A Warrior Story: Mike Spivey & A New Life

Back in 2010, Mike Spivey was seven-years deep into his Marine Corps career. While on a foot patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan, and IED explosion left Mike badly injured. The blast would not only cost him his left arm, but force him to exit from his preferred career many years too soon. While Mike was in the hospital, Warrior Foundation Freedom Station was there to help him begin his transition to civilian life. Mike joined Armstrong & Getty to talk about how WFFS helped him find his new life.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Armstrong and Getty Show. One year, we asked for
money and we picked out really good cause like Warrior
Foundation Freedom Station. They are fantastic. We're trying to raise
a half a million dollars this week and we've been
explaining to you over the last couple of days what
Warrior Foundation Freedom Station is what they do. But what

(00:21):
better way than to talk to somebody who has benefited.
It's a pleasure to welcome Mike Spivey to the Armstrong
and to Getty Show. Mike, how are you, sir? I'm good.
How are you good? Good? It's great to talk to you. Well,
we're gonna just briefly tell your story so the folks
can understand how you came into contact with Warrior Foundation
Freedom Station go from there. But um, it was in
Afghanistan with the third Battalion, fifth Marines. Mike was leading

(00:45):
a foot patrol using a metal detector searching for I E.
D S. When Mike, you found one the hard way
it exploded. Mike was seriously injured, taking large amounts of
shrapnel to the legs and lower back, including several vertebrae,
extensive damage to his left arm, uh and and a
few weeks later, I had to make the incredibly difficult
decision to amputate the arm Uh. You should know. During

(01:06):
seven years of service before being medically retired due to
his injuries, Mike received the prestigious Purple Heart to Combat
Action Ribbons first time, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. So
there you are, Mike, uh, seriously injured, young, trying to
figure out where you're going in life. And was it
then that you connected with Warrior Foundation Freedom Station? Yeah,

(01:26):
it was. It was actually while I was at the hospital. Um,
there's actually like you know, and whenever the day I
first got there, um, they met my family, UM, helped
set them up in hotels and everything like that so
that they didn't have to worry about all the bills
while they were, you know, waiting for me to come
out of surgery. And then a couple of years or

(01:46):
a couple of weeks later actually, um, you know, as
I started to progress through my rehab, we were encouraged
to get out and do different activities, um, just to
get moving again and basically trying to figure out how
to maneuver our new lives with our disabilities. And that's
whenever I met Sandy and the Lady's Freedom Station fantastic.

(02:09):
So Joe and I have toured the Werior Foundation Freedom
Station a whole bunch of times. And if you've never
seen it, it's a these little cottages that are are
are together and a lot of the residents UM are
oftentimes from the same unit and are now wounded and
they're trying to figure out how to get their lives
back together and everything like that. Let me read a
quote from you and then you can add to it.
Whether it was having barbecues outside or getting together in

(02:30):
someone's cottage. We had dinner together almost every night. Many
of the residents were from the same unit. We fed
off each other's energy and pushed each other to do more.
Get in the gym, go golfing, get out of the house,
enjoy nature. That's that's awesome. The idea of UM, you're
injured and you're staring all this uncertainty in the face,
and rather than being in a in a hospital room

(02:51):
with nobody you know around, you're around you know guys
that can understand what you've been through. UM, explain a
little bit about how important this um ME it's it's
it's almost undescribable how important that is because I mean
whenever you're at the hospital, I mean you're literally in
a you're in a room you don't have, like you
have a bed and a closet and maybe a TV

(03:13):
or whatever, but you don't have your day to day
stuff that you know you're gonna need. You're gonna end
up having to figure out how to like work out
later on UM and so it kind of gives you
that um, that advantage instead of having a waiting wait
until you're you've left the hospital, left to services, and
then try to figure everything out. Now you're you're still

(03:35):
doing rehab, you can go back to the hospital, do
your therapy is there and like discuss everything with different amputees,
or while you're while you're at your cottage, you know,
if you're having trouble, you can go next door and
be like, hey, how are you doing this? Oh well,
I do it like this, or I do it like that,
or you know something like that. So, I mean, it's
it's it's incredible. Helps Wow, that's great. And you know,

(03:57):
one thing I think a lot of civilians don't understand
is how the transition like from being active duty being
militarily retired. How Rocky that can be whether it's getting
the benefits going or trying to figure out what to
do with your life. Plus you and and people like
you're generally very young. What was that experience like that transition? Um,
well it would have been it would have been a

(04:19):
lot worse had it had I not been within at
the Three Station at those times. Because whenever I got
retired from the Marine Corps and they transferred me over
to the v A and everything like that, it took
almost five months for me to get my my check
from the v A. So if if I hadn't have
been living at the Freedom Station, I probably, um, you know,

(04:39):
I probably would have ended almost because I mean here
I am. I had a career. I just retired, and
you know that I didn't I had these injuries. I
couldn't like go straight into the workforce. Um. I had
no plans really because I was planning on doing another
thirteen years in the in the Marine Corps. So I
wasn't set up for it. So, like I said, if

(05:00):
it wasn't for the Freedom Station, I'd probably be living
in my truck. That's sorry, I I hear. It took
five months for we the people to get you your benefits.
It makes me crazy, but I know there are folks
working on that too, But thank god, Warrior Foundation Freedom
Station is there in the interim for guys and gals
like you. If you're liking this story, go to Armstrong

(05:22):
and Getty dot com. We've got a big banner there.
It's easy to see and donate any amount of money
we'll do and it adds up really fast. And we
always raise a lot of money because we've been around
enough of these um enough of these guys and and
toured enough times and heard enough stories that man, we
we couldn't be bigger believers. We appreciate you coming on
with us today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks Mike.
Great to talk. I've known people that left the military

(05:44):
and we're trying to transition back into regular life without
the physical injuries. Were the emotional injuries These guys that
you know, you're missing a couple of legs or an
arm or whatever along with the emotional stuff, and you're
supposed to just okay, now, now, good luck out there
in the regular world. And you're young, you're not making
a bunch of money as a marine or a soldier,
and and and you gotta wait months and months and

(06:07):
months and months to get any of your benefits. You know, again,
it's a shame that it takes an organization like Warrior Foundation,
Freedom Station, but it's absolutely completely needed, really needed, and
thank god it's there, and thank you for your contributions.