Watching 20/20 the other night before Memorial Day, I learned of the unbelievably inspiring story of Private Channing Moss. On March 16 2006, Moss, 23, was in Afghanistan when his team was attacked and a missile was fired at their humvee. The missile did not explode, but rather landed into the stomach of Moss. Moss was rushed to a hospital in Afghanistan where US surgeons operated on him even at the risk of losing their lives if the missile were to explode. An explosives’ expert, Srgt. Dan Brown who was on base came to aid the surgeons.
“I looked everybody in the eye and said, ‘You guys understand what’s going on here, right?’ And I knew everybody heard me, but nobody said anything. They just kept doing their jobs,” Brown said.
The aid station had two doctors, Maj. John Oh, a general surgeon, and Maj. Kevin Kirk, an orthopedic surgeon. Oh told the others it was okay to leave — but nobody did. With no words exchanged, each had decided to risk their life to save Moss.
Hours later, the surgeons were able to get the missile out of Moss and out of the hospital.
For his bravery Moss was to be awarded the Medal of Valor and a Purple Heart, however he wanted to stand before collecting his medals.
“I wanted to walk and get my medal, I wanted to stand up, to let them know I fought hard to get where I came from,” Moss said and so through intense therapies and other surgeries, Moss worked hard to be able to collect his medal this passed week. ”They say ‘Army Strong’ [and] I wanted to be an example of that, and I was. So I stood up, I walked over there and got my medal.”
There is just so much inspiration in this story and to read more about it or to see the 20/20 episode please go here: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3603057&page=1
