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- Lucky Enough
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- Author: Eddie Beesley
- Reviewer: Pat McGrath Avery
- Publisher: Publisher: River Road Press
- Format: Adult, Nonfiction, Paperback, 112 Pages, 2006, $12.95
- ISBN: 0966327675
- Rating: * * * * Quills
- Lucky Enough
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- We humans love stories of success and the overcoming of life's challenges. Such stories motivate, inspire and please us. They validate our sense of fair play in a world that doesn't always seem to be fair.
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- Eddie Beesley's heartfelt story has all the necessary ingredients to make the reader want to stand up and shout, "Go, Eddie! You did it!"
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- His story takes us from a humble beginning in rural Oklahoma through the horrors of his Vietnam War experience to his months in a Californian hospital to his return to Oklahoma and success in his personal, business and professional life.
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- In the late 1940s, rural Oklahoma was home to many poor families. Eddie, as the eighteenth of twenty-one children, experienced poverty overshadowed by familial love. His life wasn't easy, but it was enjoyable. He loved the outdoors, sports, friends and life in general.
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- As a teenager, he saw the pinnacle of success as being a U.S. Marine. In 1963, he enlisted. Life was good until he was sent to Vietnam in 1965.
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- On August 31, 1965, his world changed. He was leading a mission when he stepped on a landmine. Eddie suffered severe injuries and the loss of his legs. But the worst tragedy was the loss of two fellow Marines, one a young lieutenant who was a new father. Three others were severely injured.
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- Eddie returned home to protestors along the route to his hospital. For eight months he received extensive therapy and rehabilitation to help him adapt to prostheses and to learn to walk again. As one of the first above-the-knee double amputees of the war, he was a guinea pig. The doctors wanted to help, but didn't know exactly how he would ever learn to walk. Determination helped him through excruciating efforts to get up, stand and walk, all without having knees to help him balance.
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- The blessing of that period came in the form of a USO volunteer, Connie, who became his wife. Together they moved to Oklahoma, raised a family, started and ran a successful business, and enjoyed their lives together.
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- But the scars of war haunted Eddie throughout his life. He adjusted to the physical handicap much better than he did the emotional. He lived with an ongoing sense of responsibility for the deaths and injuries of his fellow Marines. A long overdue visit to The Wall in Washington D.C., was the impetus to accept and move forward, to call the wife of a fallen Marine and to renew friendships from those days.
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- Although being a Marine put him in the battlefield in the first place, Eddie credits the Marines with giving him the strength and courage he needed to succeed in life. His training to "suck it up and move on" served him well.
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- Eddie is now a Marine, a husband, a father and a grandfather. He's a man who has carried the Olympic Torch, been interviewed numerous times on the radio and television, and been introduced to governors and other public officials.
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- As someone with little military history in my family, I am awed by Eddie's sense of belonging and commitment to the Marines despite his horrible experience in Vietnam. His story inspires deep respect and admiration for those who serve.
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- However, Eddie's real story of success is his ability to look at life's challenges, laugh along the way and still believe that, overall, he is lucky enough.
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