Of allegiance. We do in honor the men and women who defend our freedom around the world. Tonight i ask as we recite the pledge we do so in honor of those are currently fighting, those are missing, those who have perished, and those who are veterans. Please stand and join in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands united one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Before we get started there are a few people in the honest id like to recognize tonight. I understand theres a large group hear from gary and maryss family include his mother, his brother and his daughter would just like any video. Could you please escargot and a summit to stand so we can thank. You all for being here tonight . H [applause] also here with us this evening our congressional medaln of honor recipients Lieutenant ColonelRobert Friend who is one of the last surviving tuskegee airmen. Good to have you with this you this evening. T [applause] thank you so much. We appreciate having you here. [applause] and a very, very special thank you to Lori Bakke Baker sg right to fix his executive director of the Hero Foundation which is the organization that donated the exoskeleton to gary. [applause] so there many honorable and prestigious thinks we get to do at the Reagan Videsh such as working and organize a president ial debates, hosting events are sitting congressman, cabinet members, last i went i get george w. Bush here. But for me getting to know and beating our country zeros far outweighs anything else i havefo the privilege to do. And getting to know tonight speakers been a highlight of my career. This event for his conduct because were looking for speakers acquittance a tight interest special exhibit interactive. Those you have not yet seen the exhibition, interactive is a large scale highly immersive exhibit which showcases a Science Fiction can become reality. The exhibit shows a modernday technology have been influenced by Popular Culture in the 50s to the 80. Star wars, star trek, terminated, back to the future. Change his ways which we live, work, move, connect and play. Its open to april 17. Epitomizes our esteem. Then gray called peer to recommend witherington i speak at your library and without hey, heres a guy literally wearing a wearable robot. What better speaker can we find . In doing research for two nights broken i found this quote from a 2013 article from from the cofounder of xo bionics the makes the exoskeleton. It was sciencefiction technology. Were helping people walk again who otherwise couldnt. So we brought sciencefiction to reality in a very short period of time. Which leads to tonight guess. She foreign officer gary linfoot u. S. Army retired. He has over 23 years of military service including serving as a member of the armies elite 100 60th special Operations Aviation regiment. T. As as a subcommittee just two minutes ago, in june 2008 while conducting operations in iraq, garys helicopter suffered ao catastrophic mechanical failure, crash landed. As a result of a hard landing gear he suffered a broken back and was instantly paralyzed below the waist. He retired from the army in 2010 but continue to serve the community as a simulator Flight Instructor. Flash forward to 2013 when gary became the First Military recipient of an xo exoskeleton for home use the grant in the o infant Hero Foundation. By memorial day 2014 he complete over 100,000 steps using the device. Who knows how many has done since then . As excited video and im not sure about you but i was in the back room crying just a few short months ago gary walked his daughter down the aisle. As president reagan once said, are veterans of the heroes among us. As they contribute and let us resolve to live up to their example. I can think of no better person whose example i would like to i wo up to. Ladies and gentlemen, gary linfoot with his wife mari. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applau [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] made it. [cheers and applause] thank you. My legs are shaking. [laughing]king. Well, good evening and thank. You for joining us. Its an honor and pleasure to be here with you at the Ronald Reagan library and had the opportunity to speak with you. Like to recognize my friend to celebrate his 97th birthday this past week. Friend ce [applause] hope i looked that good when i am your age. And i would also like to recognize lori baker for producing are you okay . The film you saw, she did a fabulous job on it and i think it really captures the essence of what infant hero is doing. So tonight i want to tell you a story. My hope is that you hear the story of the family that has overcome difficult and met challenges head on. Never backing down, never giving up. Its a story about. This is our story. On may 31, 2008, is a date my life and the lives of my family and friends were changedfe and t forever. On that date id been in the army for 21 years. Ive been a pilot for over 19 years and then 11 years. Yeard completed one combat rotation in afghanistan in merely following 9 11 was on my 20th combat rotation to iraq. All told was 861 days. I was the lead in the Company First battalion, and we were known as the six guns. Our mission was to provide Close Air Support for the best special Operation Forces the world had ever known. I was at the apex of my career and there was no other job in the world i wanted. I was in my element and exactly what i needed to be. If you recall, the nation, wed been at war for almost seven years at that point we been in iraq for five years. 