Heroes & Friends

Mt. Elbrus, Russia

Sgt. Retired Keith Deutsch

I was raised in a small town in MN. My father was a farmer and a motorcycle mechanic; my mother was and is a school teacher. I joined the army after 9 11. I was a senior in high school when the attack happened. Life before the Army was really just childhood, mine was pretty good. My father died when I was 10 of cancer, but I had a lot of family to make up. I have to say though I did most of my growing up after I joined the Army. I consider myself very lucky in all aspects of my life but maybe most for the way I was injured. I was a saw gunner and so acting as rear security in a convoy. I was sitting in the bed of a deuce and a half truck with my weapon resting on the tailgate. I remember hearing the distinct racket of small arms fire, AK 47s probably. We returned fire with every thing we had, although we were an engineer battalion so my M249 SAW was pretty much the biggest thing we had. The next thing I knew there was a deafening ringing in my ears and it was tough to tell which way was up. After a few seconds of confusion I tried to roll over only to feel something pulling on my right leg. When I looked down I instantly realized the severity of the situation and called for help. In the hospital I met movie star after movie star all curious to what it was like over there, and all very grateful for our sacrifices. I was awarded the Purple Heart by president Bush on one of his visits to Walter Reed Hospital. But, believe it or not he was not the most important person that I met while I was there. I vaguely remember kicking the chief of staff out of my room after he barged in against my wishes. I bet he remembers me! With the help of Tim and The Heroes Project anything is possible in life.

Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa

Mark Zambon

A Gold-Star in lieu of Second Award Purple Heart recipient, Staff Sergeant Zambon was born in Marquette Michigan on November 3d, 1984. He graduated from Marquette Senior High School in May of 2003 and shipped off to Marine Corps Recruit Training in San Diego in June 2003.

After completion of boot camp, PFC Zambon attended Marine Combat Training at the Camp Pendleton School of Infantry and then the basic supply stock school in Camp Johnson, NC. PFC Zambon received orders to 1st Combat Engineer Battalion and deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom II in February 2004. LCpl Zambon extended his deployment to thirteen months and when he returned to the United States, sought orders to become an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician.

LCpl Zambon reported to Naval School Explosive Ordnance Disposal in Eglin AFB, FL in July 2005, promoted to Corporal in September and graduated the following spring with orders to 1st EOD Company at Camp Pendleton, CA. There Cpl Zambon was subsequently promoted over time to Sergeant then Staff Sergeant and completed deployments in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom from March-October 2007, Operation Enduring Freedom from April-October 2008, and March-May 2010. In May of 2010 SSgt Zambon sustained traumatic amputations to three distal joints of his left hand. A quick recovery was made and SSgt Zambon returned to full duty in a month and a half and jumped on the training cycle to relieve the Marines he had deployed with in March of 2010. SSgt Zambon deployed again in October 2010, this time in direct support of I Co, 3rd Bn 5th Marines in Sangin, Afghanistan. The team he trained and led hit the ground running and executed expert EOD support for the company, safing and disposing of over fifty IED's and numerous other support missions; saving Marines lives and limbs and allowing I Co 3/5 freedom of movement throughout their battle space. In January of 2011 while moving dismounted in response to a explosive device through a heavily IED laden urban area in Sangin, SSgt Zambon was struck with an IED with a ten pound explosive main charge.

The blast explosively amputated SSgt Zambon's legs above the knees and is currently undergoing a full Comprehensive Combat and Complex Casualty Care (C5) rehabilitation program at Naval Medical Center San Diego. This program addresses every area of healing in the mind, body and spirit and for SSgt Zambon encompasses physical, occupational and recreational therapy, vestibular/balance clinic, prosthetic mastery, neuropsychology, orthopedic care, dietetics and Ear Nose and Throat (ENT).

The loss of one's legs is a very serious reduction in an individual's ability to affect physical action. Doubts and questions arise in a recovery as simple as "Will I be able to ever climb that hill and check out that lean-to?" With the opportunity Tim and The Heroes Project provide it knocks that question out the park. Climb a hill? How about one of the Seven Summits of the World. A golden opportunity to triumph and to make life changing meaning through conquering a peak and an injury!

Let's Climb!

Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa

Sgt. Retired Neil Duncan

It honestly has always been a goal of mine to summit Kilimanjaro, though I never thought it would materialize.

I am originally from Minnesota, though after a year of college, joined the military. I trained in Georgia for the better part of a year and then moved to Italy where I was to be stationed. All in all, I was a paratrooper in the U.S. Army for about 5 years. I did a tour in Iraq in 2003 and then another in Afghanistan in 2005. Towards the end of my tour in Afghanistan, a small group of us, including the team I was in charge of, were returning back to base after a couple days of primarily night time operations. In Afghanistan, there is little infrastructure, such as no roads, so we use trails and dry river beds to travel on. We were driving down the hillside in a dry river bed when my life quickly changed. A combatant had buried an explosive device and it blew up under my truck as we drove over it. Thankfully, it didn't hurt anyone in my team except for me. I don't remember much due to the blast. But from what I'm told, my team immediately pulled me out, gave me medical attention and called in a helicopter to pull me out. I made a stop in Germany at a military hospital before my trip back to the U.S. I "woke up" 5 days later in Washington, D.C. at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. That's when the fight really began...

