Staff Sergeant Dan Nevins: The 'Wounded Warrior' on the Bottom

All he could hear was the faint humming of the 6.2-liter diesel engine.

 

It was pitch black and eerily silent, the moon and stars blocked by low-hanging clouds. The clock read 4 a.m. in Balad, Iraq, as his Humvee lumbered down a dark dirt road.

 

Staff Sergeant Dan Nevins, leading his combat team on a 72-hour counterinsurgent operation in the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004, bowed his head in prayer as he did before every mission.

 

The moments of silence, however, were quickly destroyed by the blast of an IED detonating beneath the 18,000-pound vehicle, sending the truck six feet into the air in a ball of fire.

 

Nevins was ejected from the wreckage, his legs remaining caught in the twisted and burning metal of the floorboard and undercarriage.

 

He vividly recalls the minutes that followed. 

 

“I couldn’t really see. My vision was blurry. I had a ringing in my ears. My face was really hot,” Nevins said. “I had a sickening knot in my stomach and my mouth tasted like blood.         

 

“My everything was upside down.”

 

Nevins somehow gathered himself, the sparse light from the fire allowing him to see the horror of his surroundings. In the driver’s compartment of the vehicle, he saw his good friend, Sergeant First Class Mike Ottoloni, who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

 

Nevins was unable to sit up. He checked his head and his upper torso. His helmet disintegrated in his hands.

 

He then reached down to his legs, felt an arterial blood spurt — and began to make his peace with God.

 

“I knew I was going to die,” Nevins said. “I was saying goodbye to my wife and 10-year-old daughter. I was giving up — losing all of my blood in this horrible place.”

 

Then, Nevins had a realization: He was alive.

 

The medic arrived, quickly applying a tourniquet to Nevins’ leg and jabbing an IV into his arm. His team dangerously secured the perimeter and worked to remove his legs from the burning truck.

 

Still, Nevins hovered on the brink of death — and he knew it.

 

“They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes,” he observed. “Not for me. I remember thinking about all of things I was never going to do. I would never walk my daughter down the aisle.”

 

Nevins was transported by helicopter back to his Army’s base in Iraq. After hours of surgery, he remembers waking up to the words of a nurse. He had lost his left leg below the knee. His right leg, severely damaged, was saved — for the time being.

 

The next day, he arrived in Germany, where he stayed for seven days of surgeries before a pain-killer-free, utterly agonizing flight to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C.

 

In those initial weeks, Nevins was often alone, left with nothing but endless hours to think.

 

“In every way I defined myself as a man, it was over,” he said. “I couldn’t lead my team in combat. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t walk. I could barely breath.

 

“I didn’t want to see my wife. More than that, I didn’t want her to see me. I was full of guilt, fear, doubt, pain, and misery. I was broken, lying useless in a hospital bed.”

 

He lay prone in that position — both mentally and physically — until two men showed up at his door, visiting him at Walter Reed as Nevins began the long road to recovery.

 

The men were founders of the Wounded Warrior Project, a brand-new organization started by three people desperately trying to make a difference.

 

Nevins instantly identified with the logo — one warrior carrying another off the battlefield. He was the soldier being carried. The visit gave him hope.

 

“They were brief, right, and gone,” Nevins said. “But that interaction set me up to be in a better place. My wife would still love me. Things would be O.K.”

 

Within a few weeks, the men returned, asking Nevins to join a group of wounded veterans on a ski trip. He hadn’t even sat up in his hospital bed, and couldn’t fathom the possibility. The men promised Nevins they’d get him to the bottom of the slope.

 

“That day, I learned that my disability didn’t have to define me,” he said. “I got to write next chapter. Just because I didn’t have legs didn’t mean I couldn’t live the most amazing life.

 

“What God wants for me is to be happy.”

 

Nevins wasn’t able to go on that ski trip. But the self-described adrenaline junky has been snowboarding, kite boarding, kayaking, and rock climbing in the years following that dark, pre-dawn morning in Iraq.

 

Nevins visited with Brunswick Upper School students on Tuesday, November 10 —the 11th anniversary of his “Alive Day” and the Marine Corps birthday — to describe every chilling moment.

In 2008, he received the George C. Lang Award for courage — the highest honor bestowed by Wounded Warrior Project — and, in 2009, he joined the organization in an official capacity. He currently serves as director of Warriors Speak, a prestigious group of wounded warriors and caregivers who have been selected to share their personal and inspirational stories of courage and integrity with the public.

 

Nevins, now the father of two daughters, summited Mount Kilimanjaro in 2010.

 

And, as he reflects, not once has he regretted a minute of his service in uniform.

 

“It’s hard to compete with the honor of leading men in combat. I can’t imagine a greater honor,” Nevins said.

 

“Equally as much, it’s an honor to wear a completely different uniform and find a way to serve,” he said, referring to the Wounded Warrior Project’s logo.

 

“I no longer identify with the guy on top. I’m the warrior on bottom, doing the heavy lifting for those who haven’t found their smiles yet, for those who are still in their hospital beds. I show them that life is still beautiful.”

 

For Brunswick students — especially the senior class — Nevins had a simple, concluding question.

 

“How are you being called to serve?”