Marine Organ Donor Family and Recipient Aim To Meet

Marine Organ Donor Family and Recipient Aim To Meet
By RESHMA KIRPALANI
August 15, 2011

Sgt. Jacob Chadwick, 23, left, received a lifesaving kidney from Lt. Patrick Wayland, 24, right, who died after going into cardiac arrest on Aug. 1, 2011. (ABC News)

On Aug. 7, Sgt. Jacob Chadwick, 23, of San Marcos, Calif., underwent a four-and-a-half hour kidney transplant at UC San Diego Medical Center that saved his life. His kidney donor was a fellow marine, 24-year-old Lt. Patrick Wayland from Midland, Texas, who went into cardiac arrest on Aug. 1 at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida.

Now, both the Wayland and the Chadwick families have told ABCNews.com that they would like to meet, when the Waylands have moved pass the aftershocks of grief and Chadwick has healed from his surgery.

"What they did was pretty great," Chadwick said. "A piece of their son is keeping me alive. Eventually, I think they should [get to know the person] who their son's kidney went to."
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San Marcos Marine receives gift of life from fallen Marine

MILITARY: San Marcos Marine receives gift of life from late comrade
By BRANDI PEREZ
Posted: Thursday, August 11, 2011
Marines Corps bonds run strong and deep, even when troops and their families don't know one another.

Just ask Sgt. Jacob Chadwick of San Marcos, who survived a 2009 combat tour in Iraq only to suffer organ failure.

Chadwick has a new lease on life thanks to a kidney donation from a fellow Marine who died last week.

The kidney, transplanted Sunday, came from 2nd Lt. Patrick Wayland, a man Chadwick had never met but whose family wanted his organs donated to service members in need.

Wayland suffered heart failure Aug. 1 during survival training at Florida's Pensacola Naval Air Station. He died Aug. 6. Wayland's family asked his doctors to find military recipients for their son's organs.

Chadwick, a former Camp Pendleton infantryman, said he is forever grateful. Matching a donor to a kidney patient can take years.


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Marine 2nd LT Patrick Wayland

Why haven't we heard about sailors deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan?

If you keep track of the reports on the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, you would know that it is not just the Army and Marines, along with the National Guards and Reservists, but the Navy as well as the Air Force. What I didn't know was that so little was being done for the sailors who deploy into other units. This is sad and this is wrong.

You'd think that the DOD would be doing everything possible for the Navy and their families. Something needs to be done about this.

Sailors go solo on stressful Army, USMC tours

By Melissa Nelson - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Oct 31, 2008 14:52:28 EDT

PENSACOLA NAVAL AIR STATION, Fla. — Chief Warrant Officer Bob Turner spent most of the last year at an Army base in Afghanistan, far from his fellow sailors and the sea. The 28-year veteran was one of thousands of sailors attached by themselves to Army and Marine units, groups that trained together stateside — without them.

These solo sailors and their families lack the usual support groups for deployed personnel, and the costs of that can be considerable.

The stress for “individual augmentees,” as they’re called, can be greater than shipboard assignments because sailors deploy alone for six months to a year and are doing entirely different jobs than they’ve had throughout their careers, said Cmdr. Tracy Skipton, a psychiatrist at Pensacola Naval Hospital. Turner, for instance, was providing electronics support for a special operations team working outside the base.

“It was a whole new life for me,” Turner said.

It wasn’t easy working his way into the unit, either. Even though Turner wore an Army uniform and worked closely with soldiers, it took him months to feel that he was part of the team.

“You definitely know you are an IA because you see a group of Army come in together and they’ve trained in the states together and made plans to get ready for this,” he said.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/10/ap_navyia_103108/