BWF in the News
BWF Charitable and Individual Grantees on NBC Nightly News
June 24, 2009
Veterans Airlift Command Staff Sergeant Jose Pequeno
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NBC June 22, 2009 What Works NBC Nightly News, 7:00 PM
BRIAN WILLIAMS: We’re back now with our “What Works” segment. Tonight it’s all about helping some folks who have given a lot to all of us, the men and women of the U.S. armed forces, who, some of them have traveled the world to serve their country. For those who come home wounded from this nation’s conflicts, it’s often not easy to get around, and our own Natalie Morales has the story of one man who decided to do something about that.
NATALIE MORALES: Captain Nathan Walden lost his leg to an IED in Baghdad two years ago. He’s been recovering at Walter Reed ever since. His spirits are high because he’s headed home to South Carolina for a short visit.
STEPHANIE GREENBERG: Are your parents meeting you, is that it?
MORALES: Husband and wife pilots Stephanie and Irwin Greenberg, are volunteering their skills and their plane to get him there. The three were brought together by Walt Fricke. Wounded in Vietnam, he spent six months recovering in a hospital more than 600 miles away from his family.
WALT FRICKE: I wasn’t doing well, quite frankly, until my family gathered the resources to come and see me.
MORALES: Wanting to make things easier for this generation of wounded warriors, Fricke started the Veterans Airlift Command.
FRICKE: If they the buy the fuel, it’s their aircraft, they’re donating their time and aircraft for the purpose of the flight.
MORALES: Fricke now has 1,000 volunteer pilots who have flown more than 720,000 miles.
S. GREENBERG: You’re so excited that you get to do something finally for somebody else who’s really sacrificed way more than we ever can imagine.
CPT. NATHAN WALDEN: Which leg. I mean she –
MORALES: A win for Captain Walden, too, able to skip the cost and time-consuming process of traveling with a prosthetic leg.
WALDEN: You’re going to have to get run through, you know, various screenings, x-rays, the bomb swipes, the whole spiel.
MORALES: And it’s more than a matter of convenience. Some of the most severely injured would never be able to fly commercially. The Veterans Airlift Command is able to take care of some of their special needs. Like the flight bringing Staff Sergeant Jose Pequeno and his family to a ceremony honoring him in Washington, D.C. One of the most traumatically injured survivors, Pequeno lost almost half of the left side of his brain to a grenade explosion in Ramadi three years ago.
NELDA BAGLEY [Jose’s Mother]: He got the fire department to come and help get Jose in the plane. He found a way to get the wheelchair in the back of the plane. It was amazing.
MORALES: Pequeno is unable to speak, but his mother says she could see her son’s joy as they took off. BAGLEY: I (fully ?) believe that at that time my son felt a freedom that he hasn’t had for about three years now or more.
MORALES: A moment in time she says she will never forget. And neither will this father forget this happy homecoming thanks to the Veterans Airlift Command. Natalie Morales, NBC News, Washington, D.C.
WILLIAMS: We can never do enough for them
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