2008 was the end of a very successful surge and weve broken the back of the enemy and we had them on the run. Fi for my family the constant deployment of 3090 days to iraq for five times a year had become somewhat routine. O i tell my wife and kids goodbye, and try to our compound border c5 or c17. I would be gone out of their lies for the next 90 days. Missing holidays, birthdays, special occasions, school sports, and life went on home without me. While deployed all i could think about was being home again. When i was so all i could think about was getting back to iraq. I guess in all those years it never really quite made it back home. But, but that was our life. In 2008 that was the routine. Im going to listen this upload it because i can hardly breathe. I call this my google. Instant streaming device girdle. But that was a routine for us. However, this that would prove anything but routine. On 31st may 200 2008 summer was already upon iraq. I woke that day, complete its npt like like ousted, showered, grabbed a cup of coffee and walked over to our hangar to preflight. I was updated by the crew chief on the status of all aircraft and a walk over to joint Operations Center to report to the daily status of aircraft and received an order for a mission that night. They were shaping up the routine night in support of our rudest counterparts who were a member of our joint task force. Around 10 00 we departed the airbase as a flight of two and headed for a Mission Support site in baghdad. Once at the mss we sent an operations brief. British always fun to work with and although we shared a common language, they were often very difficult is that acquired translate over to american forest. The brief for this night had a very heavy accent, and at the end of the breezy i turned over to my guys and they said hey, did you need did anybody understand what he just said . Everybody shook their head no, we did not. Ill be able to get a good h translation and clarification nt from their nco and were good to go. Our mission that night was simple and one that would literally perform hundreds of times. The brits would fly into a american Ford Operating base. There the ground force would link up with for american Bradley Fighting Vehicles and up armored humvees. And they would ride to the objective. They would leave the vehicles of what was called the vehicle dropoff, and then quietly and hopefully undetected walk up to the objective or they would surround the target building. Once surrounding the target building would call out the b person of interest, the target that night, the person they wanted to detain, and for us it was really low hanging fruit atn that point. Now, things got loud, meaning they had to assault the building, we be called in to provide Close Air Support. As required we departed to proceed to our landholding area. And when we took off i used the power of what we call the heavily laden hh of death, 649. Death, number 649 with 14 rockets, 3000 rounds of fuel, even as maximum growth rate, 4700 pounds, 650 hp engines with rotor blades churning in the hot air into submission. Climbing to 300 feet, called our departure callsign have again the dog the my copilot and i discussed the sound unable to determine the source the reading was normal though unusual vibrations wet convinced our souls maybe there was an engen head panel opened so we continue the mission eventually the new ways ceased. June 1st, a midnight with the zero illumination andmi visibility was 3 miles we just arrived at an altitude and suddenly a loud explosion coming from there we are of the aircraft the coupling connected to the drive shaft in lost alle power to the rotor we fell from the sky. On you put the aircraft in the hard left turn to get this into the headwind we tried to maintain the routerermain r. P. M. Making a call of the radio for a landing area. We were too heavy and falling fast this is going to be a hard landing. My last memory was to see the ground rushing after night vision goggles also remember hearing the reuter i told my copilot brace for impact and we hit. That all happened within less than 10 seconds. If you have ever been in a violent pisces highspeed automobile crash you can relate to what it felt like. After the rollerblades all belongs leaving the bodies it was an eerie silence. Upon impact my vertebrae burst into fragments paralysis was instant i felt my makes full to the left eye preceded an emergency shutdown fearing we may be on fire i yelled we need to get out so with my right hand i grabbed the doorframe but at that time realized i could not move with legs than the pain kicked in. He pain he suffered a broken back and take confession to this day he has no memory of the crasher leading up to the accident now she was lying in paid in front of the aircraft i grabbed my rifle to signal the sister ship we were alive and the approaching personnel to stay away now he heard those shots he thought we were being shot at. I told him it was only every tried to contact the ship over head without success. Nothing but darkness. Im checking my legs hoping that maybe they were just broken both lakes werere intact and i knew they suffered a spinal cord injury. The thoughts and images raced through my mind and told me the same thing that this was going to suck for cracker 10 minutes my friend suddenly appeared and asked if we were shot down a set i believe it was mechanical failure. Then he began to coordinate aircraft and in a short time blacktops landed craig was evacuated and i would waiti waid for the air force 2 come cut me out. Less than an hour later which is really remarkable i was on the way to the first of several hospitals to the United States. A nurse handed me the phone is a call your wife. I called mary. [laughter] she had just walked in the door with the phone rang and a surprise to hear my voicee i times anybody from the unit had contacted her immediately got something bad had happened and i told her i was in a crash and i broke my back she was saddened of the live a life of back pain but i was okay and they told her i could not move my legs then wentuldnm into crisis mode ann and afraid that might have we talk to the kids. Our son asked if this meant it his dad never had to go back to iraq again. Was then 24 hour surgery was completed i was on my way to walter reed for the first three hospitals to spend the next three months of recovery and we have. With very by my side we began the journey together with the spinal cord injury and paralysis is a complex injury note to are the same. There