The Patriot Post® · My 2011 Man of the Year

The first time I ever met D.J. Skelton he offered to show me his brain. I’ll never forget it. My son and his beautiful Natalie had just gotten married in Washington and there were all were, dressed to the nines at the most fun wedding reception in history, when this guy with just one eye shows up wearing a black warm-up jacket and blue jeans.

It turned out he’d driven all night and most of that day from Fort Benning, just to be there, and when I found out who he was, this 32-year-old with a missing eye who refuses to wear a patch “because there is no use in hiding who you really are,” it meant as much to me as it did to the delighted Andrew and Natalie.

I saw D.J. again yesterday. He’s just been selected as a 2011 American of the Year by Esquire Magazine and is standing, at attention, in this month’s issue. He was picked because he is a “Patriot.” My God, is he ever! Captain D.J. Skelton, one of my son’s best and most loyal friends, is an American treasure and for Esquire to pick him in a class that includes Apple’s Steve Jobs, astronaut Mark Kelly and tycoon Warren Buffet makes my heart sing.

Six years ago in Iraq during “Operation Desert Fury,” D.J. Skelton was a young Army officer when a rocket-propelled grenade got too close and D.J. was horribly wounded in the rain of shrapnel. His face was hit by one metal shard and it tore through his right cheek, ripped off the roof of his mouth and screamed through his left eye, taking the entire socket.

At the wedding reception last November, as Natalie’s Italian family partied and danced with a joy and glory that still makes me want to gasp, D.J. and I were drinking beer and he told me one funny story after another about the times he and Andrew had spent while bunkmates in a Ranger Regiment.

At one memorable point he somewhat enthusiastically asked if I’d like him to remove the prosthetic that today is the only way he can eat and drink. He promised he could actually show me his brain through the missing roof of his mouth. When I turned down the chance, he thought it was really funny and ran off to get us two more Bud Lights.

The better story, as portrayed by Esquire writer Mark Minkin, goes like this:

* * *

For a second there, D. J. Skelton felt like he was floating. And then came the sound of a soldier asking if he was alive. Skelton tried to scream. But nothing came out. Then … blinding pain.

The RPG ambush in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, destroyed Skelton’s entire upper jaw, palate, and left eye. His left arm was pulverized and a fist-sized hole was punched through his right leg. It would take sixty surgeries and six years for Skelton to fully recover, during which he worked for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and cofounded a disable-bodied sports organization, Paradox Sports.

But one thing he knew soon after he awoke in the hospital: He wanted to return to his men.

In March, Skelton took command of 150 infantrymen, armor soldiers, and fire-support soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry during their one-year tour in Afghanistan. Although he can’t see out of his left eye and eats with a prosthesis, the soldiers see him as nothing other than what he is — Captain Skelton, head of the company. He is the most seriously injured active-duty soldier. And he is exactly where he belongs, leading his soldiers.

* * *

Did you catch that … “the most seriously injured active-duty soldier” in the entire United States? A couple of years ago D.J. was sitting in what is called “the hell hole” on a helicopter – so-called because the wash from the rotors can literally knock you out of the seat when they first open the door – and he immediately went sprawling onto the sand.

Several of the other soldiers rushed to Capt. Skelton’s aid, scared he’d been hurt, and D.J. roared, “I’m fine! I just lost my fake eye and I’ll be (expletive) if I’m gonna’ give up another eye for my country if I don’t absolutely have to!”

When D.J. grew up in rural South Dakota, things were pretty bleak so he enlisted in the Army. He turned out to be so impressive while learning to speak Mandarin Chinese his base commanders urged him to go to college – West Point, no less – and he was almost kicked out when he got caught illegally base-jumping off a 900-foot bridge in West Virginia during his plebe year.

D.J. almost got booted again from the military academy when he was caught running a body-piercing studio in the barracks. Ironically, when he was going through his fearsome stint of recovery – he couldn’t even get out of the bed for the first five months – the former Commandant at West Point, Major Gen. Eric T. Olson presented him his Purple Heart and later called his mother to say, “Look at the bright side; at least your son has new places where he can pierce himself!”

That all said, if I told you what D.J. did to return to commanding an infantry platoon it would make you cry. At first he had has to do push-ups with a balled-up fist – his hand wouldn’t support it. He’s had to adjust, beg for a chance, and still claims, “Do I look funny? Probably. Do I do things a little differently? Probably. But I can do the exact same mission, to the exact same standards, that you are asking of all my peers who are able-bodied soldiers. I am able to perform to that standard.”

One day this spring D.J. called me to say he was in Chattanooga and where should he drink beer. He adores driving to Chattanooga from Fort Benning and rock climbing, kayaking and all of that. We missed one another that time, much to my sorrow, because he is one of the greatest people on this planet.

Esquire just proved it by naming him among its 2011 Americans of the Year but my list is a lot easier and much shorter. It just has one name. Captain D. J. Skelton, U.S. Army.