BUB: Two Kick-Ass Soldiers

First, a company commander who survived an IED rollover as a lieutenant takes charge of his HHC.

The commander of the Army's Stryker Brigade in Hawai'i ticked off the injuries that Capt. Ray O'Donnell suffered in a 2007 Humvee rollover in Afghanistan.

The list included facial fractures, traumatic brain injury, a crushed pelvis, spinal damage, a fractured hip, dislocated femur and severe nerve damage.

To this day, O'Donnell has near-total paralysis in his lower left leg.

"But what I skipped was the hard part — over 29 months of grueling physical therapy, when many thought he would never walk, would never run and could never serve again in the infantry," said Col. Malcom Frost, the commander of 4,300 Stryker Brigade soldiers.

O'Donnell, 29, stood at attention yesterday as the litany of broken bones was read off — then bounded up onto a makeshift stage as if none of that had ever happened, as he took command of about 290 soldiers that make up Headquarters and Headquarters Company.

O'Donnell, a 2003 University of Hawai'i ROTC graduate, has faced more than his share of adversity — and overcome it.

And a former British soldier and contractor who asked what unit gets deployed the most so he could get to Afghanistan.

At first glance Robert Sumner looks like any other American soldier - until he speaks. Then Sumner's thick British accent comes out.

Now a member of the Army's 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, serving in Kunar province, Afghanistan, Sumner realizes his road from the British Isles to the mountains of Afghanistan was a long and interesting path.

Sumner said he always dreamed of being a soldier and after graduating high school in 1996, he enlisted in the British Army, serving in Cyprus, Hong Kong, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Northern Ireland, until 2003.

In 2004, Sumner began working for Aegis, a private security firm, and continued working there until 2005.

In 2005, he came to the U.S. for the first time to attend training in Arkansas and later met Katherine, the woman who would become his wife.

For two years, Sumner lived with his new wife in his new home. But he wanted to give something back to his new country, and in July 2007, he enlisted in the U.S. Army.

"I enlisted in the U.S. Army because I wanted to do something for this country that has given me so much," Sumner said. "When people ask me in the future, 'what have you done for this country?' I'll have something to say."

Sumner joined the 10th Mountain Division, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., after asking one of his drill sergeants in basic training which unit is the most deployed in the Army.

Hats off to both of them.

By: Brant