Here is an email I got about a valiant warrior that deserves our recognition.

AWESOME!!!  Read below pic before making judgment on 'The Finger' 
gesture and you'll understand....

> Maybe this is what all our military personel should give our "COMMANDER 
> AND
> CHIEF" the "ONE FINGER SALUTE".
>
> Keep this message rollin as that is the least we can do for this STUD.

>
> THIS NEEDS TO KEEP GOING.
>
 


Leading the fight is U S Marine Gunnery Sgt. Michael Burghardt, known as 
> 'Iron Mike' or just 'Gunny'. He is on his third tour in Iraq . He had 
> become
> a legend in the bomb disposal world after winning the Bronze Star for
> disabling 64 IEDs and destroying 1,548 pieces of ordnance during his 
> second
> tour...
>
>
>
> Then, on September 19, he got blown up... He had arrived at a chaotic 
> scene
> after a bomb had killed four US Marines.. He chose not to wear the bulky
> bomb protection suit. 'You can't react to any sniper fire and you get
> tunnel-vision,' he explains. So, protected by just a helmet and
> standard-issue flak jacket, he began what bomb disposal officers term 'the
> longest walk', stepping gingerly into a 5 foot deep and 8 foot wide 
> crater.
>
>
>
> The earth shifted slightly and he saw a Senao base station with a wire
> leading from it.  He cut the wire and used his 7 inch knife to probe the
> ground.  'I found a piece of red detonating cord between my legs,' he 
> says.
> 'That's when I knew I was screwed.' Realizing he had been sucked into a
> trap, Sgt Burghardt, 35, yelled at everyone to stay back. At that moment, 
> an
> insurgent, probably watching through binoculars, pressed a button on his
> mobile phone to detonate the secondary device below the sergeant's feet 
> 'A
> chill went up the back of my neck and then the bomb exploded,' he recalls.
> 'As I was in the air I remember thinking, 'I don't believe they got me...' 
> I
> was just ticked off they were able to do it. Then I was lying on the road,
> not able to feel anything from the waist down.'
>
>
>
> His fellow Marines cut off his trousers to see how badly he was hurt. None
> could believe his legs were still there 'My dad's a Vietnam vet who's
> paralyzed from the waist down,' says Sgt Burghardt. 'I was lying there
> thinking I didn't want to be in a wheelchair next to my dad and for him to
> see me like that... They started to cut away my pants and I felt a real
> sharp pain and blood trickling down. Then I wiggled my toes and I thought,
> 'Good, I'm in business.'  As a stretcher was brought over, adrenaline and
> anger kicked in. 'I decided to walk to the helicopter. I wasn't going to 
> let
> my team-mates see me being carried away on a stretcher.' He stood and gave
> the insurgents who had blown him up a one-fingered salute. 'I flipped them
> one.. It was like, 'OK, I lost that round but I'll be back next week.'
>
>
>
> Copies of a photograph depicting his defiance, taken by Jeff Bundy for the
> Omaha World-Herald, adorn the walls of homes across America and that of 
> Col
> John Gronski, the brigade commander in Ramadi, who has hailed the image as
> an exemplar of the warrior spirit.
>
> Sgt Burghardt's injuries - burns and wounds to his legs and buttocks - 
> kept
> him off duty for nearly a month and could have earned him a ticket home.
> But, like his father - who was awarded a Bronze Star and three Purple 
> Hearts
> for being wounded in action in Vietnam - he stayed in Ramadi to engage in
> the battle against insurgents who are forever coming up with more 
> ingenious
> ways of killing Americans.
>
>
>
>
>
> Are you proud enough to send this on ?
>
>
>
> YOU BETCHA I AM!!