STINSON-ZACHARY

A  TRUE  PATRIOT

SGT Zachary Stinson was on his first deployment on November 9, 2010.  While on a foot patrol in Afghanistan he stepped on an IED resulting in the traumatic amputations of his right leg below the knee and his left leg above the knee.  Lifesaving measures by corpsman readied him for medevac while a gun battle ensued.  He remembers asking a corpsman to tell his wife who was pregnant with their first child that he loved her.  Medically evacuated by helicopter, SGT Stinson was first treated at Camp Bastion and then the Craig Joint Theater Hospital in Bagram before being transported to Landstuhl, German.  He arrived at Bethesda Naval Medical Center six days after the blast and was treated there for three months.  Transferred to Richmond, Virginia, for 30 days, SGT Stinson was next sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. where he spent more than a year before finally transferring to the newly renamed Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.  SGT Stinson endured more than 25 surgeries, including the eventual amputation of his right leg above the knee.  He was medically retired from the Corps in 2013.

On July 16, 2012, in Washington, D.C., SGT Stinson was present at an Olympic men’s exhibition basketball game with Brazil.  Before the game SGT Stinson showed that he was a stand up kind of guy and a true patriot by using his arms to stand during the playing of the national anthem. 

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)