Against All Odds: Life Of A Quadruple Amputee With Travis Mills

Staff Sergeant Travis Mills was gravely injured in a blast during a campaign in Afghanistan. In that split-second, his life changed forever. He awoke days later, to find himself a quadruple amputee. Travis sits down with Curtis Lewsey to discuss how overcoming this horrifying moment in his life served as the motivation to start a foundation for wounded veterans and launch a career in motivational speaking. He explains the holistic, family-centered services at The Travis Mills Foundation, which help to heal and repair the mental, spiritual, and physical wounds of our military heroes, their partners, and children.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Against All Odds: Life Of A Quadruple Amputee With Travis Mills

What’s up brother?

How are you doing?

 I’m doing fantastic. How are you?

I live that dream all day every day. How’s the day going?

It started off crazy. That’s one of the things I want to talk about, the perspective and mindset of an entrepreneur. When you have somebody like you and your inspirational story, it’s so much to add to every walk of life.

I appreciate that. I’m excited. I’m without having an office or anything like that, I’m sitting in my man-cave.

I’m sitting in an office with these panels from Home Depot that you just throw something on the wall. We’re going to get started. We’re going to have a conversation. What I want you to do is share your story. You’ve done a million of these.

I’m Travis Mills. It’s nice to meet everyone through this show and everything. I’m excited to be here. A little bit about me, I’m from a small town in Michigan. I played sports growing up, decided to go into the military. Once I was in college, it didn’t work out for me. When I say it didn’t work out for me, I wasn’t good at it because I didn’t want to be there. I chose a different route and ended up at the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I went on my first deployment and had a great time. People probably had a great time, but I did. I met my wife on the old interweb because her brother was my medic. She saw my picture and thought I was cute. The first date we ever went on, she was eighteen and in college. I was twenty in Afghanistan and I flew home for an eighteen-day RNR. I scooped her up in Texas and went to Cozumel Mexico for a week. We never met before. Her parents were not pleased with that.

I’m back in Michigan, my home state, my hometown where we went. I went back overseas, then came back and got married. I got an apartment and got a dog, twelve years old. My second deployment was a year-long, with a lot of firefights. I came back from that. My wife had bought a house when I was gone and she was excited to tell me, “I bought a house.” I’m like, “How did buy a house, you’re in college?” She said, “There’s a power of attorney that you signed.” I’m like, “Yeah, for banking.” She said, “It gives me the power to do anything in your name like buying a house.” I knew about it. That’s just a joke. Four months after we got settled, we found we’re going to have a baby, which is very exciting. My daughter, Chloe, was born.

Everybody if you don’t follow me, I got the best wife in the world because when that little girl was born, I was like, “What are we going to name her, Madison or Avery?” My wife looked at me with a heavy sack from the hospital bed after giving birth. She said, “We have to name her Chloe.” I’m like, “What makes you say that we have to?” She said, “It’s because you idiot got your ex-girlfriend’s name tattooed on your arm.” We named her from my ex-girlfriend, which is pretty cool for my wife to do. That’s not true, none of that story is true.

My daughter, Chloe was born in September of ‘11. Everything was going our way, my wife and I. Unfortunately, I hit a bomb on my third trip that I didn’t have to go on, but I wanted to. My guys believed in me. My wife understood the calling of the brotherhood. There was a nine-month deployment, which is going to be the shortest deployment I ever had. I went overseas and a month and a half in, I put my backpack down on the bomb. It went off and took off my right arm and my right leg automatically. They found those pieces of me. My left leg was snapped to the bone, but muscle and tendon were holding on. My left arm was blown out from the wrist. I was laying on my back and I looked at everything. My medic came up to me and I said, “Don’t worry about it. I can save me.”

[bctt tweet=”You can’t always control your situation, but you can always control your attitude.” via=”no”]

I figured in my head, “I’ve seen guys go for a lot less, just don’t freak out.” I kept seeing the movie Saving Private Ryan in my head. When the medic gets shot in the stomach and he cries out for his life. He wants to see his mom and ultimately, he dies. I thought, “That’s not going to be me.” I kept myself calm. One medic worked on me, I’m a Platoon Sergeant after I told him not to. I radioed my LT, with my left hand, which I still had use of. I said, “Six, this is four. I got guys injured, I need your medic.” They came over and docs worked on Ryan and Brandon. They worked on me. They got me in a helicopter, then ten minutes after that, I was in the hospital.

