Brian with Retired Senior Master SGT Israel "DT" Del Toro - BOOK - A Patriot's Promise

Episode Transcript

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The talk station ATO six are fiftyfive krc DE Talk station. Are very
happy Friday Eve to you by timeassociate the fifty five KRSSE Morning Show.
Please as I can be to welcomemy next guest. His name Israel D.
T. Del Toro is a juniorSenior Master Sergeant of the Air Force
and now retired. He served inAfghanistan as a Special Ops paratrooper injured in

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action, which we'll talk about herein a moment in two thousand and five.
His long recovery included after sports aswell as advocacy for his fellow wounded
warriors. Instrumental he was in thecreation of the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program.
February twenty ten, Senior Master Sergeantdel Toro was the first completely disabled
airman one hundred percent disabled airman tore enlist in the Air Force, reciping

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to the Purple Heart Bronze Star PatTillman Award for Courage at the sb's Welcome
to the fifty five KRCE Morning Show, DT to talk about your book,
A Patriots Promise, Protecting my Brothers, fighting from my life and keeping my
words. Good to have you onthe program today, Sir, Thank you
for your service to our country.Yeah, thank you, Ryan, thank
you for that night's introduction. Ohmy pleasure, and what an inspiring book

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you have written here, and it'sinspiration that was that came from I would
argue much suffering. You can feelfree to rephrase it was your story,
your life story. But let's turnback the clock and talk about how you
came up with the name of thebook. I understand you lost your father
when you were only twelve years old. I did you know I lost my
dad was I was twelve, andthen a year and a half later I

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ended up losing my mom to atrump driver. But yeah, you know,
when it came up to figure outthe title or the name of the
book, you know, some ofthe pushers and some people were like,
well, why don't you call itlike a hero's promise? And for me,
I was like, you know,that kind of sounds doucy. You

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know, if someone was writing thebook about me, okay, they can
do that. But you know,for me, I don't see myself like
that. You know, I'm justa regular dude, you know, just
basically take when you let along upon Panzon. But yeah, I kind
of find I wanted to find somethingbetter Dad. You know, they didn't
almost see egoistic. Understood you're somewhatjust a little self deprecating, which I

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understand, you know, and alot a lot of men who served in
the military are that way. Youknow, you want to give credit to
all your fellow soldiers. You're notgoing to take personal credit or something,
so I understand where that comes from. But you did make a promise to
your father, and having lost yourmother unexpectedly, you had to make good
on that promise, and that wasto take care of your siblings, your
younger your younger brothers and sisters.Yeah, you know, uh, you

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know when you're totally's only your dad, you know, the day before he
passes, says something to you likethat. You know, you don't really
pay attention to. You don't thinkit's you know, you're like, okay,
yeah whatever, Dad, you know, talk later, and then you
know him passing the following day.You know, I took those words of
heart and and and I tried andtake care of my sisters as bad as

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I could, and and that,you know, I'd like to say that
promise has evolved to now anyone Ifeel like has a problem needs help.
I see them as my family nowto try to continue on to that promise
to my dad. Well, let'sexplain to my listeners, if you would,
what happened on December fifth, twothousand and five, and the horrific

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incident that you were involved with thatsort of expanded this promise to all the
brothers and sisters that you served within America's military. Yeah, so we're
out in the mission. I waswith my scout team and we had a
high value target we had to capturekill and a teleiban, a supply route
we had to destroy. And wehad been out there a couple of days

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and we're coming back because the dayprior year we had separated into two teams
and we were coming to My teamwas overwatching around our way back to kind
of we supply the other guys.And there's only one road in on the
road out, and we crossed thiscreek and I'm wanting tone of meters After
we cross this creek, do Ifeel on the tendency bat on the left
side And I was like, holycrap, I just got hit, and

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you know, I got out ofthe truck. But when I got out
of the truck, I was onfire from head to toe and and and
but I knew there was a creekbehind me, and so I tried to
run to it, but the flamesalway took me and I collapsed in and
I'm sitting there's like, you know, when I'm laying down, I'm going
to die here. It's like,I'm want to break my promise to my

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family. I always come back.I want to break my promise to my
son. Down'm never going to lethim grow without is that like I did
Almost importantly, I'm going to breakmy promise to my dad I made to
him so many years ago. Andthen my team may help me up.
There's a t T and I gonnadie here and we we both it from
the creek. And the sound thatI heard the creek it is the same
sound you hear U when you puta cold pan in a hot pan in

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cold water. It was but youknow, most people think, you know,
from there, I won't, youknow, just stop and help get
wants to get medical attention. Butit was a plan ambush. As soon
as I got hit, my team, the other half my team was hitting
the crossfy and calling for help.And I'm the guy that causing the airstrikes.
You know, I'm that fire sportelement, and so I had to

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figure out what I had to do. My radios were I had OMNI were
destroyed and my backup radio was therein the red in the truck that got
destroyed. But luckily one of theother Scout members had a radio call embitter
and I said, hey, man, get in this frequency. Repeat everything
I say so you get to helpfor our guys. And by the time

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the last transmission went out, youknow, I think the adrenaline started coming
down, and I started having ahard time breathing, and I started to
get scared. You know, I'llnever tell someone that I was up there
like Ramble as much. You know, I was always want to be Ramble
because you know, I grew upin a generation that loved Ramble. You
know who they want to be.You know that child were body, long,

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flowing hair, you know, justyou know, this badass. Uh.
And for a moment I was.But then the darn I went down.
I started getting scared, having ahard time breathing, and I was
like, where's the metavac, youknow, and the medical is trying to
calm me down, and then Iwas like, I just want to sleep,
then just close my eyes. Buthe knew if he didn't fall asleep,

