Breakfast For Heroes Event was a wonderful success. A huge Thank you to our sponsors who made this event possible and had the Vision!
A special thanks to the Event’s Co-Chairs, Joe Wallis of Microsoft and Larry Costich of Schwabe.
And Simon Schwartz, Associate Managing Director, Strategic Resources Group, LLC
Heartbeat was very honored to have as our Featured Speaker, the amazing Katherine Platoni Psy.D come to our Breakfast for Heroes event (read more).
Breakfast for Heroes was honored to be able to recognize 3 incredible Wounded Warriors at this event.
Click below to read courageous stories and pictures:
Sgt Chris Horman, USMC
Chris was a member of Fast Teams and the Infantry in the Marine Corps. He was deployed 6 years out of his 8 years in service. Chris is now out of the Marine Corps. He is a Wounded Warrior, but incredibly pushes on even with his disabilities. He is married with 3 sons. He is working at CSX and going to school. In Chris’s own words, this was one of the many battles he faced. Chris, like so many heroes is hesitant to share their battle heroic actions, but we encouraged him to share.
: Attack on Abu Ghraib
So I believe it was April 2th 2005 says Wikipedia . I was scheduled to take my squad of 15 Marines on a six mile foot patrol with no Humvees just all on foot. My route I chose was south of Nasir wa salam on the highway and on the western most road that borders between Nasir wa salam and another town. The overall hike was I think 6 miles but I was instructed to go out of Abu Ghraib prison and have a show of force for most of the afternoon.
It wasn’t the distance but the time we spent out of Abu Ghraib that was important. We left Abu Ghraib around 4 pm I think and started to make my loop around. We were doing pretty good and made several security stops to observe the area and talk to the people with my Iraqi interpreter to hear what was going on, get any Intel and give out candy to the kids. We just started to loop back to Nasir Wa Salam and was at a road that was recently paved and was known to have a lot of IED’s so I spread out my men far to the side to get distance and I walked in the middle of the column to look into recent blast holes for any explosives. I was rather particular when I had blast holes inspected and rather I did it then my men because I believed in taking care of my Marines.
Straight ahead of me I could see down the IED ally and there was Nasir wa salam and beyond you could see the walls of the prison. Distance was roughly a mile away and ¼ a mile to Nasir wa salam. As soon as we started down IED ally we started to hear explosions a distance away and small arms fire. I took a knee and listened and instructed my men to get down and spread out. I think it was the sound of the AK 47s bouncing off the walls but I thought I had heard them behind us shooting as well. I yelled at my men to advance ahead for cover. What was around me was to my left was a propane facility that was after hours and locked with no one there. Behind me was an open field the size of 2 football fields, to my right were several houses with walls and gates surrounding the homesteads. As I rushed my men forward I skirted to the right side were there were walls bordering the houses. There was a box of containers ahead that was a major run to get to but I knew I needed cover.
I do remember looking round and telling my men to take cover, at which time I heard the motor rounds coming in and hitting the ground. I yelled to take cover and saw two strike the sand between my men and didn’t detonate. I made it to the box container and there were civilians rushing toward me with their hands in the air ducking and screaming toward us in Arabic more than likely asking for our protection. There were 12-15 people in all and I looked around and didn’t find anything big enough for them to hide behind so I ran to the first available house with a gate, kicked the gate open and then the front door and pushed them all inside the residence.
Later I would find out that one of the civilians was a shooter that saw us advancing toward him and threw his weapon on a roof and joined in with the mob as a civilian. After securing the civilians I moved up to the back side of the town and immediately noticed my squad and I were split up. I was on the back of one building with the interpreter and the assistant machine gunner, everyone else were on the backside of another building. I could see them and talk to them and started issuing orders.
Firstly the explosions started becoming more frequent and the small arms shooting was louder and coming from all around us. Another observation was the loud machine guns shooting from the prison of .50 cal machineguns and 240G machineguns that I knew the prison tower defenses had started shooting back with a fury. My men and I had started peering around the corners looking for any oppression and were actually being shot at by the prison towers who could not identify who we were and were just shooting at movement. Crossing the ally between me and my men was a hail of bullets.
