"If someone else had gotten hurt, I couldn’t have taken that. I mean, I’m happy to be the guy that got hurt, because those are my soldiers, my kids. I didn’t want them to get hurt." (Video Interview, 58:56)

Eric Wayne Cagle

Eric Cagle [2006] War: Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, 2001-present; Kosovo, 1999 Branch: Army Unit: 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Division Service Location: Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Schofield Barracks, Hawaii; Iraq Rank: Staff Sergeant Place of Birth: MI

Eric Cagle enlisted in the Army in 1998 at 18 and by 2004, when he was sent to Iraq, he had already done tours of duty in Serbia and Afghanistan. On a day he was supposed to be on leave—he’d lost the time to another soldier—he was on a routine patrol in a Humvee when an IED exploded, leaving him with severe head injuries. He has nothing but praise for the treatment he received from the VA, from Walter Reed to the brain injury recovery unit in Palo Alto. During his recovery, he visited his old base at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, where he was surprised to find that a gymnasium had been named the Eric W. Cagle Muscle Factory.