In a valiant display of respect and honor, an Army Ranger badly wounded in battle surprised a room of fellow Rangers, doctors and nurses when he saluted a commanding officer as he lay in his hospital bed.
Josh Hargis, a soldier with the 3rd Ranger Battalion, lost both of his legs after an improvised explosive device detonated at his feet last week. The 24-year-old received the Purple Heart for his valor, and when the ceremony began at the soldier’s bedside, Hargis — who was thought to be unconscious — surprised all in attendance when he raised his arm to salute a commanding officer.
“Josh, whom everybody in the room (over 50 people) assumed to be unconscious, began to move his right arm under the blanket in a diligent effort to salute the Commander as is customary during these ceremonies,” an officer wrote Hargis’ wife, Taylor. “Despite his wounds, wrappings, tubes, and pain, Josh fought the doctor who was trying to restrain his right arm and rendered the most beautiful salute any person in that room had ever seen.”
Taylor Hargis shared the commander’s letter and accompanying picture on Facebook.
“I cannot impart on you the level of emotion that poured through the intensive care unit that day, the commander continued. “Grown men began to weep and we were speechless at a gesture that speak volumes about Josh’s courage and character.”
According to a Fox affiliate in Ohio, Hargis and his unit were searching for a high-value target in Panjwaj, Afghanistan, when the explosion occurred. The troops were approaching a building when a man exited, lifting his shirt to show he didn’t have an IED attached to him.
A woman then emerged and exploded.
“Everybody, from what I understood, started moving and shuffling, and then it sounds like IEDs were planted around the ground, and Josh had stepped on one, and several other of the people in his unit also,” Jim Hargis, Josh Hargis’ father, told Fox 19.
Josh Hargis was deployed last month and will stay at a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, upon his return to the United States.
