Photo By Robert Hammer | Retired U.S. Army Col. Gregory Gadson gives the keynote address at 2024 Military...... read more read more
Lying in a hospital bed days before Memorial Day in 2007, then U.S. Army Lt. Col. Gregory Gadson only heard a single thought.
“How close am I to being memorialized?”
Yet above the whirring of medical equipment around him, the beeps of his heart rate, and the sympathetic, soft voices of the doctors telling him that they had to amputate his leg to save his life—a second thought emerged:
“I’m not going to quit.”
Days earlier, Gadson had been on a routine patrol in Baghdad, Iraq. He was thrown from his vehicle after it was struck by an improvised explosive device. Gadson was in critical condition, his legs and arm severely damaged from the attack.
“All I knew how to do was push back, even in this fog and moment of uncertainty, not knowing what to expect.”
What Gadson didn’t know at the time was that his story of resilience would define his life’s work moving forward. He would remain on active duty, promoted to the rank of colonel, take command of one of the largest U.S. Army installations in the world, and serve 26 years in the U.S. Army. In retirement, Gadson would become a motivational speaker, sharing his story of how he recovered, rebuilt, and persevered in the years following his injuries. His compelling message would inspire crowds at events and conferences even in front of thousands of military health professionals at the 2024 Military Health System Research Symposium. Gadson would highlight the importance of medical training, and how the character of the military medical experts involved in his care, were instrumental in saving his life.
He would discuss his journey with NFL teams who went onto victory, with cadets looking upon their next chapter of life, with Department of Defense staff about hiring those with disabilities. He would share his story as encouragement to carry on, to spark hope to those fighting for recovery, and to tell others to “be the best you can today … and moving forward, really embrace health,” said Gadson.
Football-Turned-War Hero
A football star in his youth, Gadson followed his dream of becoming a professional football player—all the way to U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
“That was the most important thing, in the back of my mind, to have a pro-football career,” Gadson said. “You might say I went there with a bit of a chip on my shoulder, because I wanted to prove that I could play at the highest level.”
While football and good grades may have brought him to school, it was the mindset of the military that truly became his passion.
Sports served as “a tremendous sort of development and building block. In my maturing as an athlete that, in a lot of ways, I took that into being a soldier. We have a five-year service obligation after attending the academy and I thought I would transition out and try to find my way back into football. But I fell in love with being a soldier and I just decided to keep going.”
Gadson rose through the ranks as a field artillery officer and through the guidance of “strong noncommissioned officers that I say raised me right, raised me to understand how to care, to hold us to task and to living up to standards,” that allowed him to lead soldiers.
“What kept me in was really the sense of being on a team, the sense of being part of something greater than myself, which was, ironically, very similar to being on a football team,” he said. “One of the common bonds between team sports and in our military, what we do is the sense of commitment. And I say all the time that commitment's blind it's without condition.”
As he excelled in his military career, Gadson’s West Point football teammate was also striving for success—Paul Pasquina, who was studying medicine. Their journeys would connect later in ways neither of them would have predicted.
Gadson went on to serve in Operations Desert Shield/Storm in Kuwait, Operation Joint Forge in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, where that one night would change his life forever.
May 7, 2007
Gadson’s battalion was returning from a memorial service in Iraq. As the patrol neared the base, it was struck by an IED.
A 19-year-old private—who had just completed a two-week medic training course—rushed to his side to treat his injuries. Before their deployment, the private had trained with his platoon, and Gadson personally had him “pulled up to be a medic because I was the senior guy in the organization. I didn’t want to break up all the teamwork that they had built for deployment.”
His senior leader intuition about the young private proved right.
“The doctors gave this young man credit for saving my life by how well he put the tourniquets on my legs,” Gadson said. “My soldiers had my life in their hands.”
After he was evacuated off the battlefield and rushed into triage, Gadson, ever the charismatic leader, found a moment of humor amid the chaos.
“They got me (triaging) in the medical clinic on the base, and they're trying to get the bleeding stopped … there’s a nurse who’s trying to get my glove off of me. I look up at him and said, ‘How are you going to save my life if you can’t get my glove off?’”
