On this week’s episode of Leader of the Pack, hosted by our admired CEO Tom Sega, we hosted Colonel Greg Gadson of the US Army and unpacked his emotional, inspiring, and heroic story. Proud Veteran, Colonel Gadson shared his experience and aspirations as a young D1 football player, his evolution into the US military, and the night in Iraq that changed his life forever.  

Gadson’s Journey into the Military 

Colonel Gadson grew up in Oklahoma, with aspirations of becoming a professional football player. When denied a football scholarship from the University of Virginia, an opportunity to play D1 football at the United States Military Academy, West Point presented itself and Gadson gladly accepted. He played all four years as an outside linebacker for West Point and met his future wife in his junior year, getting married 3 days after graduation. After graduating, he endured basic training and was taught very quickly as he described, “a process of professional hell raisers, an 8-week indoctrination, where you start to understand that you’re a part of an organization that is not about you but it’s about the greater purpose and the greater mission.” He went on to say that you had to learn very quickly to put “you” aside and put the “we” ahead of yourself.” After basic, he was commissioned as an officer of the US Army and served our nation for more than 26 years.  

Deployments  

In Gadson’s first assignment, he was a platoon leader for an artillery platoon in the 75^th FA Brigade. When the infamous “Desert Storm” was going on, Colonel Gadson was deployed to help push the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. He explains that he was looking forward to his first mission and described it as the “ultimate test” and wanting to prove himself in combat. After deployment (which was successful), Gadson walked away with the very cold stark face of war. He explains that there is nothing glamorous about war or being in a profession that deals with life and death every day. He described deployments and his missions as a “very sobering experience” and that taking another life and seeing so much death and destruction, regardless of the justification with it, made him question if he wanted to be in the Army as a career. However, he did stay in and went on three more combat deployments to Afghanistan, the Balkans, and Iraq, with Iraq being the deployment that changed his life forever.  

Iraq, 2007  

Colonel Gadson describes Iraq in those early months of 2007 as “an environment where almost every single day a U.S. service member paid in full measure.” He said he would go to work every day knowing someone in the same uniform as him wasn’t going home alive. In the month of May 2007 alone, 131 US service members paid with their lives, and more than 10 times that number were severely and brutally injured. On the evening of May 7^th, 2007, Gadson was returning in a Humvee from a memorial service for his fallen brothers, questioning if this pain and loss was worth it, when his Humvee was struck with an IED (improvised explosive device) immediately changing his life forever. The blast lifted the Humvee off the ground, and Gadson got ejected out of the vehicle. He explains to Tom that he specifically remembers flying through the air. Gadson was found 4-6 hours after the explosive went off, about a football field away from where the vehicle stopped, unconscious and lying in a pool of his blood. Gadson shares, “the last thing I consciously remember saying was ‘God I don’t want to die here.’” When found, an officer began to try and resuscitate him while a 19-year-old medic began to get tourniquets on his legs to stop the bleeding which is what his doctor believed to be what saved his life. Colonel Gadson died six times that night and went through 129 pints of blood. On May 11^th, he arrived at the Walter Reid Medical Center in Washington D.C. and was immediately intubated, unfortunately undergoing the amputation of both of his legs.  

Life After the Injury 

After going through recovery, Colonel Gadson didn’t let the loss of his legs stop him from living a dynamic and fulfilling life. Not only was he awarded a plethora of military awards such as the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, but he made his acting debut in the movie Battleship, a 2012 American science fiction naval war film, playing a war veteran trying to recover from the loss of his legs, who regains his appetite for the fight when Oahu is threatened by an alien attack. Gadson says that it was extremely easy to fit into this role and even assisted him in the acceptance of being an amputee. Furthermore, he is now the managing partner of Patriot Strategies, a government services company and has dedicated his life to helping wounded warriors and veterans with disabilities.  

Colonel Gadson, we thank you for your service and the ultimate sacrifice. We are forever grateful. You are a true American hero and it was an honor to hear your story.