Jose Ramos Appointed to Presidential Commission

On March sixth, President George Bush chose Navy Hospital Corpsman Jose Ramos as one of two veterans wounded in Iraq to serve on the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors. A veteran’s wife was also appointed.

When Yellow Ribbon Fund Chairman Jim Bugg first heard the news about Jose, he wasn’t surprised. Jose, along with other injured service members, has been a frequent visitor to Jim’s country retreat "Poverty Point" on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, hunting, fishing and relaxing. "He is a really smart, level-headed guy," says Jim, "and we are all very proud of him."

Serving on the Commission is a very significant assignment, for its mission is to conduct a comprehensive review of the care America is providing for our wounded service members both at Walter Reed and at other facilities. The nine-member Commission has until the end of June to file its recommendations.

Being selected to the Commission is just the latest of Jose’s accomplishments.

He faced his biggest challenge on July 2004 when he was stationed in the town of Karma in Iraq. HM3 "Doc" Ramos had already finished serving one tour of duty as a Navy medic in Iraq and a previous tour in Afghanistan. He was seriously injured when, while helping Marines out in the field, he was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. He looked down at his arm to see it "dangling there just before the elbow." After telling his partner he needed a tourniquet to stop the bleeding he passed out, not to awaken until a week later in the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Losing an arm wasn’t enough to keep him down. Amazingly, just four months after his injury, while undergoing rehab at Walter Reed and adjusting to a prosthetic arm, he completed the New York City marathon, his first ever! He finished it in four hours, 57 minutes and 35 seconds. Since then he has run another marathon in New York as well as several Army 10-milers.

Jose has since enrolled at George Mason University in northern Virginia and is studying international affairs with a minor in Islamic studies and Arabic. His life is busy in other areas as well, for not only is he president of his fraternity but he plans to get married this summer.