he was probably military being in San Antonio and I probably recognized what I was. But he leaned down torture and quietly said, “Go say hi to him,” and she didn’t want to come over to me. She was too afraid. So he said it again, “Go say hi to him,” and this time she did start to come over.
She got halfway over; ass nicely as I could say to her I said, “Hey, how are you doing?” But when I said that, she stopped dead in her tracks again like she saw a monster, and she turned around; she ran back to her grandpa as fast as she could. And really in that moment it was just like, “You have to get used to this, Rick. This is how your life will always be. You’re always going to be look different,” and that’s how I felt.
That little girl she got back to her grandpa and she said, “Grandpa, he’s really nice.” That’s not what I thought she was gonna say. But I’m telling you right now, that 5-year-old, 6-year-old little girl? I was a 25-year-old soldier, wounded soldier, and she fixed a lot of those wounds that day. She fixed a lot of those things. She gave me courage and confidence to go out and be able to tell my story.
Now I go into elementary schools, and I have no problem talking to those kids really because of one situation in my life that changed my life forever. But now I get the opportunity to go all over the country and speak to students mostly about hope and hopelessness — and I know a lot of about those things. And it changed my life in a very, very positive way.
CLAY: Sergeant, what has Tunnel to Towers done for you? This audience has donated over $5 million to Tunnel to Towers. What have they done, the organization, for you and what have you seen them doing for others?
SGT. YAROSH: I mean, other than change my life? (chuckles) That’s the question. I mean, they’ve changed my life. Not only has Tunnel to Towers changed my life, but the people that have donated that $5 million have changed my life. They built me a home! They built me a home that was easy for me to live in and that’s a lot to say, because it’s not easy for me to live in certain spaces.
If I go to a hotel even if it’s handicap accessible, it wasn’t built for me. It’s hard to get around it. But I was able to have a home that I feel extremely comfortable in and that my family feels extremely comfortable in. This is the most important thing to me, having my family feel comfortable, having my family feel safe. That’s what Tunnel to Towers has done for me.