I was rushed into surgery. I kept trying to sit up and the nurses kept pushing me down. About the third or fourth time, I got angry and I was like, “Don’t touch me. I’m fine. Leave me alone. I got to go back to my guys.” They’re like, “You need to go to sleep, bud.” They knocked me out. The last thing I said to the nurse was, “My little girl, I’ll never going to see her again.” I didn’t know if I would see my daughter and wake up again. She was six months and that was it. The doctors and nurses worked on me for fourteen hours. Two nurses took turns pumping air in and out of my lungs for nine hours.

They ran out of blood from the blood bank. I was given 400 units of blood. It was the most blood ever given in Afghanistan at the time. People were rushing to donate blood from their veins right to me. They ran so low of A-positive, universal blood. They didn’t give up on me and they kept plugging away. I woke up four days later. They medically sedated me for four days. I woke up in Germany. The person in the room was my brother-in-law. When I saw him, the first thing out of my mouth was how are my soldiers because it’s always mission first.

He told me about Ryan and Brandon and I said, “Am I paralyzed?” He said, “No.” I looked down and I said, “Josh, you’re lying to me. I can’t feel my fingers and toes. Am I paralyzed?” He said, “You’re not paralyzed, but you don’t have them anymore.” That’s how he broke it to me on April 14th of 2012. I didn’t talk to anybody for three hours. I had my own questions like, “Am I a bad person? Does God hate me? What did I do wrong in life to deserve this? How can I be a husband and a father?” The biggest question I honestly had was, “Why didn’t I just die?”

It was like the Lieutenant Dan Forrest Gump moment where he’s like, “I’m supposed to die on the battlefield.” I felt like, “How is this going to be better?” Not that I was suicidal. I don’t want people to get the wrong impression, but I’m sitting there going, “How is this better? I’m going to be a burden.” I think about being a 25-year-old baby because I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t feed myself. I couldn’t change my clothes. I couldn’t go to the restroom by myself. I had stitches and cuts. I have a huge dent on my butt. It was all stitched up and it was bad. He convinced me to call my parents and my wife, and I did. It was my 25th birthday that day.

I found out on my 25th birthday what had happened from Josh. I talked to my wife, one thing I said was, “What’s up, I’m fine, bye.” I didn’t want to have a conversation with her. My parents were about the same, but my mom yelled happy birthday before I hung the phone up on her and my dad. I arrived back at Walter Reed on the 17th and they had taken me in for emergency surgery because my right leg had ripped open. They said, “We’ve got to get 2 inches off your right leg.” They made my wife sign for it, “You’re in charge of medical care. Here you go. We’re going to hack his leg off.” She had to deal with that. Two days out or a day after that, on the 18th, I saw her for the first time in person with no emergencies going on.

I told her she should take everything we have and go. It’s not something I would choose for her. It’s okay for her to take the house, the cars, and whatever money we have saved up and that financially, whatever I’d give her for the rest of her life. This isn’t the life I would choose for her. She thought about it a little bit, but she was excited for that handicapped parking. She’s like, “I’m going to stick around.” No, she said, “We’re going to work on this together.” I get the fortunate ability to travel this wonderful nation of ours during non-COVID years, and do motivational speaking and presenting. I think people are thrown off a little bit because I start with jokes. I have a lot of built-in jokes and humor because what happened to me sucks. At the same time, I was taking care of by the best hospital there is. I learned how to walk, drive and feed myself. I have this prosthetic hand. This 360 has pretty cool tricks.

I don’t want to laugh at the jokes. You have such an amazing perspective. I come into my office one morning and the machines aren’t working. The AC is not working. One of my freezers goes down and two other machines that I need for backup for the holiday season. Everything seems to be going awry and I’m almost laughing and upset at the same time. I remember I got my show with you and all of a sudden, my perspective shifts. It’s like, “Do I really have problems with what’s going on over here?” That’s what you bring to the table so much, it’s the perspective and mindset with all that you’ve gone through. I’m sure you got rough days like all of us. Everybody has tough days. How do you deal with tough days with everything that you’ve got going on?

