Meet our Wounded Warriors
Listed below are a few of our wounded warriors and their stories. Click on SEE MORE PHOTOS for a slideshow showing their progress.
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Marine Corporal Aaron P. Mankin was Operation Mend's first patient in August 2007. He is currently living in Texas with his wife and two beautiful children. On May 11th, 2005, he was wounded when the 26-ton amphibious assault vehicle he was traveling in rolled over an improvised explosive device and was propelled 10 feet in the air. Four Marines died in the attack and 11 others were injured. In addition to the damage sustained to his throat and lungs from smoke inhalation, Cpl. Mankin suffered intense burns on over 25 percent of his body. His ears, nose and mouth were essentially gone and he lost two fingers on his right hand.
Cpl. Mankin shares his story: FLASH VIDEO - WINDOWS MEDIA VIDEO
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Army Sergeant Darron Mikeworth is currently on active duty and living in Texas with his wife and two young boys. In April 2005, as a Humvee gunner on the way to Balad Air Base in Iraq, he saw a suicide bomber approach his convoy. The attack nearly killed Sgt. Mikeworth and left him terribly disfigured. It broke every bone in his face. He lost his nose, left eye, and almost lost his right arm. He is in the process of a series of operations with Christopher A. Crisera, M.D. that include constructing a lower eyelid in which a prosthetic eye can be placed, reconstructing his nose and reforming his lips. He is slowly regaining his face and his life.
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Marine Staff Sergeant Octavio Sanchez is a married father of four and is currently retired and living in California. In July 2005 he was the victim of a makeshift roadside bomb in Ramadi and suffered third-degree burns over 70 percent of his face and body. Before arriving at the V.A.-Greater Los Angeles, he was told there was nothing more that could be done for him. Timothy A. Miller, M.D. was able to construct a nose, using skin from Sgt. Sanchez's forehead. Once the blood supply was in place, a piece of one of his ribs was implanted to provide structure to the nose. Nostrils were fashioned out of remaining ear cartilage and his lips and cheeks were rebuilt. He has undergone several surgeries and now enjoys a more natural and normal appearance.
Marine Staff Sergeant Sanchez featured on The American Veteran: FLASH VIDEO - WINDOWS MEDIA VIDEO
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Marine Corporal Diane Cardile was awarded a Purple Heart after she was injured in Iraq in June 2005. Her Humvee that was filled with 13 other female Marines was hit by a suicide car bomb while driving in a convoy back to Camp Fallujah. She sustained serious burns around her mouth and her hands. |
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Army Captain James Barclay is currently living in Alabama with his wife, daughter and baby son. While serving as an infantry platoon leader for the 10th Mountain Division, Captain Barclay was wounded in Afghanistan by a roadside bomb on August 19, 2006. Three soldiers died that day and Captain Barclay and his driver were the only soldiers who survived. Forty-seven percent of his body was burned; 35 percent were third-degree burns. The enormous amount of scarring disfigured his face and limited his ability to fully open his mouth. The surgeries he has undergone with Dr. Timothy Miller at UCLA have restored much of his mobility and function and reduced the scarring tremendously. |
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Army Sergeant Salvador Trujillo-Lopez is currently living in Oregon with his wife and two children. He was injured on June 23, 2006 suffering second and third degree burns over 40 percent of his body when his Bradley fighting vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Sgt. Trujillo-Lopez has undergone several rounds of surgery in what will be a lengthy recovery. He has battled burns to his hands, arms, legs, face and neck. |
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Marine Gunnery Sergeant Blaine Scott is married and a father of three. He is active duty and currently stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. In August 2006 he was hit with an improvised explosive device in Iraq;three of his comrades died and three were injured. He ended up at Brooke Army Medical in San Antonio, Texas with burns to his head, face, arms and legs. He had a severely broken ankle and foot. Blaine is Operation Mend's seventh patient and will be the first to have surgery at UCLA on his ankle as an Operation Mend participant. |
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Marine Corporal Joseph Piram is still on active duty and living in Texas. Cpl. Piram joined the Marine Corps after graduating from high school in 2004. He served two seven-month tours in Iraq and was injured in Afghanistan when he was only two months from completing his service in the Marine Corps. On June 20, 2008, an improvised explosive device hit his Humvee. Cpl. Piram was burned over 35 percent of his body and broke his back in the incident. He has extensive scarring on the right side of his face and has lost his right ear. |
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Army Sergeant Richard (Rick) Yarosh was deployed to Iraq in December 2005 (then a Private First Class) as a driver of a Bradley fighting vehicle and then moved to the gunner position. On September 1, 2006, Sgt. Yarosh and his fellow soldiers were on patrol in the Abu Ghraib region of Iraq when their Bradley vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb. The explosion ruptured the vehicle's fuel cell and engulfed the entire crew and vehicle in flames. Sgt. Yarosh's face and body were on fire when he jumped from the top of the Bradley's turret. His jump broke his right leg and severed an artery, which resulted in a below-the-knee amputation. He suffered burns over 60 percent of his body, lost partial digits and full use in both hands, lost both of his ears and part of his nose. |
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Marine Corporal Oyoana Allende has recently married, retired and relocated to Camp Le Jeune in North Carolina. She was injured on June 23, 2005 when a suicide bomber rammed his car, wired with explosives into her Marine convoy truck. Fourteen female Marines were riding in the bed of the truck at the time, being dropped off at various military checkpoints where they helped search Iraqi women for weapons and explosives. Three female Marines were killed in the incident, plus the driver of her vehicle, the gunner and a rescuer. She sustained extensive burns to her face, hands and knees. |
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Marine Corporal Christopher Gray, currently living in North Carolina with his wife and two beautiful daughters was in an Abrams tank in Fallujah, Iraq, on February 17, 2007, when two rocket-propelled grenades hit his vehicle causing the ammunition inside to explode directly behind Gray's head. Everyone inside the tank was injured when it became engulfed in flames. Gray suffered third-degree burns on 53 percent of his body. Since then, he has been through multiple skin grafts and other surgeries, including a cornea transplant. About 125 centimeters of his small intestine was removed. He has undergone the beginning stages of the forehead flap procedure with Dr. Miller. |
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Army Sergeant Jason March is retired and living in San Antonio Texas with his wife and stepchild. On August 27, 2006 while leading a platoon near Fallujah he was hit by a sniper's bullet in the back of the head near his right ear while standing in the gun turret of a Bradley. The right side of Sgt. March's head, ear, jaw and brain received the direct impact of the wound. His motor control has improved, most of his memories of past events is intact and his personality, sense of humor and love of life and family are as strong as ever.
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Army Staff Sergeant Michael Mills is retired and living in Minnesota with his wife and two children. He was injured in Kirkuk, Iraq on June 14, 2005 by an improvised explosive device that burned over 31% of his body and broke his scapula, clavicle and 4 bones in his left foot. His left hip was badly broken. He had his left little finger and thumb amputated, has 13 pins and a plate in his hip, he's missing a portion of his left ear and nose. He is currently undergoing the beginning stages of reconstruction with Dr. Miller.
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