Pfc. Joshua Sparling

Here’s an update on the injured soldier who received that sick death-wish card at Walter Reed Army Hospital. The Port Huron Times Herald reports:

As Joshua Sparling lay in his hospital bed, just a couple of days after being wounded by a bomb in Iraq, he got a letter.

The letter, addressed to “any soldier,” wasn’t meant to lift the spirits of someone just injured in battle. Instead, the letter, written in what looked like a child’s handwriting, told Pfc. Sparling, 24, a paratrooper with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, to have a “great time dieing (sic) in the war.” It ended with a postscript that said in big letters “DIE.”

“I was shocked that (someone) would send a letter like that to anyone, period,” said Joshua’s father, Mike Sparling of Greenwood Township. “Let alone send it to someone returning from war.”

But, Mike Sparling said his son, who had been in Iraq since August, used it as motivation to get better.

Joshua Sparling, a graduate of Yale High School, joined the Army this year. He was on special assignment in Ramadi, Iraq, when he was injured Nov. 18. He was on foot patrol when he saw men running out of a hole, and he and others in the unit gave chase. When Sparling was about 6 feet away from the hole, it blew up, sending him about 30 feet in the air, his father said.

Since then, he has been undergoing surgery nearly every other day at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for a badly injured right leg.

On Wednesday, he had major surgery in which doctors tried to repair the leg with muscle, bone and tissue from his left leg, his father said. If the surgery doesn’t work, Joshua may lose his leg…

Pfc. Sparling called into the Fox and Friends program earlier this week and shared great news with Brian Kilmeade, who broke this story two weeks ago. His leg will be saved. And, he says, he plans to go back to Iraq once he heals. Amazing.

My friend Kirby Wilbur, KVI-AM talk show host in Seattle launched the Joshua Sparling Project, encouraging listeners in the Pacific Northwest to send get well wishes and Christmas cards to the injured soldier. Nearly 9,000 came in!

It’s never too late to send words of encouragement to troops hospitalized at Walter Reed. Send them to:

Red Cross
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue NW
Heaton Pavillion
3EO5
Washington, DC 20307

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Kit Jarrell interviewed Pfc. Sparling over at Euphoric Reality.

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Related:

*Merry Christmas, My Friend (adapted for soldiers here).

*Fred Barnes on the MSM’s War without Heroes. An exception to the MSM rule is here at the Seattle Times, which highlights a few heroes from the Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade. (But who needs old media when you’ve got Michael Yon?)

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Thank you, Joshua Sparling
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Unhinged scumbag of the year (Bluto has more.)