Obviously, alcohol is a huge key factor. No, in truth, I don’t see myself as different than anybody else. I don’t see myself as a handicapped guy with no arms and no legs. I live and the nation took care of me. I have prosthetics. I got back into my mom, my wife, and my son. I drove my truck with my prosthetic feet like everybody else drives to eat at Annabel’s, then I took them to Bed, Bath and Beyond, then I got back to jump on this call. I don’t see myself as different. My hard days are the same hard days that you have.

It’s not the struggle of, “I have no arms and legs. This is awful.” I have a freezer go down at the cafe that I own. Something happened at one of the rental buildings. I’ll have a speaking engagement get canceled because of COVID. Those are the same rough days. A lot of this mindset of treating myself like everybody else treats themselves. Don’t weigh heavy on what happened to me, but realize how lucky I am still here. I was given the chance to still be around. A lot of my friends didn’t get the chance to come home. When I think about their sacrifice and their family sacrifice, that’s easy for me to realize that freezer is going to get fixed. That rental building problem is going to get taken care of.

They didn’t have the ability to come home with their families, their children, their spouses, their parents or siblings. It’s an easy reset for me if I have a down moment in a day where I’m like, “Remember my buddy, Frankie. He’s no longer with us. His wife, his daughter, his mom would give anything and they can’t.” That’s an easy reminder of me since I’m from the military. Had this been a car accident, I might have a different mindset, but since it’s so close to home, my buddies that didn’t make it back home. I understand the sacrifice that I could have paid and how fortunate I am to still be here. Also, the doctors and nurses that worked on me for fourteen hours. They could loosen one tourniquet and called it.

 

That’s probably why I’m so driven because I was given the chance to still be here. I must have a purpose and I need to find what that purpose is. For me, I found that my foundation that gives back to combat service and injured veterans, the Travis Mills Foundation is one of my purposes. Also, I love being an entrepreneur. I love creating new businesses. As a matter of fact, I’m going to start another one here soon. I have my speaking company, which I traveled around. I got back from DC and I spoke at the NSA on Monday. I have an insurance company that I’m a part-owner of. I’m like a walking billboard. Our insurance slogan is, “To help protect you from life’s unexpected events.”

It’s a short-term disability cancer plan. I’m a part-owner of that company. I have a few rental buildings that I became an owner of with a group of beautiful guys. I also own a lodge in the Marina. My buddy and I were drinking whiskey one night. I was told I should buy it by the owner. I said, “Why would I buy this place?” He said, “Look at the P and L’s.” I had no idea what that meant, but my buddy did. We got talking and his wife and my wife said, “Don’t you guys buy it?” When the bottle of whiskey was gone, we were signing the dotted line. It’s been great. We’re thinking of a whiskey distillery, a small tasting room with a small place. We’re not under contract yet, but we’re probably going to be under contract with the building. I enjoy the thrill and the rush of it all. Why not? I’m 33. I got a lot left to do.

College didn’t work out for you. Everything else seems to be though.

I had a year and a half left of college. I plan on finishing my deployment and coming back, and then finishing my degree while being a recruiter, and then going to be an officer. I always had all these different paths I was going to take. You never know what path you’re on or what you’re going to take. I don’t even know if anything I’m doing now is going to be successful in the long haul or the way forward future. What we’re doing now works and I’m not going to finish college. I won’t tell anybody that I didn’t matter. I just haven’t got time.

Tell me about Chloe. She’s eight years old now.

She’s phenomenal. She’s nine. She does gymnastics. She’s my best friend.

You play soccer with her. You’re still doing everything out.

She’s crazy fast. I got on the trampoline with her and do that. I have a son too. My son is three years old. His name is Dax. My wife and I wanted to prove that I still could have kids or make kids. She gave me the opportunity. We had another one and that answer a lot of people’s questions about other things. His name is Dax. My mags for Daniel and Alexander. We mash their names up together. He had French toast so he’s a little bit bouncing off the walls now, having a good time. He’s three, he’s a champion. My wife says we’re done having kids, so I’m going to take her word on it unless she tells me different.

