Donald J. Trump

I mourn once again at the loss of Extortion 17 and served as one of the operations officers and planners for the memorial of our 22 teammates who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom on that fateful day.

And like many of you, I watched with tremendous pride when a fellow SEAL officer I had served with was on the ground in Pakistan on a highly classified mission and made the radio call back to the White House Situation Room.

For God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo, signaling the death of the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden.

My most impactful mission occurred on September 13, 2007, operating outside of Fallujah, Iraq, in a small rural area known as Al-Karma.

We were tasked to go after the number one leader for al Qaeda in the western province.

And moving to target, we walked into a very well-executed ambush.

In the ensuing 40-minute firefight, myself, Luke, and Matty would be severely wounded.

Luke was shot by a machine gun below the knee, almost taking off his leg.

Matty would run forward under heavy machine gun fire, sustaining three machine gun rounds,

before still managing to drag himself and Luke to safety.

During the firefight, I was hit twice in the arm with at least six more rounds, striking my helmet, shooting off one of my night vision goggles, hitting me multiple times in the body armor and striking my weapon.

I was unable to keep fighting and directing until another bullet struck me in the face, knocking me out.

Caught in the open while the firefight continued to rage over me, I was pinned down, patiently waiting for my teammates to win the fight and bring in the medevac, all while my life slowly drained out of me and my world faded to black.

While unconscious, my team leader, Jay Eliasson, exposed himself to enemy machine gun fire to run forward and get me back to cover, put a tourniquet on my shattered arm and save my life.

He then proceeded to call in multiple extreme danger close fire missions by an Air Force AC-130 gunship.

Those missions would end up being the closest air support missions executed in the entire Iraq war.

If it was not for my teammates, my team leader, the 4th SOS gunship crew, and the amazing naval doctors, nurses, and corpsmen, I would not be here today to tell this story.

Since that fateful night, I've undergone almost 40 reconstructive surgeries.

I've had six blood transfusions, a tracheotomy that I wore for seven months and two days.

I've had 1,500 stitches, 200 staples, five plates, one titanium orbital floor, 15 screws, eight pins, 20 skin grafts, three bone grafts, one calvarium bone graft.