STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Our former colleague Martha Raddatz has covered the U.S. military for decades. She did it here at NPR and then at ABC News, all through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond. During all those years, Martha has kept track of veterans, meeting them on battlefields and following up, often years later.
MARTHA RADDATZ: I have always considered myself kind of a bridge. I can help those people who do not understand the military, who don't understand that these are the guys next door who, four days before they were in a war zone, were in a minivan taking their kids to school.
INSKEEP: Martha Raddatz tells the stories of veterans in a book called "The Hero Next Door." She's going to share just one story with us on this Memorial Day. It's the story of Mark Little. She first met him in 2007 when Mark Little was an Army second lieutenant leading patrols in Iraq.
RADDATZ: Mark and the Humvee he was in had rolled over an improvised explosive device - an IED - and those are so deadly. So Mark rolls over it, hears a tremendous boom, but checks out. He's fine, but was kind of loopy. It turned out he had a very extreme concussion. They told him he could not go anywhere. He could not do anything. He could not go back because of this injury, and all he wanted to do was get back there. And you see that all the time - I'm going back. I'm going to try to do it. He did paperwork for a month, which he hated because he just wanted to be out there, particularly because he was a leader.
INSKEEP: He goes back out eventually on patrol. One of his men, he decides, is not in the mental shape to go - tells him to stay behind. And as a result, Mark is sitting in a different seat in the Humvee.
RADDATZ: He's sitting in the seat that took the brunt of the damage.
INSKEEP: When there was another IED.
RADDATZ: Another IED. Another IED...
INSKEEP: What happened?
RADDATZ: ...Came for Mark Little. The Humvee blew up. Mark immediately started barking orders. You know, we got to go. We got to go. What time? So he's leading his men. At the same time, he's trying to raise himself up out of the seat because it's on fire and his door's smoking hot, and he just can't push himself up. And then he looks down, and he realizes that his lower legs are gone or about to be. He still manages, in this bloody mess, to push that door open and drag himself out and put a tourniquet on one of his own legs to stop the bleeding. Once he got back to the forward operating base, then they medevaced him and sent him to the combat support hospital.
I'd been at that combat support hospital all day. And we get the word in the hospital that there's a soldier, traumatic amputation. Helicopter lands, and out comes this soldier. You could even see then that the legs were gone, or there's no chance they could save those lower legs. So we trailed him inside. They put him on the gurney, and he just starts talking to everybody. The nurse - he's like, ah, Nurse White. And Nurse White, a male, is kind of checking Mark in and saying, hey, man. Sorry. How you doing? - keeping him talking. And Mark was just as if it was a comedy routine. It was amazing. And I just said, Mark, I'm from ABC. We don't want to get in your way. If you don't mind, we're going to film you. No problem, no problem, he goes, but I got to tell you - my mom is going to kill me.
(LAUGHTER)
RADDATZ: And that was the last thing I expected anyone to say who is being treated for a traumatic amputation. And he just kept chatting away. I'm like, why is your mom going to kill you? And he said, because I told her I kind of had a job. I wasn't in danger. I'd never be in danger. Obviously, he hadn't told her about the previous times he'd been blown up. And he said, you know, I'm going to have to explain this. He genuinely thought his mom was going to kill him.
INSKEEP: Wow.
RADDATZ: I mean, it - but he was - I hate to use this word - adorable. He was so charming, and there he was on what's supposed to be the worst day of his life. And I spent the rest of the day with him. And he went into the operating room, came out. By then, he was obviously unconscious. He was sleeping. His unit came and put a Purple Heart by his pillow. And the whole day, all I could think of was - I have a son - that whoever was Mark's relative needed to hear that story. That mom that was going to kill him, which I knew would not happen...
INSKEEP: Sure.
RADDATZ: ...Needed to hear those details.
INSKEEP: You include a photograph of him later standing.
RADDATZ: Mark was determined to get out of that bed, go back to work and do whatever he could that he was doing before.
INSKEEP: On prosthetic limbs, we should say.
RADDATZ: On prosthetic limbs. But Mark rushed the process as much as he could getting his prosthetic legs and, when he was promoted, stood on his legs in front of the Iwo Jima Memorial. It was a beautiful place.
INSKEEP: The Marines raising the flag is the statue.
RADDATZ: The Marines raising the flag behind him is kind of perfect for Mark Little's story. But it is that kind of spirit - that you are not going to let that be the worst day of your life. Mark will tell you it was the best day of his life because he didn't die.
INSKEEP: Mark Little went on to found a nonprofit that helped other wounded veterans with their expenses.
Martha Raddatz wrote "The Hero Next Door" while continuing to cover just about everything for ABC News. ABC, like other news organizations, has faced lawsuits and pressure from the Trump administration, though Raddatz says her work has not changed.
RADDATZ: We are still doing the work. I'll tell you, it's a lot harder covering the Pentagon. You have intimate stories of all these people in this book. You have not seen anyone in the war right now - in the war in Iran.
INSKEEP: Yeah. I've been watching for that story with the reporter on the aircraft carrier or at the base in Kuwait that gets hit, and it just doesn't come.
RADDATZ: It does not come. I mean, we've seen the occasional press conference at the Pentagon, and that is it. So I think that is a shame, that we have not seen more. I'm trying. I know you're trying as well. But it is important not only to find the truth of what is happening, but to know the people who are over there performing these duties for us. People need to make decisions about war, and I don't think you can make clear decisions if you haven't seen it and know the people who are fighting it.
INSKEEP: The new book from Martha Raddatz of ABC News is "The Hero Next Door." Martha, it's good to see you again.
RADDATZ: It's great to see you, Steve.
(SOUNDBITE OF BON IVER SONG, "S P E Y S I D E") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