Life goes on. Not all dad can say, “Learn how to walk with their kids.” I can because I learn how to walk with Chloe at the hospital. When she was learning how to walk, I was learning how to walk. We’re holding hands and walking around the gym together. She’s probably a big reason for my recovery being so successful because at the end of the day I’m still her father. She has to have someone to lean on and look up to, and I want to be that person. We have a great time. My wife posted a family picture of us. There is a lot of muse on it, a lot of comments.

One comment, my wife said, “Who’s this lady?” She read the lady’s name. She said, “Why is she saying that she liked the way you dropped her off at school yesterday?” Chloe knew who the teacher was. I said, “When Chloe got out of the truck and she started walking up to the school,” I started yelling, “I love you so much, Chloe. You’re my best little girl in the world. You’re my absolute favorite little girl. I love you. Have a great day.” I kept yelling things like that. All the kids were looking and Chloe goes, “It was so embarrassing, Mom.” I do that kind of thing.

She’ll never forget that stuff. This show is labeled Referral Secrets. One of the things that we talk about is that you earn referrals. You don’t get referrals. You earn referrals by who you are and how you show up in people’s lives. A lot of this stuff that you’re talking about is intentional. You choose how you view the world. You’ve had some crazy things happen close to you, as well as to yourself. That mindset and that perspective is everything for an entrepreneur, for a husband, for a wife, or as a parent. Some of your speaking engagements that you get and asked to speak, what are some of the groups of people that you’re speaking to?

[bctt tweet=”Know your inner strengths and discover the extent of what you can do.” via=”no”]

It’s all across the spectrum. They always have me. I base everything around resiliency, overcoming obstacles that you might face, even if you don’t know they’re coming. My slogan is, “Never give up, never quit.” I had one at NSA, then Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Wells Fargo is a big client of mine, Mr. Books out of Dallas, which is some multi-billion dollar mortgage fund, CenturyLink. It’s all across the map, about 60 a year. There are construction companies, sales groups, insurance companies. There’s a bunch. I enjoy every minute of it. The big thing is I always tell my jokes, I have my fun, but at the very end, I was telling my two life lessons that I want to leave them with.

The number one I learned shortly after my injury that stuck with me since is, “Don’t dwell on the past.” I close my eyes and I used to hope, wish and pray that this never happened. I ask, “How can I go back in time and make this not my reality?” The truth is it’s never going to happen. Every time I open my eyes, I was still in a hospital bed, still with no arms and no legs. There was no answer or no reason given why this happened to me, but there’s also no way to go back in time. Instead of dwelling on the past, I reminisce about it. That’s very important for people to know because I had 25 years with arms and legs and I’m pretty great. The eight years since my injury has been phenomenal, and just one bad day at work, the case of Mondays.

The next life lesson I tell people is that you can’t always control your situation, but you can always control your attitude. For instance, I wake up every day in my house and I have no arms and legs on. I jumped out of my bed. I hope in my wheelchair, which is beside my bed. I grabbed my arm, which is sitting on a charger like a cell phone that charges. I unhook it. I put my arm on, my house has an elevator for my wheelchair to go up and down. I go down the elevator in my wheelchair. I get my coffee and I get my wife’s coffee set up and ready. I get my son and his milk ready. My daughter comes down. She’s an early riser. We’re usually fighting who’s going to wake up first. We had to get to hang out for a good 45 minutes before everybody else wakes up in the house.

Everybody gets already. Chloe gets ready for school. I get dressed and my legs on, arms-on, and I take her to school for the day. Just because my situation has no arms and legs or whatever, it doesn’t mean it’s going to take my attitude. That’s why I’ve been told by a lot of people. I’m a bit much in the morning because I’m very happy. I’m like, “What’s going on? What’s happening today?” I’ve always been like that. In Afghanistan, they get mad at me because I wake up singing. They couldn’t yell at me because I outrank them. If they did, “Didn’t you see my rank? Do you realize?”