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but mostly I'm not going to wakeup again, so he kept me
up until the metavac came. Uh. I got into the metovac and I
remember they wanted to carry me tothe metavac to the helicopter. I was
like, oh, hell no,I walked into the fight. I want
to walk out of it. AndI hobbled to the helicopter. I remember,
you know the flight, you know, kind of in and out landing,

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and I forward up earning base,them taking me into my feet at
the field hospital, seeing something outof the teammates around me, the dot,
cutting off my watch and telling meyou're going to be okay. That
was December about five. I waketo watch about six. Yeah, you
were in a coma for that periodof time, and you know, my

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listeners, you can't understate the degreeof his injuries. He was burned over
eighty percent of his body. Andyet, sir, you were still able
to call in this or help assistwith those air coordinates and get the air
help and the support you needed andwalk yourself to the to the medevac helicopter.
This is all unbelievably inspiring, butthen you win your coma And my
understanding is you nearly died on threeseparate occasions. Yeah, you know it's

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you know when when you wake upfrom what you call it, decided to
count, tell me everything that happenedto you. Well, I was asked,
did you know the date? Youknow where you're at? And of
course you're completely wrong, because youknow you went to sleep and think you
were out that long for four monthsand they tell you you almost died three
different times. You gave you fifteenpercent chance has thirty degrees burns, Your

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body has burns on eighty percent ofyour body. And you know now you
have this long recovery, going tobe here for another year and a half.
You may not walk again. You'regoing to be unterrest rated for us
of your life, and your militarycourage pretty much over and they wait for
your reaction, and I very muchtot them. You know they can go

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to hell. But in more colorfulwords, my dad used to say,
my late father, I got twowords for you, and they ain't happy
birthday. So I have a feelingI know it. I know what was
going through your mind, it's whatgame out of your mouth, and you
you had a lot of help,and you give a lot of credit to
your your your wife for caring foryou, but also the inspiration that your

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three year old son gave you afterthis injury and your need to be there
for both of them, but alsothe inspiration that they gave you to come
out the other side on this insuch a profound way. Yeah, yeah,
when when I decided to write thisthe book, because I've been speaking
for years and the people have beenwanting me to write it. But I

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wanted to include my wife's story aboutwhat she went through because I like to
say that the family sees that areworse, they're the ones going the notification
of what happens to family members.They're the ones that got make decisions and
sometimes, you know, families fightfor power. Who's in charge of the

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loved one? Now. I wantedto tell that story because as much as
we want to think that ere onceunited, when something like that happens a
lot of time, it's not.And I thought it was very important about
telling that story, and yeah,I did it. I do think I
should write because I did have myfamily, I had my friends, you

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know, my teammates, and becauseyou can't do it, I know,
you just can't write you You gotto have that support, and luckily I
had that support and that that sparkof my son. You know, I
like to say, we just wantto hear the burned guy saying we all
have a spark that drives us.And sometimes you can find it on your

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own and other times you need helpfinding it. And that's another, you
know, reason why I wrote thebook, because if my story, if
obstacles that I went through all throughoutmy life, helps someone find their spark
and see if they can overcome theirobstacles, get all that pain, all

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that injury that I went through isworth it because I was able to help
that one person and continue honoring mydad because at the end of the day,
I'm still that total real kid tryingto make Step proud of him.
Wow. Well, and you continueto inspire so many others wounded in others
within the military, and again giveyou credit for the instrumental and creation of

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the Air Force Wounded Warrior pro You'vespoken at any number of events to inspire
people. And what part of yourstory that is so inspiring. You became
the first completely one hundred percent disabled, as the Army labels folks in terms
of the level of disability, firstcompletely disabled airman to re enlist in the
Air Force. I mean that aloneis an amazing accomplishment. Yeah. You

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know, people could basking me whenI was going through my recovery because it
took about five years, you know, to kind of back get back in,
and they're like, what do youwant to do. It's like,
I want to continue to serve andthey're like, well, why do you
want to do that? Like DTspeaking, you know, you can make
a lot of money as a speaker, and they're right, you know,
some great speakers can make it,you know, tens of thousands to two

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hundred thousand dollars of speech or fortyfive minutes. But I told him,
I was like, yeah, there'sthousands of people out there make lots of
money and they hate their job.So I'm going to give up a job
that I love. I love servemy country, I love in the Air
Force. I love being a tachpee, So why am I going to
give that up? A couple ofbucks? And luckily, you know I

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was, I had enough support toshow that yes, do I wish I
could still be an operator and goout down range and be with my teammates.
No, I can't unless we've becomelike Star Wars. I got cool
Luke Skywalker. Haynes so sad thatminds come people, but we're not there.
But I knew I could teach.I can get the next the next

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generation of operators going and and likeyou said earlier on February twenty ten,
that's when I became the first onehundred percent. They say what am and
three is an air force? Youare truly an inspiration and a true American
hero. You can be as selfdeprecating as you want, Israel DT Delta
Junior, but you are an amazingguy and you can't put a price tag
on what you continue to do tothis day. A Patriots promise, protecting

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my brothers, fighting for my lifeand keeping my word. By my guest
today, Israel DT del Toro Jr. God bless you, sir. Thank
you for everything that you have done, your service for our country, your
continued inspiration. I know my listenersare going to gobble this book up.
Lots of members of my listening audiencehere and military families, retired military themselves
or have loved ones in the military. And we do everything we can here

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in the morning should to help militarycauses. And I can't promote your book
enough. It's on my blog pageto fifty five caresee dot com. Sir,
God bless you and keep up thegreat work. Thank you Brian again,
thank you for having me on.I really enjoyed my distinct pleasure,
sir, my distinct pleasure. It'seight nineteen right now, fifty five care
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