Tip of the Spear by Ryan Hendrickson

Author:Ryan Hendrickson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Center Street
Published: 2020-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

Before I left the hospital, something amazing happened during rehab: I received a totally unexpected invitation to fly to Seattle and meet the Seattle Seahawks. I was a huge football fan and the Seahawks were my favorite NFL team, so there was no way I could turn this down.

How did this happen? While I was in Afghanistan, I was emailing with a friend who had Seahawks team connections. I asked him if he could send me a Seahawks flag so I could show off my team to the local Afghans. Hell, for all they knew, I had a tasty-looking dinner on my flag and not a Seahawk, but regardless of where I was in the world, I was going to pimp my team.

After I was wounded, though, I told my buddy that if he did get his hands on a flag, not to send it to Afghanistan since I was now in San Antonio. That was when—and my buddy swears it wasn’t him—Mike and Connie, who worked in the Seahawks’ PR department, reached out to me.

They invited me to visit the team and take in a game, which floored me. There was no way in hell I was not going to go, regardless of my doctors’ warnings about flying and all the dangers that entailed.

I was ten weeks out from stepping on an IED and trying to rehab a newly reattached leg, so what could go wrong? That was my mind-set. The doctors were probably worrying way too much, or maybe they weren’t Seahawks fans. Either way, I figured, I’d be fine. I had no clue how my newly reattached leg would hold up to flying, the change in altitude, and the change in climate, but in the end, I thought I knew best and that was that.

Dad and I boarded our flight for Seattle. I must have looked like a zombie from a new show that fall, The Walking Dead, because when people saw my leg, the astonishment on their faces was priceless. I had to wear sweats with the right leg cut off at the knee, so people saw everything. Disgust, confusion, and pity seemed to line everyone’s faces as I passed by. I could imagine their comments.

Oh, my God. Did you see his leg?

What do you think happened?

I couldn’t blame them for saying that shit. Here I was, metal rods sticking out all over, swollen leg with skin grafts that were bright red, and pus lines running down my leg from where the rods entered my skin.

I might have been blown up, but I wasn’t blind.

Knowing how astonished people were, I decided to perfect my “shark bite” story. If I had to step on an IED, I was damn sure going to use this incident to tell some crazy tales.

I got the perfect opportunity on my flight from San Antonio to Seattle for my weekend with the Seahawks. I was sitting in the aisle seat. Seated next to me were two elementary school-age kids. Across the aisle were the parents and another kid.

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