The Soldiers He Sent Into Battle

Juan Carlos Hernandez was born in Orizaba, Mexico. At the age of 9, his mother brought Juan and his two brothers to the United States so they could build better lives than she’d had.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t have papers, so we crossed the border illegally,” Juan says. “I was terrified. I didn’t speak a single word of English, and I knew nothing about this place I would come to love and call home.”

After graduating from high school in Schulenburg, Texas, Juan joined the Army. “I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself and do something that I would forever be proud of. But for me, the main reason was to give back to the country that had done so much for my family and me,” he says.

Juan served in Afghanistan, where he manned a machine gun in the door of a helicopter. On a mission in 2009, a rocket-propelled grenade hit his team’s helicopter. Juan lost his right leg in the attack.

He recovered at Brooke Army Medical Center, in Texas, where he was fitted with a prosthetic leg. He started walking again in just three months.

Juan was deeply moved by the care he received throughout his recovery—so moved, in fact, that he is now pursuing his undergraduate degree in kinesiology, the study of the mechanics of body movements. After being on the receiving end of life-changing physical therapy, Juan wants to pay it forward. “I would love to work with children who struggle with disabilities and make their lives better.”

Juan is grateful for the opportunity to have served this country—his country. “That’s my payback. That’s my way of saying thank-you,” he says.

He became an American citizen in May 2009.* Juan’s story is one example of the countless ways that immigrants make America great. And I am honored and humbled to call Juan Carlos Hernandez my fellow citizen.

*Juan got a green card that gave him legal status when he was 15. Undocumented immigrants with no legal status cannot serve in the military.

Danny Casara is a man of many interests. He started playing the drums at age 2. At 7, he fell in love with baseball. He was a biology pre-med student at Xavier University in Louisiana before changing his major to music and liberal arts. Then he joined the Army.

In 2005, an antitank mine flipped Danny’s armored personnel carrier in Baghdad, killing two of his teammates and crushing Danny’s legs. “Doctors asked me if I wanted them to save my legs,” he recalls. “I said, ‘Yeah. I came into this world with two legs, and I’m going to leave with two.’”

It took 24 surgeries to keep them, and doctors weren’t sure whether Danny would walk again. “I had to relearn how to walk. The falling, the getting back up—it just became a way of life.”

Danny says his recovery accelerated when he began coaching his son’s baseball team. “Trying to teach him how to field a ground ball from a wheelchair was frustrating,” he says, “so I just pushed myself. And my family, friends, and many nonprofit organizations helped me recover.” 

In 2014, Danny spoke in front of a large crowd at a dinner the Bush Institute was hosting. He had the entire audience captivated with his story and its lessons. He was so good, I nicknamed him The Preacher.

“To my fellow brothers and sisters in arms, I say, stay encouraged and never let anyone tell you that your outcome will be determined by your situation,” he says. “If someone is down, reach out hard to help pull them up. You will heal faster in the process.” Amen.

Tim Gaestel was scheduled to leave for basic training on Sept. 11, 2001. That morning, our country—and Tim’s future—changed forever. Tim served two combat tours, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.

Just 10 days after he arrived in Iraq in September 2003, Tim’s Humvee was hit by two roadside bombs on an infamous stretch of road known as Ambush Alley. His legs and back were severely wounded by the shrapnel. Tim recovered in Iraq and completed his time there, despite the persistent pain of his injuries.

When Tim’s unit returned to the U.S., they resumed their physical training regimen with a six-mile run. Tim managed to finish the run. Then, he collapsed. “I couldn’t feel my legs, and my back was on fire,” Tim says. “I knew then that I couldn’t be the kind of soldier that I wanted to be, so I needed to go do something else for my community.”

Unfortunately, that “something else” didn’t reveal itself right away. “It was hard seeing how the country was just moving on,” Tim says. “I came back to Austin and saw a concert with friends. People were happy and dancing around like nothing had happened. There was a war going on, and they didn’t seem to know it.”

Tim secluded himself, having lost the desire to hang out with his friends. He started dropping classes at Texas State University. He stopped exercising because of the pain and gained weight.

He felt alone, but he wasn’t. “I want to thank my father,” Tim says. “He saw me struggle and saw that something was wrong. One day he pulled up and demanded I come out and play golf with him.”

Something just clicked out on the course. “It got me back on my feet, back moving, back doing something. I became hooked. Golf saved my life.”

Today, Tim teaches history and coaches golf at Vista Ridge High School, in Cedar Park, Texas—the district from which he graduated.

Melissa Stockwell’s Army service began in an ROTC* program during her sophomore year at the University of Colorado. “I joined because I love our country, short and simple,” she says, adding with poise and grace, “I proudly put an American flag on my prosthetic leg. I’m proud to show it off, proud of how I lost it.”

On April 13, 2004, three weeks into Melissa’s deployment to Iraq, her vehicle hit an IED.** A combat medic performed emergency surgery on the scene, stabilizing Melissa and saving her life. She was the first female to lose a limb in the war on terror.

“I was 24 years old when I lost my leg,” Melissa says. “You never expect it to happen. You never think it’s going to be you.” She spent a year recovering at Walter Reed medical center, outside of Washington, D.C. “I looked around and saw a lot of other soldiers who were much worse off than I was. We were all trying to find our new normal. I really considered myself one of the lucky ones. I used their resilience as motivation. I wanted to live my life for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice and didn’t make it back at all.”

An eternal optimist and lifelong athlete, Melissa says the hardest part was waiting for her body to heal enough that she could get moving again.

Adapted from Portraits of Courage. Copyright © 2017 by George W. Bush. Photographs by Grant Miller. Published by Crown, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.