~TISSUE ALERT~

On Lou Dobbs’ program tonight on CNN’s HLN, Army Sgt. Kelly Keck was honored as one of the Heroes’ Weekly Tribute in the Headline News series.

From the Daily/Nightly:

Army Sgt. Kelly Keck, 34, of West Liberty, Ky., was a combat medic in Afghanistan. On Sept. 13 he came to the aid of several soldiers whose truck was blown up by a roadside bomb.

“I stepped off the road to try to get to the side of the truck, and the next thing I know I hear a loud boom, and I’m laying on the ground,” he said recently.

Keck had stepped on a land mine. Seriously wounded, he was still alert enough to tell those assisting him that he needed a morphine injection for his pain. They hesitated.

“I said, ‘I don’t want pain. If I tell you to give it to me, you know, I’m your doc, so give it to me,’” he said.

Keck got his injection and was quickly medevaced to a field hospital in Jalalabad, but he ended up losing three fingers on his left hand and his right leg below the knee.

“It was quite an ordeal,” the soft-spoken soldier said.

Keck was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he’s been recuperating for about two months.

“The care’s been really good, at least for me,” he said. “I’ve had no problems, really. The biggest thing is if I have pain, say in my leg, and it’s the phantom pain, as a lot of it is, it hurts really bad. Getting the right medication sometimes takes awhile because they start from the bottom and go up to see how bad it is.”

God bless these men and women in uniform who protect our very freedoms so I can sit here and write this story about him. Godspeed, Sgt. Keck. My prayers go out to you and your family, and I thank you for your service.