With an effortless thrust, Todd Love sprang from his wheelchair and plopped onto the couch of the expansive great room in his new home. Love’s face radiated joy. He bounced on the cushions as if he was testing their quality. Then he smiled and bounced again. And again.
He still feels like a child, he admits, he still sees the world with wonder and optimism.
And now, here he was this week in his own abode, a $500,000 “smart” home that can accommodate the challenges of a man who had half his body blown away but who still throws himself head-on into life.
Love, a 2008 Kell High School grad, joined the Marines because his father did. He wanted to be in Marine Recon because they were bad ass. He’s still bad ass, all 100 pounds of him. You can see it in the jut of his chin, his buzz cut, from his wry smile and the flash of mischief in his eyes.
Life changed for Love on Oct. 25, 2010, when an IED in Afghanistan pulverized his legs to the groin and turned his left arm into a mangled mess later to be amputated. His comrades thought he was dead but worked feverishly to save what was left of him.
Later, he came to in a hospital bed stateside and knew his wounds were bad. “I thought I’d feel my thigh and work down from there; but I put my hand where my thigh was and it was bed,” he recalled in an interview last year in a cramped apartment he shared with his brother. “I realized, ‘Oh, my God, I’m half gone.’ I looked up at my dad and asked, ‘Is it that bad?’ He said, ‘Yes.’”
Often, people turn away from those who suffer such grievous injuries. Sometimes, it’s easier to pretend not to notice. But your eyes are drawn to Love because his cocksure attitude proclaims, “Here I am, world!”
This week, he briefly reflected on his journey during the ceremony in which he got the keys to his new home, which lies in a patch of woods several miles north of Douglasville.
“I have lost a lot,” Love told the crowd. “But in the last four years, I have found a lot more than I realized I had. There’s a lot more in this world that is up for grabs.”
The funding for the home came from the Gary Sinise Foundation, founded by the actor who played a war-wounded double amputee in “Forrest Gump”; the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, founded by the brother of a fireman who died on 9/11; and Home Depot. He’ll live there with his brother, Brandon.
Fifteen months ago, Love gamely jumped into a backhoe and worked at taking down a skinny pine in a tree-clearing ceremony. Monday, the honor guard was back with a massive flag blocking view of his home before it was to be unveiled.
Love once told me he remained buoyant to keep his family and the guys in his platoon from despairing. His matter-of fact manner and absence of wanting pity have become infectious.
He gives speeches to convention halls full of business types. He wants to raise awareness of the foundations that build homes for devastated veterans. The new type of warfare waged in Iraq and Afghanistan — of sneak-blasts, effective body armor and improved life-saving techniques — has created legions of wounded vets with severe injuries like Love’s. In previous wars, they would have buried him. Now, he and thousands more have another 50-plus years to live.
Love is not one to draw attention, but he knows his story is gripping and the publicity can help others. He got his house; now he wants others to get theirs. He has become the face of the returning war vet, the warrior who has lost so very much, but who soldiers on without complaint.
Type-A males ranging from business executives to biker dudes are drawn to him and tear up talking about him.
“When he talks, people listen,” said Frank Siller, the firefighter’s brother. “His personality is infectious.”
Simply put, Todd Love has become American resilience personified.
“People like me because I like myself,” he once told me. “I try to be happy. It feeds on itself. It makes a circle.”
Part of it all is practical. He knows living with a positive spirit is just healthier. The months in a hospital lying flat on his back after enduring such horror caused him to get intensely introspective, to think deeply about what it’s all about.
“Before I got hurt, I believed in just one God — Jesus Christ,” he told me last year. “After it, I feel we’re all God; we’re all part of God.”
Almost a Buddhist thing, he said.
He’s out there taking all that heaven allows.
Google “Todd Love” and see him jump from airplanes, scuba dive, snow ski, endure long marches, even wrestle alligators fercryingoutloud! He said he’s not overcompensating or trying to be an inspiration for others, he’s just living life as he would have had he arrived home unharmed.
Sometimes, being who he is gives him an edge. “You put me on skis and people are trying to keep up with me. It makes me more capable. Gravity doesn’t have any favorites.”
“Is it scary?” I asked.
“No, no,” he said, pausing to consider the question. Then he smiled, adding, “I can take a good hit.”
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