The Green Beret Who Carried His OWN LEG Down a Mountain: John Wayne Walding

"I always think about the conversation that I had with God."

John Wayne Walding was born on the Fourth of July, and that’s only the very beginning of his hero’s journey of patriotic sacrifice.

As John Wayne Walding recounted in perhaps the most resilient story ever told on Chad’s show, "I literally carried my leg down the mountain because it was so severely injured. That was one of the feelings of, 'I know what it's like to die'… The feeling of death is closure, something when you're living in that much pain, it's not a scary thing. I always think about the conversation that I had with God. I said, 'God this is all I got.'"

John served in the military for 12 years including 7 in the Special Forces, earning a Silver Star Medal, the Bronze Star Medal, and a Purple Heart. John lost his right leg to sniper fire in Afghanistan 2008 and kept fighting for four hours after being shot. That didn’t keep him from returning to service and becoming the first amputee to become a Green Beret sniper. He was also awarded a Combat Infantry Badge, an Airborne Tab, Air Assault Tab, and Special Forces Tab. That’s about as Resilient as it gets.

How did a man like John become so accomplished and tough? John has been conditioned to face adversity ever since he can remember. "What you don't see on my resume was my first memory of my dad was seeing him go to jail… in the back seat of my grandma's car I was probably five or six years old at the time. We were pulling into the parking lot and we had to stop. Because there was a chain of eight convicts... lo and behold look at him one of them was my Dad… The first memory I have he was going from county lockup to the courthouse to get sentenced."

While his dad was in the clank for drug offenses, John and his brother lived and worked on his grandfather's farm just outside Waco, Texas. "That's where I learned to be a man."

John's upbringing exposed him to a side of masculinity that is becoming rarer and rarer these days, but it's exactly the kind of role model that embodies our ethos at The Resilient Show, "My grandad he was one of those guys, man. Born in the Great Depression. Just a hard man. We don't have men like we did back in the day… the same day he got home from back surgery he was on the lawnmower and he was mowing the yard. Why? Because his knuckle-headed grandson didn't mow it while he was gone and it needed to get done."

Given his humble nature, it’s not surprising that John Wayne Walding attributes his unbreakable spirit to God, “"When I pray to God I ask him not to make my life easier but to give me the shoulders that can bear his yoke."

To learn how Jonn Wayne Walding used the lessons of his childhood and his faith to become one of the most resilient members of the Special Forces—then go on to be a successful entrepreneur and father of four—tune into the episode here.

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