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USA Weekend profiles some folks who may have once eaten at Fran O'Brien's:
Staff Sergeant Ryan KellySince then, one of these people has completed a triathalon (and hopes to make the U.S. Paralympic team), another a marathon (and a run with President Bush), and the third completed a 60-mile bike tour to raise funds for the Wounded Warrior Project (and completed training to become a helicopter pilot with a goal to fly emergency medical services helicopters.)Staff Sgt. Ryan Kelly was about to do so much good in Iraq. He was a civil affairs specialist, as well as a certified paramedic. His job was all about building up the country, making it better than ever. Take the water system in Ramadi, which dated back to the 1950s. It had deteriorated considerably over the decades. The Iraqis actually cut up old car tires to make rubber pipe seals to keep the crummy system running. Kelly and his fellow civil affairs team members would show up at the plants and provide the insight and resources to fix them. "The reaction from the local officials would be, 'Wow, somebody actually cares,' " Kelly recalls. "This was really rewarding for somebody in his 20s, coming up with ways to effectively rebuild a community."
On July 14, 2003, Kelly was on his way to a conference just outside Baghdad, when an improvised explosive device (IED) struck his Humvee. Kelly was blown from his seat, then tried to plant his right leg to get up. He felt nothing. "I thought the entire floor of the Humvee had been taken out," he says. "But it was still there. That's when I knew my leg was gone."
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Sergeant First Class Michael McNaughtonMcNaughton, 34, was in the Army and is now an operations specialist with the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
It was a routine job: Some incinerators needed to be installed in Bagram, Afghanistan, and McNaughton -- a platoon sergeant with the mine-clearing team -- had to make sure the area was clear. It wasn't. On Jan. 9, 2003, McNaughton stepped on a live one. "I knew it the moment I stepped on it," says the avid runner and married father of five. "You'd see an animal or child step on one. I knew what it would sound like. And I knew my leg would be gone."
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First Lieutenant Melissa StockwellWhen she got the news about her leg, Melissa Stockwell was not angry. She was happy to be alive.
On April 13, 2004, she was running a routine supply convoy with water and meals to troops outside of Baghdad. Again, the culprit was an IED. Stockwell's Humvee did not have any doors; the vehicle swerved, and her leg was crushed along a guardrail. "After surgery, I just thought, 'Well, I'm still alive. Better this happen to me than to a colleague,' " she says.
Who's who? Read it all.
