Wounded Vets Take Message of Hope to Victims

Without fanfare or cameras several Marines visited victims of the Boston Bombing with a message of hope. Having lost limbs themselves, they were able to share hope with the hurting.

Bloomberg News: B.J. Ganem lost a leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq while serving in the Marines. Bobby  Donnelly lost his after a high-altitude parachute jump.

When the explosions went off in Boston last week, ripping through the crowd and injuring more than 260 people, the two ex- soldiers and three other veterans quickly flew to Boston to meet with the victims who lost limbs. Their goal: To bring a message of hope to the survivors, showing them how active they could be despite their injuries, Ganem said in an interview.

The Marines are part of the Semper Fi Fund, a group that provides assistance for wounded and critically injured Armed Forces members and their families. The fund helps soldiers with their lives post-injury, adapting their homes, getting prosthetics and providing support.

Bloomberg: Ganem, 36, is an endurance athlete who dances with his daughter using Microsoft Corp.’s motion-activated Kinect gaming console, he said. Donnelly, 30, competes in triathlons. They each own about a half-dozen artificial legs, some of which they showed off for the amputation victims at Boston Medical Center.

“A couple of the girls are big dancers,” Ganem said of the patients he visited for about 30 minutes each in their rooms at the hospital. “I told them, ‘I play the Kinect with my daughter and scored pretty high, and you already know how to dance. I don’t have any rhythm, so you guys can score amazing.’

“They were laughing,” he said yesterday. “It was good, the families really appreciated that.”

Read the entire article at Bloomberg or visit the Semper Fi Fund for more information.