were facts that i never thought of beyond the loss of movement was dignity of bladder and bowel control which is very common and the pain in that never goes away t a very cruel injury. So in those three months removed from walter reed to Tampa Florida then to theth Shepard Center in atlanta all the while discovering more about this injury in the new normal of a paraplegic to include poland and vehicle modifications continue therapy and i could go one. Together we made a pretty good team. Next to was all about learning the reality to the a paraplegic on the phonee coori coordinating with doctors learning how to navigate and january 2010 i was honored for years of service that began to work as the simulator Flight Instructor knows some time at that point of my life i believe i fell into a depression id definitely go they check out my anger and frustration out on very. Long very. I was angry and i was ashamed of what i had become. I lost myself worth as a soldier, as a man, as a husband and father. From the elite special operations attack helicopter pilot and alpha male to someone who could do very little. And in my mind i was a failure. On the outside a think itd job to cover that up with a smile on my face i tried to exercise i tried to cover the pain and do my best but on the inside died died a little more each day. E more this injury was beating down and the death of 1,000 cuts. I prayed to god he would take this from me and i prayed that it would just end. I wanted it all to be over. I have been to the head staring into that dark abyss. Were all here for a short amount of time but were here with a purpose. I truly believe god has a plan for all of us if it wasnt true we would not be here now. I survived the crash not because of my flying skills but i will tell you now that i and if you ask me and good looking also. [laughter] i believe i survived because god had a purpose for me and is not done with me yet. For this reason i choose in my family chooses to continue to fight togethere nev what i prayed to god to tell him i could not do this i heard him say thats right you cannot do this alone you, have your wife and children and family and friends and me. I believe the saying guy does not deviate mandel more than you can handle but he will but with him and threw his strength to overcome. Mary and i made the conscious choice to move on with their lives we owe it not only to ourselves with family and friends and those we have lost by having given the Second Chance that many do not get in for those who did not come home there have been many difficulties. I will not lie. Has been a tough road the in the end it will all be worth it. We benefited from the kindness and generosity of many people and i have been the recipient of hightech robotics equipment including the electric wheelchair that climb stairs and balancing on two wheels that i can stand at 6 feet also from the infinite Hero Foundation in with my exoskeleton weaken across the country doing things and never would trve thought possible talking to young kids about to the u. S. Robotics andpossibl. Hopefully planting that small seed in the mind of a child that will one dayadvanced change the world for help and paralysis. We successfully completed the fda trial that is now available to veterans at the virginia. At the Veterans Administration paraplegics had been able to stand and walk again i was honored to be the first to walk around the statute of liberty in the exoskeleton then and was able to stand with mary by my side for the national anthem. Believe me i will never take for granted the things in life like being able to get out of bed in the morning or the ability to climb three steps to knock on a neighbors door or stand and have my wife but as you saw in the video i was able to walk in by a beautiful daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. Tear i cannot make contact because i will tear up all i will stare right here. [laughter] following a dramatic event island trust in the llord and remember each day get up every morning to find your purpose and rewrite your story why am i here . What is my purpose you have aig purpose. Discover why did this and pursue it with everything you have. People whose support you and challenges of these words of encouragement are for each other you never know what they will do for somebody and it may change a life bad things happen to good people throw light as some point yall have tragedies and hardships and respectfully say get over it. Ultimately you are responsible for your own happiness the you have to move on. Nobody said wife libby easy but play the cards to have been dealt in the end it all would have been worth it and never ever quit. [applause] [applause] [laughter] [applause] we cannot thank you enough for sharing data remarkable story. [applause] i know you have questions i will try not to take up too much time but do we have to issue up here . Standing up squeezes the snot out of you. [laughter] so to watching what can then sit down can you explain how that works . As you see it is a replacement the bone and muscle up the hillside of my body mechanically and electrically it will stand me up i will take control of it and tell and i will start moving the way i walk is much like you would walk if he would step off with your left foot you put your weight on your right when you shift forward and i do the same thing when it detects i am within the safe parameter it will complete the step and i will continue as long as i shift my weight was it hard to learn how to use . It is strange because i cannot feel anything below my navel so it is like balancing a broom on the tip of my fingers. So once i could trust it would stand me up and not let me drop to the ground it was just learning those six points it took about three days to learn and after using the device after a couple of weeks it was easy. I have seen her hoping you how much are they actually doing in the movement . When she stands me up she has to control that then she turns over to me then is there for safety purposes if