I could also hear more shooting and ricocheting around us so my immediate response was to strike fear into the hearts of my enemy and let them know we were there for battle so I looked straight at my machine gunner and told him to open fire with his 240G machinegun and plow the road right back with our own bullets. I knew he was frightened because he hesitated for a second, propped his back and slid up the wall he was on and spun around into the hail of bullets, raised his machinegun and laid down on the trigger toward the direction of the fire. This couldn’t have come at a better time because there were three males wearing black robes with AK’s that spun around the corner our direction and with 80 to 90 bullets of constant machinegun fire torn right through our threats. My machine gunner out of ammo spun back around and took cover again.
Knowing my gunner was out of ammo I grabbed my assistant gunner standing right next to me and told him to get across the ally and reload his gunner. This was the most amazing site besides my gunner mowing down some insurgents was an 18yo kid, 120 pounds maybe run through friendly fire and enemy fire alike and slide to his gunner and reload him in lightning speed without receiving a scratch. For the next twenty minutes or so we exchanged some fire and I was trying to decide what to do and how to advance from my position. Unbeknownst to me my radio operator called the command center and told them we were pinned down and our position. We were told to stay put and that really angered me because I could have maneuvered my men to take out some of the attackers.
Ten minutes later three Humvees showed up and drove us in through the gates of Abu Ghraib prison. The next day I was asked by a Army Lieutenant Colonel to reenact the whole event and he took me to the location of where everything happened and I walked everything through. He told me the insurgents hadn’t seen our foot patrol leave the prison and were scared when they heard us attacking behind them so fast after the initial attack started. Although there was expected to be 80 to 100 insurgents in the attack many of them dropped their RPG launchers and ran away in fear of the impending rear attack. We did find several sites on top of buildings where there were a RPG launcher and 20-30 rockets that were not launched.
The Lt. Colonel said Chris and his Marines disrupted the whole attack an thanked him for his aggressiveness and leadership against insurmountable odds. There had been no intel on this attach at all.
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SFC Nicholas Moore, 2/75 Rangers is an outstanding Hero who has deployed 13 times
SFC Nicholas Moore, 2nd Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment at Joint Base Lewis McChord ( JBLM) , Nick is another amazing Hero who was badly injured in his deployment to Afghanistan and is going thru the Medical Board process now .
Nicholas Moore joined the Army in June 1999. after completion of all prerequisite training he was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment Ft. Lewis, WA.
SFC Moore has deployed 13 times in support of the Global War on Terror. he has 6 deployments to Iraq, and 7 deployments to Afghanistan.
SFC Nicholas Moore, 2nd Battalion 75th Ranger Regiment at Joint Base Lewis McChord ( JBLM) , Nick is another amazing Hero who was badly injured in his deployment to Afghanistan and is going thru the Medical Board process now .
Nicholas Moore joined the Army in June 1999. after completion of all prerequisite training he was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment Ft. Lewis, WA.
SFC Moore has deployed 13 times in support of the Global War on Terror. he has 6 deployments to Iraq, and 7 deployments to Afghanistan.
SFC Moore was wounded as a Ranger Rifle Platoon Sergeant on 8 OCT 2011 in Logar Province Afghanistan (12th deployment). Even at that time with his own injuries he was trying to take care of his Soldiers .
After being wounded in Afghanistan, SFC Moore spent 15 days in the hospital before being released. he completed physical therapy, and made the following deployment with the Battalion for his 13th and final deployment.
SFC Moore is currently under-going a Medical Evaluation Board for wounds sustained in Afghanistan. Even though he is being med boarded out and facing a lot of pain daily he continues to work at the Ranger BN.
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SFC Chris Bartholomew is an amazing Hero who we were happy to honor.
SFC Chris Bartholomew is medically retired after sustaining multiple injuries while serving in the Army .He attended the event with his service dog Gracie. Chris served 3 tours in Iraq before being medevac’d out. Before Iraq he served 4 tours during the Cold War. Chris is another amazing Hero. He took our Scuba Warrior therapy and is now part of our Core Team for Scuba Warriors and helps other Wounded Warriors.
While Chris was in Iraq he was Operations Sgt, Headquarters Company Multi National Security Training Command in Iraq.
He was responsible for providing administrative and operational support for the 25 joint service member Headquarters Commandant operations element supporting the 1200 joint service member Multi National Transition Security Command which reviews and implements Force Protection mission protecting 700 joint service members, civilians, contractors, and third country nationals working for Headquarters. Areas of emphasis were Operation Iraqi Freedom VI, Force Protection Plan, Personnel Security detail and Quick Reaction Force NCO.
Chris is working his healing plan that includes Scuba so he can help other Warriors. He pushes thru and does not give up. His wife is currently deployed.
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