The best leadership method I had was I wasn’t the guy who’s going to yell at you all the time like you see on TV that’s very intense. I would throw up hypotheticals and then they can think I was a little bit crazy. If they didn’t do what I wanted, they would have to face a different side of me. They’d also be like, “Is he serious or not?” They didn’t know. A lot of times they’re doing stuff and like, “I don’t know if he’s even serious, but I don’t want to see what happens.” It worked well for me. It’s not like in a bad way. I know it wasn’t abusive. If I want something done or they weren’t doing something right, I’ll ask them a simple question, and then get them thinking about what their actions are and how they’re going to fix it.

Outside of your family being an amazing support, your wife, parents, and staff. When you had your darkest days after the accident happened and everything, what are some of the things that you did or what you turn to? Were there books? Was there any personal development? Was there anything that helped you bring back that mindset, that attitude?

I think it was Chloe and my wife. I remember one time talking sternly to my mother, which you don’t do where I come from. The only thing I said when I woke up was, “When is Chloe coming in?” She said, “They already came to visit, but you were sleeping.” I said, “Don’t ever let that happen again.” That’s the only reason this is working better. That’s the sternest I’ve ever gotten to my mother. The whole point was without my daughter, I’m not sure I’d be the same person. Not to put the weight of the world on her shoulders. She’s not here. She’s at school so that’s good.

I didn’t have the typical 2, 3, or 4 weeks of, “Why me, poor me.” For six months I couldn’t look in the mirror, but I didn’t let anybody in. Mental health is important, but I didn’t do it the right way. I’ll be the first to admit that. When mental health people came to talk to me, “I’m sleeping.” My wife said, “Mental health came to talk.” I said, “Tell them don’t come back because I’m not talking to them.” The second time they came back, I pretend I was sleeping. The third time they came back, I was up eating a bowl of cereal with a makeshift arm like duct tape and plastic material. This crazy looking thing. They came in and I saw them. I said a bad word that started with an S. I plopped back in my bed like I was sleeping. They walked over and they’re like, “What are you doing?”

They asked me some questions. I gave them my name rank and social. They said, “I don’t get what you’re doing.” I said, “That’s how I tell the enemy when you get captured. Take it and leave or just leave, because I am not talking to you.” That’s the only time I ever talked to mental health. I know I did it wrong, but that’s how I handled it. I had to meet with a social worker that they make you meet with. It felt like the movie Goodwill Hunting. The one where Matt Damon has to talk to that and they breakthrough finally. She would bring me in and try to talk to me.

She asked a question and I say, “We’re not going to talk about that.” Finally, about the third session, I said, “You’re wasting both of our time. I understand what you’re trying to do and I appreciate it. People need this. I don’t.” She released me from there too. The only counseling I’ve ever had is through my own self, but I started a foundation and I know PTSD is a real thing. Even though I don’t suffer from it, I have a program in the Travis Mills Foundation for post-traumatic stress. That’s changing the whole view of it and helping service members get past them. It was exciting.

Tell us more about the Travis Mills Foundation. I know that sets a purpose of yours. It’s not only a passion that you definitely found purpose in that. Tell us more about that, maybe some stories of people that you’ve helped.

My wife and I started out with care packages, and then after going on some trips in the hospital we decided that we would bring some families out because they taught me how to downhill mountain bike, ski, snowboard, go white water rafting, and kayaking. We thought, “Let’s do this.” We brought some families out to this camp that we rented and it went very well. We get in the next year for one week. It went well. We bought a facility that was in bad disrepair. We spent two and a half years to the tune of $2 million or $3 million renovating this place off of people believing in us and understanding what the mission was going to be without even having anything to show for it. People would help.

We opened officially in 2017 and we brought in 89 families from all across the nation. No cost to the family, it’s all free for them. We show them how to do things adaptively. This was in ‘17 and ‘18. There were 135 families. At ‘19 was over 200 families. In 2020, it was COVID. We did a lot more virtual stuff. We became a partner of Boulder Crest Foundation with their Warrior PATHH program for post-traumatic stress. We have a virtual presence with a couple of programs we’re doing to help families that maybe want to take an accounting class or a culinary class. We will help them get there if they’re willing to do community service and the goals that we set for them. We’re all about, “I’ll help you if you help yourself, but if you don’t want to help yourself, then I don’t know how to help you.”

