October 5, 2012
Quadruple amputee Staff Sgt. Travis Mills gets hero's welome home
Soldier who lost 4 limbs back in Michigan hometown
By MIKE HOUSEHOLDER
10/5/2012
VASSAR, Mich. — Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills had been a lot of places since losing his four limbs in Afghanistan. The one place he hadn't been was where people knew him best.
He finally returned to his Michigan hometown this week — six months after the explosion that cost him his arms and legs — to serve as the grand marshal of his old high school's homecoming parade.
"I didn't come to Vassar yet, because I wasn't ready for people to see me without my legs. ... Because in Vassar, everybody knows everybody," Mills said in an interview hours before the parade Thursday. "Great town, but I just wasn't comfortable with them seeing me in a wheelchair."
Mills is still undergoing rehabilitation at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. But he's been able to get out and about. In the past few weeks alone, he took part in a 5K benefit walk in New York and celebrated his daughter's first birthday on the base at Fort Bragg, N.C.
His hometown has pulled for him from afar. Hair salons, American Legion posts and many others hosted fundraisers this spring and summer as the small, tight-knit community rallied around him.
Hundreds of people waving American flags jammed into Vassar's downtown to catch a glimpse of Mills at the parade Thursday evening. Mills, his wife, Kelsey, and their 1-year-old daughter, Chloe, served as the grand marshals.
The Associated Press reports from Vassar, Mich.
Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills had been a lot of places since losing his four limbs in Afghanistan. The one place he hadn't been was where people knew him best.
He finally returned to his Michigan hometown this week — six months after the explosion that cost him his arms and legs — to serve as the grand marshal of his old high school's homecoming parade.
"This is my new normal, and it's all about how I adjust to it," he said moments after using his prosthetic legs to walk from the living room to the sun room at his childhood home. "There's no good that's gonna come from me sitting there and wondering, 'Why'd this happen? Why me? Now what do I do?' The answer's right in front of you: It happened because it happened."
Carlos Osorio / AP Travis Mills rides in the back of a Jeep during the homecoming parade on Thursday, Oct. 4. Mills, his wife, Kelsey, and their 1-year-old daughter, Chloe, were the grand marshals of Vassar High School's homecoming parade.
October 18, 2013
Travis: A Soldier's Story one of 5 quadruple amputees
Soldier receives hero's welcome at screening of documentary 'Travis: A Soldier's Story'
Fay Observer
Drew Brooks Staff Writer
Oct 18, 2013
Staff Sgt. Travis Mills insists he's not a hero, that he doesn't deserve any more praise than any other soldier.
Nonetheless, he received a hero's welcome Thursday in Fayetteville, as scores of people viewed a documentary about Mills, one of only five quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mills was injured in April 2012 while serving with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division in southern Afghanistan.
Addressing more than 200 people who paid to see "Travis: A Soldier's Story" at the Carmike 12, Mills told jokes, sang and otherwise showed the larger-than-life personality that his friends and fellow paratroopers said never went away, even after his limbs were blown off by an improvised explosive device.
"They may have taken his legs and arms, but his personality has stayed intact," said Sgt. David Flynn, a member of the Army's Golden Knights and Mills' best friend.
Mills, who is currently assigned to a unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C., returned to Fayetteville for the movie's screening after a successful online effort to have the film shown near Fort Bragg.
The audience was filled with veterans, including Mills' cohorts from the Fury Brigade, and family and friends. They gave Mills a standing ovation when he was introduced before the film.
Some viewers traveled from as far as Pennsylvania for the chance to see the film and meet Mills.
"My story's just one of so many," Mills said. "But I was really nervous about showing it here."
Mills said he hoped his story wouldn't discourage anyone from joining the Army or deploying.
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