Vietnam War veteran meets Iraq wounded soldier he helped save

Iraq veteran reunites with rescuer
By AUDREY PARENTE, Staff Writer
June 7, 2010 12:05 AM
Blood-splattered blue jeans -- worn two years ago by veteran photojournalist Jim Wade -- have never been washed.

Wade brought the well-preserved jeans with him from West Melbourne to show former Army corporal and Purple Heart recipient Walter "Matt" Bailey.

The recent reunion in a quiet gated Palm Coast condominium community was their first since an explosion in Iraq on March 30, 2008, wounded Bailey, then 19. He was driving the armored military vehicle in which Wade was a passenger.

Then a private, Bailey was injured by an improvised explosive device that sprayed molten-hot shrapnel.

"The last thing I remember seeing was Jim," said Bailey, 22. "He was wrapping up my foot."

In addition to losing part of his foot, Bailey suffered injuries to both legs, severe nerve damage to his right arm and serious emotional trauma.

The explosion left a crater, said Wade, a 60-plus-year-old Vietnam War veteran -- who leaped out of the back passenger door of the vehicle to help Bailey and others in the Humvee. A retired aircraft mechanic and Seabee, Wade was embedded with Wade's unit, and has been back and forth to the war zone capturing war footage.





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Iraq veteran reunites with rescuer