At the end of the day, I had to motivate myself, pick myself up, and be successful. I needed help along the way. It came from within and I want people to feel their inner strength and get after it and know that they can do it, and hand up instead of a handout type deal. The foundations are running strong. We’re one of the top 25 in the nation for veterans’ service organizations. I don’t take a dime as a president. My wife doesn’t take any money on the board. We do what we have to do to get the job done. We’ve had some big names like Kevin Masters is a big TV show that helped us out with the cottage renovation. We’ve had Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs come out and build a ropes course. It’s a lot of fun and we’re seeing the progress.

We have one gentleman that lost 150 pounds after coming because he wanted to be more active with his kids. We had a spouse say that she hasn’t seen her husband act like his true self since before he deployed, three years prior to him coming to the foundation. We have children that cry and say they don’t want to leave. They say it’s better than Disneyland. We think we’re doing the right thing. We’re very happy and fortunate to have the support that we have. COVID has been a tricky year for us, but we were also able to still help families, have people champion our mission forward, and understand our mission. We’re grateful to have them on the team. 2021 looks like it’s going to be a phenomenal year for us.

That is amazing, over 200 families in 2020 that you brought, no charge to them. They come to your facility you’ve built and renovated.

Everything’s barrier-free. If you’re in a paralyzing injury, a spinal cord injury, and you have a walker or prosthetic legs, you can go anywhere on our property. I stole the best physical therapist from Walter Reed, but she wasn’t my personal therapist. My personal therapist, Kerry Quinn, is also the best at Walter Reed. I did steal, at Walter Reed, a physical therapist to come and run my programs. Her philosophy is, “If I can’t figure it out to help you do it adaptively, by the next time you come back I will have it figured out.” We have people with no arms, no legs like myself riding horses, shooting archery, kayaking, and canoeing.

Everything was set up with the idea that if I was to come into a room, what am I going to need? How’s the bathroom got to look? How’s the bathroom set up got to go? How do we make this all possible? We’ve taken every opportunity to learn from different injuries and different problems people are facing because of their injuries sustained while in service and make it so nobody feels left out. Everybody’s included and there’s no counseling onsite, which probably seems like you didn’t talk to anybody. Why would it be? We have it if people want it. The best counseling that people get is around the bonfire. They sit around the bonfire, they enjoy, they have the ability to talk and have a laugh, and talk about experiences. The kids are usually worn out, they’re already in bed sleeping. It works out pretty nicely that way too.

It is in Maine?

Yeah. It’s in the Belgrade Lakes region. About 17 miles from my house. I live near Augusta and it’s 17 miles away at Mount Vernon town. One property that we own for the foundation is on Mount Vernon and the other side of the road for the other property is our home. It works out.

Where do you see the foundation going?

More families. Once people get done with the eighteen-month course for posttraumatic stress, we’ll have weeks for those families as well. Now we don’t offer anything family-wise for PTS. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s just once they go through this eighteen-month course, and we’ll have families come out for that. Big picture, maybe 3 or 4 or more facilities throughout the nation to give back. We’ve dabbled with the idea of first responders, frontline workers, nurses, police, officers, fireman, EMS, to name a few, and to see where that would take us as well. Just because they weren’t in combat and get shot, it doesn’t mean they haven’t seen some things or done some things that maybe they need help with. The sky is the limit but I am a real big believer in the military’s method of crawl, walk, run. I’ll never go too fast and I’ll never get carried away with anything. Everything’s very methodical and thought out, which sounds silly probably for me since I met my wife online and got married in seventeen days in person. Either way, it’s worked out for me, so no complaints.

[bctt tweet=”No matter what happens in life, never give up and never quit.” via=”no”]

How long did the family stay?

Five days. They fly in usually on a Wednesday and then they take off on a Monday.

You bumped them up and they stay there.

Elizabeth Arden built this place in 1929 and we renovated the entire house to have a centralized kitchen, a centralized living room, a full basement underneath that wasn’t there before. We broke the house in three sections and picked it up 15 feet in the air to put a full basement underneath it, which is a crazy process. We want to keep historical integrity because she’s a cosmetic pioneer in 1929. One of the wealthiest women in the nation. She had a horse she kept there named Jet Pilot that won the Kentucky Derby in 1947. There are eight rooms. Eight families come out and some rooms are for a couple and maybe a baby. An infant can stay in it but mostly it’s a couple or a single service member.

