Wounded Warrior Dan Nevins on Finding Purpose After Fallujah

After losing both legs in combat 21 years ago in Fallujah, Dan Nevins found strength and purpose through the Wounded Warrior Project. Now a spokesperson for the organization’s Warriors Speak program, he shares his powerful story of resilience and how WWP continues to transform the lives of veterans across the country through community, support, and hope.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Continuing now here on the Ryan Gorman Show with our
Veterans Day special, and we're joined by a very special
guest this morning, Dan Evans, Wounded Warrior Project Warriors Speak spokesperson,
a veteran himself, to talk about the great work the
Wounded Warrior Project is doing for veterans here in the
state of Florida and all across the country. You can
learn more and offer your support at Wounded Warrior Project

(00:24):
dot org. Dan, thank you so much for coming on
the show. Thank you for your service to this country.
Let me start with how you initially got connected to
the Wounded Warrior Project.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Oh, Brian, A great question. It was twenty one years ago,
actually yesterday. I was catastrophically wounded in combat and after
seven days in the sort of military medical system from
the theater through Launch Stories or medical center in Germany,
I wound up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
DC and started a two year journey with thirty six

(00:57):
different surgeries trying to save my right leg. My left
leg was gone, living with the traumatic brain injury. And
it's my first day at word fifty seven at Walter
Read and incomes to the founders of Wounded Warrior Project
with a backpack full of comfort items that we all
take for granted and promise that whatever I needed, or
remember my family needed, they'd be there for me. And

(01:20):
here we are twenty one years later, and they are
still sitting by my side, as well as an entire
generation of warriors in our families.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I can only imagine what you must have been going
through in that moment. And when you see the Wounded
Warrior Projects show up and tell you that, what kind
of an impact did it have to let you know
that you weren't going to be alone through this challenge?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
And the impact is almost unmeasurable because if you kind
of put yourself in the headspace that I was a
thirty one year old physically fit top of my game
war Fighter, and then you know, I lost my legs
and I'm living with this realization that I don't know
if I'm going to be able to do anything anymore.

(02:10):
I didn't know what a guy with no legs could do.
All I could think about is what a guy with
no legs couldn't do, and it was basically everything that
I loved. And as I'm going through the medical system,
the surgery every day, and like finally get to Walter
Reed and I I was thinking, so I lost my
good buddy and one of my mentors serve first time,
Mike gott Olini, in the same explosion. And I was

(02:32):
thinking all the way up to this point before meeting
the folks who want the word project, that that might
got the better deal. Wow, I was in pain. I
was I didn't know which which direction my life was
going to go. And then when they showed up, it
was just this sort of familial connection that somebody was

(02:53):
there for me. And then I think it was three
weeks later, and this was this was sort of paramount
in my recovery. And I had been still dealing with
surgery every day and still dealing with infection and you
know all the things that go along is getting blown
up in a miserable and infected place on the planet.
And they sewed back up in my room and one
leg is gone. They're trying to save the other one.
It's up in traction, and I'm gaunt from surgery, but

(03:15):
basically every day and they said, hey, we're going to
take a bunch of wounded warriors out west next month
to go skiing, and we want you to go. And
I just remember in that moment being I was I
was angry. I was like, how could you, like, do
you not have eyes? Can you not see what's in
front of you? And they sort of recognize that, and
they said, Dan, you don't understand. We have the best

(03:38):
adaptive equipment in the world, and we have the best
adaptive instructors from all of the world coming and as
the hospital clears you to go, we'll get you to
the bottom of the mountain.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
It's amazing. And I'm assuming that offered a little bit
of hope, there something to look forward to.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah, it was the first time that I'd ever be
ever even at that point, considered the possibility of not
being stuck in a hospital bed forever. It was the
fighting like, ah, like there is more to this. And
I didn't get medically clear for that trip, but then
just because the infections I was dealing with. But over
my time at Walter Reed and Beyond, I was wakeboarding,

(04:17):
snowboarding and rock climbing, outrage or canoeing, and they were
presenting these opportunities completely free of charge for me and
my family to learn that my disability didn't define me,
that I got to define what the rest of my life.
It was like, so I can't speak highly enough about
what they did for me then and what they continue
to do now.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
It's incredible. We're joined by Dan Nevin's Wounded Warrior Project
Warriors Speak spokesperson. You can learn more at Wounded Warrior
Project dot org. And thanks to a really generous matching
gift from USAA, every dollar you donate to the Wounded
Warrior Project today on Veterans Day is going to be

(04:56):
doubled up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars will
match your donation, so even more resent to give back today. Now, Dan,
tell me about your experience since then with Wounded Warrior Project.
And for those who want to help on this Veterans stay,
why should they go check out this organization and support them.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
You know, that's a great question, Ryan, I'd say this.
I think everyone today has heard of Wounded Warrior Project,
and when I got hurt twenty one years ago, I
had no idea who they were. And I think what
made Wounded Warrior Project more successful over the years is
because one the founders like really meant it, and they

(05:40):
really wanted to affect change for this generation of warriors
and their families and they've done exactly that. But the
reason they've been so successful is they were the ones listening.
They weren't like saying, Oh, we're going to do this
and make this happen, and this is what we think
the hunter's need. They listened to the needs of the
veterans and our families in the hospitals and in the

(06:02):
VA and at home and on the different events that
they do, and then they decided to say, well, now
we're going to create a program or develop a service
that will meet that need and then worry about how
to pay for it later. And what was great about
that is because these people who cared so much and
were so passionate about it, they were just doing the

(06:24):
right thing. And then what happens when you do that
is people get inspired. And so then the best of
America showed up and said, I want to donate to
these people because they're the ones out there doing it.
And that's what they continue to do. They continue to
listen to the evolving needs of this generation of warfighter,

(06:44):
in this generation of warrior, and they're preparing for the
next though I can't, I mean, I volunteer my time
for when the warrior President, volunteering to talk to you
because I am passionate about how capable this organization is
to serve not only the needs of this generation of

(07:04):
warrior in our family, but also the next. Like people
on active duty now can become alumni, so they have
a voice in shaping the legislation that's going to impact
them when they get out.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
Dan Evans, Wounded Warrior Project Warriors Speak spokesperson with us.
You can learn more at Wounded Warrior Project dot organ
Don't forget. If you donate today on Veterans Day, you
get your donation doubled thanks to our friends over at USAA. Dan,
thank you so much for your service to this country

(07:36):
and for taking a few minutes to come on the show.
Really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Thanks, Ernan, I appreciate you. Thanks for what you do.