C.J. Chivers: Alive Day, Joao Silva.
October 23, 2011 marks the passing of a year since Joao Silva stepped on a landmine in southern Afghanistan, losing both legs and suffering other injuries from which he is still recovering. Please join Joao’s family and friends in wishing him well — and a long, full life, the value of which he understands better than most any of us — on his first Alive Day.
Above is a photograph of Joao on Sept. 14, as he shopped for clothes to wear to his meeting with President Obama at the White House. (Joao famously avoided dress clothes until this meeting; the last time I saw him before he was wounded, in Oct. 2010, he was wearing an Incredible Hulk tee-shirt, about to leave for the assignment on which he would almost die.) Below is photograph of the shoes Joao bought on the same trip, moments before he walked into the Oval Office.
After the meeting, Joao went to work. Here is a frame of him photographing Mr. Obama and former Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer, as he received the Medal of Honor.
And another.
What none of us knew that day was that Joao was very ill. As he stood with President Obama, as he worked the Medal of Honor ceremony, as he pushed himself through a blur of a day, he was in the grip of a terrible infection. He returned to the hospital the following day, underwent more surgery in the days after, and spent weeks fighting it off.
And now Joao is training for the New York Marathon. In light of what he has been through, and what he still faces, this is a sign of almost inconceivable strength of will.
It’s Joao Silva’s Alive Day. Let there be 50 more.
Damn. No words.
