My guidance counselor in high school suggested Rider. It was noted for its business school, had a small student enrollment and was within proximity to my home in Short Hills, NJ (not too close to home, yet far enough away for me to stretch my legs as a college student).
When I visited Rider during the interview process, I got a good feeling for the school, the campus, the students, the teachers and the administration.
Like most college students, I struggled my first semester, getting C’s and D’s. I rebounded my second semester getting all B’s and continued to be a B and C student. I joined Delta Sigma Pi my sophomore year and lived in the fraternity house through graduation. I participated in intramural football, basketball and softball. My association with my brothers was one of my happiest times at Rider. In looking back on things, other than my marriage and the birth of my two sons, the four years I spent at Rider was a wonderful academic and life experience.
After graduating from Rider in 1963, I really had three options to consider: graduate school, work or the military. I had no funding for graduate school and didn’t really know what I wanted to study. The employers I talked with knew that I was eligible for the draft and hiring me was a risk for them. If my primary option was the military, I wanted to become an officer and use that experience in preparing myself for a career after the service. I took a test for the Army’s Officer Candidate School, passed and was sent to their Officer Candidate School in Ft. Benning, GA.
After 6 months of training, I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, Infantry. After additional training, I was sent to Vietnam as an advisor to the South Vietnamese Army in assisting them in their efforts against the Viet Cong. I was all of 22 years old. I spent six months as an advisor in a Southern province of South Vietnam not far from Saigon, then the capital city. After that, I was reassigned as a platoon leader with the US Army’s 25th Infantry Division based north and west of Saigon. My role was that of leading an infantry platoon in combat operations. I was by then a First Lieutenant. After seven months of service with the 25th Infantry Division, I returned to the U.S. for discharge.
In all, I spent 13 months in Vietnam. My experience in there was one of different perspectives. Initially, the experience of being in a foreign country was far and apart from anything a 22 year old from New Jersey had ever experienced before. The people, the culture, the war environment, assisting the Vietnamese Army, visiting Saigon---it was all very exciting. However, my tour with the 25th Infantry Division was war in its very basic sense; not advising or training, but heavy fighting. For the first time, I faced Viet Cong main force troops and I was scared. Somehow, I got through seven months with only minor shrapnel wounds and my platoon survived my leadership. Even so, I knew then that the war would be long and hard.
When I returned to the United States, I took a position with a New York City bank, named Bankers Trust Company in their trust department. I also began taking graduate courses in the evening on the GI Bill at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business. In 1967, I completed my MBA. During my studies, I had the opportunity to attend several courses in marketing and I felt drawn to the field.
I worked for two business firms in New York between 1967 and 1974. I met my wife while living in New York (she was from New Providence, NJ) and we married in 1972. We relocated to Boston in 1974 when I began working in strategy consulting.
The loss of my leg in the marathon bombing in 2013 was without a doubt a life changing event. All of us were directly in front of the first bomb when it went off.
My wife and younger son received shrapnel damage to their legs. Both are now fine.
I was saved from bleeding to death by a Boston policeman named Bobby Butler who put a tourniquet on my leg and carried me to an ambulance, then to Massachusetts General Hospital where they removed my leg. When I arrived at Mass General I was pronounced DOA, but was brought back to life twice (I didn’t know this until weeks later when I met my trauma surgeon).
Waking up without a leg was something that I couldn’t even begin to understand. But the hardest part for me was to see the faces of my wife and two sons when they came into my hospital room. I could see their thoughts: Will he ever recover? Will he ever be normal again? What’s going to happen with our family and home? I am not one to be depressed, but that moment, in that hospital, was the lowest point of my life.
To this point, I have had two years of therapy and have gone from a wheelchair to a walker to long crutches to short crutches to a cane. I am still participating in advanced walking therapy sessions as well as therapeutic swimming exercises. I wear a prosthesis which has microchips where my right knee used to be. The microchips assist me in balancing and general walking. I can drive and do most other “normal” activities. I am now a member of an elite “fraternity” as one of 17 Marathon Bombing survivors who had either leg or arm (or in some cases both) amputations. Not a fraternity to envy being a member of, but one that has helped each other move ahead from 4/15/2013.
Through the efforts of several wonderful therapists, other amputees, understanding physicians and my family, I have gotten to a point where I can live a normal life.
If I can offer a comment about the amputee life I’d like to do so. To borrow a phrase from Kermit the Frog,"it’s not always easy being green." We are different. There are some things we do normally and others that require extra effort. We stand out because we often need aids to assist us. In a world generally reserved for “normal” individuals, we often are the object of stares from others (especially the young). We are not to be pitied, but rather to be treated like anyone else.
I walked a 1k with crutches on Boylston Street in Boston during the 2014 Marathon, and the reception I received from the bystanders was something I’ll never forget. Those are the kind of things that keep us amputees moving on.
Since the bombing, I have worked on a full time/part time basis from home as projects require. We have two sons, Andrew and Kevin, Andrew the oldest now lives in Portland, Ore., Kevin lives and works in Boston. My wife, Mary Jo, works as a data manager with the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, MA. We live in a suburb west of Boston named Bolton with a Golden retriever named Molly and and a very independent cat named Noodles.