Those are two rooms like that. We have four rooms for families of up to four. We have two rooms upstairs that are for 6 to 8, and you can potentially fit more in there. I don’t anticipate expanding out like more bedrooms and things. I like to keep it intimate. Eight families seem to be about the right number so people can connect and enjoy. The cool thing is at Walter Reed, Kelsey and I had made such phenomenal friends that we’re also friends to this day. We’re all great friends to this day and my buddy, Josh Wetzel, and his wife, Paige, Andrew Smith. We’re all such good friends that the wives are still talking everyday on a text chain. That happens here too. We have families that come in and you see children see other kids have parents that look like their parents. The spouses all can talk about everything they’ve been through and service members. They’ve built these bonds and they become fast friends and they continue talking after they come to this retreat.

My buddy Josh and his wife Paige, he’s a double amputee. They published this book Beautifully Broken that came out. I know the guy that wrote the foreword, very good-looking guy, has no arms and legs, named Travis Mills. He’s a very good, handsome dude. I got a book out called Tough As They Come. I got a documentary out called Travis: A Soldier’s Story. There are a lot of cool things I’ve been able to do because of people taking a shine to my attitude. I’m grateful to have the ability to live in a nation that takes care of me, the people that are around me that love me and support me. My wife has the hardest job because putting up with me isn’t easy.

I appreciate you hopping on here. I see that it’s coming up on the time. I watched your video and I was all choked up. As soon as we booked this, I knew of you because I’ve listened to you on another show before. I listened to it and I was like, “That’s great.” All of a sudden, we had you booked. I was pumped for that. You’re such an inspiration. Thank you so much for all that you’re sharing. What can we do for you? What can our support do for the Travis Mills Foundation?

TravisMills.org or TravisMillsFoundation.org. If you want to follow me on social media, it always helps to have more people, @SSGTravisMills. I do a lot of fun videos. I started working out in my home gym I put in. I got some videos up of that. I appreciate the support. If you want to donate your time or monetarily, we appreciate that. Let me get my story out there and let people know no matter what happens in life, never give up, never quit. My book, the author’s note will tell you two things.

The first thing I’ll tell you is I didn’t serve anybody else. I have no reason to be held any higher. I didn’t fight any harder. If you were in the service, thank you for your service. That includes everybody, even Marines. Everyone knows they’re so dumb, but that’s just me being jealous of the uniforms. It looks so good. The next thing they’ll tell you and I truly believe is I don’t think my problems outweigh anybody else’s. It might sound silly coming from a guy with no arms, no legs. If you think about your family, your friends, and your circle that you run in, there’s probably somebody that’s going through cancer. Somebody that’s been in a car accident. Somebody that has something bothering them that they need help with. If my story can help them, or my upbeat positive messages and things that I do can help push them over the goal line to be more successful and happy, pass it along. That’s about it. I hope everyone has a great day. I want you to do that.

You guys could definitely go to YouTube and just type in Travis Mills and take a look.

You can find that rapper from California there.

I saw the video that you did. That’s an amazing recap of everything that happened.

Travis Mills Recovery is a nice video that my wife did it. That’ll get you choked up and tearing up, and things like that. Either way, I appreciate the sport.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you hopping on and sharing your story. Don’t stop. Don’t quit. Never give up. Never quit.

Have a great day.

Thank you, brother.

Important Links:

• Travis Mills
• Travis Mills Foundation
• Boulder Crest Foundation
• Beautifully Broken
• Tough As They Come
• @SSGTravisMills – Instagram
• YouTube – Travis Mills

About Travis Mills

Retired United States Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills of the 82nd Airborne is a recalibrated warrior, motivational speaker, actor, author, and advocate for veterans and amputees. Travis’s New York Times bestselling memoir, Tough as They Come, is currently available on sale in bookstores everywhere.

Despite losing portions of both arms and legs from an IED while on active duty in Afghanistan, Travis continues to overcome life’s challenges, breaking physical barriers and defying odds. Travis lives by his motto: