Wounded war hero thanks Wichita program

Last Update: 8/04/2009 6:13 pm

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Wounded war hero thanks Wichita program

WICHITA, Kansas – A decorated war hero spoke Tuesday at the awards banquet for Envision, the Wichita group that helps people who are blind or have low vision. The Marine said the greatest battle he ever fought came after he was wounded.

"He fired a rocket-propelled grenade right into the hatch of my tank, hit me on the helmet,” said Nick Popaditch, a wounded Marine.

One year after Nick Popaditch helped topple the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, he was blinded in an attack on his tank unit in Fallujah.

"One of my eyes, my right eye, was blown completely out of my head,” he said. “My left eye was blown down into my sinus cavity."

Through surgery, Doctors restored only eight percent of his vision in the left eye, forcing the tank commander to re-evaluate his life.

"Up to this point if I'm not a Marine, what the heck am I?” he said.

But with the help of a vision rehabilitation program, Popaditch says he learned to read again – though slowly – and is now a senior in college. He’s even written a book about his ordeal that he autographed copies of Tuesday; thanking groups like Envision for helping him start over in life and learn an important lesson.

"Even when you're wounded, even when you face a life-altering injury or illness, your character is still the same,” he said. “You're that same individual.”

Nick Popaditch now wears a prosthetic eye, embossed with the Marine Corps logo. Once he graduates from college, he hopes to become a high school teacher.

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