I lost my legs fighting for America. I want a president who understands service

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/opinions/veteran-trump-commander-in-chief-berschinski/index.html

Editor's Note an Berschinski graduated from West Point in 2007. He served as an infantry platoon leader in Afghanistan in 2009 where he was seriously wounded after stepping on an IED. After recovering from his wounds Dan medically retired from the Army and then went on to attend graduate school at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. He now lives in Atlanta. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

(CNN)In March of 2010, I sat in my wheelchair in a cramped kitchen in the basement of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's amputee rehab clinic. A lone Secret Service agent stood quietly against one wall and I sat at a kitchen table. To my immediate left, with our elbows almost touching was then-Vice President Joe Biden. Across the table was his wife, Jill Biden, and also at the table were two other seriously wounded soldiers and our significant others.

There was no fanfare and no press. The vice president had just landed at Andrews Air Force Base following a work trip to France. Instead of being driven to his residence, he came directly to Walter Reed so that he could have this meal.

Just him, Jill, and six young Americans whose lives had been irreparably changed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The summer before, in August 2009, while leading a platoon of Army infantrymen near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, I had stepped on a hidden IED. The resulting explosion tore off both of my legs above my knees, pulverized my left arm, broke my jaw and blew out both of my eardrums.

*snip*