I woke up in a bed to find myself missing my right leg above the knee, my left leg below the knee, and my right arm bandaged from my finger tip to my armpit. I had broken my ringer finger and elbow. My lip was severed and my jaw was broken. I had no bottom teeth, my jaw was wired shut, and a metal bar was screwed into my jaw externally to realign it. I was breathing through a tube they had put in my neck, and as a result, I couldn't talk. I had a tube running through my nose into my stomach to provide me with nourishment since I couldn't eat or drink. I had small burns on my left forearm and numerous IV tubes running into it. Not to mention several other shrapnel wounds on my face and lower body. I had surgery everyday, sometimes twice a day for weeks

It took me a short while to understand the magnitude of what I was facing, from the near future to the rest of my life. It was then that I decide to take this challenge head on. That doesn't mean, however, that I never though about quitting, never shed a tear or never got down on myself throughout my rehab. I just fought through it, literally, step by step.

Progress was slow at first and then it started to pick up quickly. I got the wires on my jaw removed, my breathing tube was removed (I could talk again!), the IVs were taken out, the cast on my arm was cut off, the stitches on my legs were cut, and my favorite moment... I could eat real food again. I was then finally fitted with prosthetic legs and never looked back. I pushed myself through rehab; I was there everyday for hours at a time. I would go out with my family on the weekends and instead of using a wheelchair, I would walk. I would be in pain, the kind of pain that I can't even describe, but I still did it. Once I got more comfortable with what I was doing, I started to look for more challenges. I kept asking myself, "What can I do that will take me further?" I felt like I could do anything, and by constantly challenging myself, I was really successful with my rehab. I was walking (again) six months after the explosion and running after eight months. After it was all said and done, I was in rehab for a year and a half.

I have found meaning in life by trying to provide motivation and inspiration to those around me in anything I do. I'm humble about it all and I really do love my life and everything that has happened. Mentally or physically, good or bad, tragic or not, I wouldn't be who I am without these experiences, and therefore, I wouldn't change a thing. Now I know that the sky is the limit for what can be accomplished.

Mt. Denali, Alaska

Sgt. 1st Class Retired Matthew Nyman

In 2005 while on a combat operation in Iraq, I was landing on a building via a small helicopter in which I was sitting on the outside of the helicopter which crashed. When we crashed, the top blade cut off my right foot a few times leaving me a below knee amputation. It also cut my left foot, severely crushing the foot. I was then thrown against a wall, stopping my body. The end result of it all was a severely crushed foot, which I was told I would never walk on again (because of the foot that I had, not the one I lost); a compound femur fracture, which damaged my peripheral nerves in the leg I still had. This left me unable to move my foot from the nerve damage, which with a lot of work and surgery, I have it functioning well enough now. My lungs were collapsed, some back damage, my chest hurt like hell, and a traumatic head injury.

So with all of that said, I wanted to go back to my team, which was part of special operations. After a while though, I decided it was best not too, from the TBI and my foot. So I retired, but as you can imagine, and relate, I still have the need for challenges to prove myself, and really need adrenaline.

Duff McKagan

I first met Tim at a party in Hollywood. Tim was fresh off of the summit of Mt. Everest and I was full of questions for him, testing his patience I am quite sure. It turns out we actually had a lot of common interests in all things adventure, except he actually DID some of the things that I only read about.

Over the course of the following year, 2008, Tim and I got together more and more often as friends who shared an interest in things like the outdoors, sports, and music. But most importantly, we all seem to share a same sense of family, brotherhood , and honor-things that seem to at times be missing too often in this hyper-fast information age.

Eventually, Tim invited me on a training hike or two. It was on these hikes and the times that Tim would come over to visit my family, that I began to understand the true character that this man has somehow contained under that flesh. Tim got me up my very first winter summit last year, and without him being there, it would have have been only a fraction of the fun and honestly, I probably would have not made it to the top of that mountain without his humor-filled chiding and hard-won expertise.

Over this last year, I have ridden along with Tim on the ups and downs, and high and lows of trying and finally succeeding in getting this HEROES PROJECT up and running. Last week, he came over to the house with a hand-shot DVD of his first two '7 Summit' attempts with wounded US veterans of the Iraq War. I was stunned by what I saw. I am proud of my friend.

Tim is a man who, through his own battles with injuries that could have set him back forever on a couch in a fit of despair and depression, really knows what these Wounded Warriors are up against. He does this not for glory for himself, but indeed as I have gotten to really know Tim, he does this for the betterment of mankind as a whole. I back this dude and The Heroes Project one-million percent!