He quickly lost consciousness and was rushed to the hospital, where Gadson would go through “129 pints of blood and go into (cardiac) arrest six times … but the doctors didn't give up on me and they kept fighting for me.”
Gadson stabilized in a combat support hospital in the Green Zone, then was flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, and Joint Base Andrews, and finally onto Walter Reed Army Medical Center, now part of the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
A sense of familiarity came to Gadson as a member of his care team: Pasquina, now a U.S. Army colonel and doctor, recognized his former teammate.
Fate aside, his health care team had to give him the grim news about what they needed to do to save his life.
“I required surgery every other day to repair my blood vessels and clean up my wounds,” he said. “A week after arriving at Walter Reed, the doctors had to take my left leg to save my life. The blood vessels could no longer sustain blood flow, so they amputated my left leg above the knee. Ultimately, I would make the decision for them to take my right leg, because it was a not going to function as it was intended.”
He also had limited use of his right arm, learning that “my upper bicep and elbow were broken as well. That would require some surgery. And unfortunately, I had some complications from that surgery.”
Gadson also developed heterotopic ossification at the end of his legs, a condition where bone tissue forms abnormally in soft tissues outside of the skeletal system.
He said it was “one of my lowest moments because I was down to one limb. My nondominant left arm and hand was really all I had to use for all my activities of daily life. I needed someone to help me.”
Family and Seeking Support
That someone to help him was his wife. They had met as classmates at West Point, married, and had children before the attack. It was her “unconditional love” that “underwrote my recovery,” he said. “I didn't have to worry about her leaving me or my family, not wanting to be around me, wanting to shun me because I was way different. No family ever asks for this, and we certainly didn't. But she stepped up and led our family, my kids, through this.”
As Gadson adjusted to his new way of life and coped with the emotional and physical trauma of his injuries, his wife urged him to seek mental health support.
“I didn't want professional mental health, but she said, ‘We’re all going through this; you got to get some help.’”
Gadson sought his care team at Walter Reed. He started to receive mental health support for his injuries. He never lost sight of his primary goal—to continue to serve.
“I wasn't going to let myself be defined by these injuries. I was going to be defined by what I was willing to do. And so I fought to continue to stay on active duty, which ultimately was approved.”
He remained on active duty in the U.S. Army for seven years after the IED attack, eventually becoming garrison commander of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he oversaw the daily operations for more than 140 commands and agencies for the Department of Defense. He also sought treatment from the Soldier Recovery Unit at Walter Reed—participating in unique therapies, including “elements of adaptive reconditioning,” such as riding horses, cycling, and skiing—all tailored for his healing experience.
“I thought they were absolutely brilliant because my mission was to heal,” he said. “You don't need to feel bad about being there … you need to take advantage of it because you can grow. When you struggle in life, that's when we grow.”
‘Angels’ in Recovery
When Gadson retired from the military, he realized that he had a story “people wanted to hear,” he said. As military leaders, “we have a moral obligation, a responsibility to share our life experiences. The good, the bad, the ugly. And that's strength.”
In his motivational career, he has spoken with service members in recovery, co-wrote a book, titled, “Finding Waypoints: A Warrior’s Journey Towards Peace and Purpose,” and even gave inspirational speeches to the NFL New York Giants football team, merging his passion for sports with his unprecedented story of resilience.
Aside from his own determination, grit, and strive for excellence, Gadson references his MHS care team for his successes.
“That's how I describe this network of angels in my care, everything literally was perfect, right?” Gadson said. “I'm not supposed to be here, and I'm here.”
He encourages people to think about Memorial Day as inspiration to carry on.
“My motivation is to live my best life for those who didn't make it home,” he said. “I have to make their sacrifice worth it. And the only way I make their sacrifice worth it is to make the most of my life.”
| Date Taken: | 05.22.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.22.2025 13:42 |
| Story ID: | 498723 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 61 |
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This work, ‘Angels in My Care’ Lead to Inspirational Journey of Recovery, Resilience, by Robyn Mincher, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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