Injured vet, family find reasons to be thankful through hard times

Would you still be thankful if your body had been cut nearly in half by war, wrecking your life’s plans?

Would you still be thankful if you saw your brother or son live in pain daily, struggling to do things as simple as opening a door?

You would if you were Jonathon Blank and his family.

“Of course,” Jonathon said. “My life isn’t over. There’s a possibility of anything happening tomorrow. And I love that, rather than there being nothing because I’m dead.”

Linden Blank said he’s thankful his brother didn’t die in Afghanistan. “I’m thankful to God every day that didn’t happen. I’m thankful for my own survival.”

Among other things, Thanksgiving is a day to remember why we should be thankful. That can be harder some Thanksgivings than others.

This is the Blanks’ fifth Thanksgiving since a hidden bomb exploded under Jonathon on Oct. 26, 2010, during his Marine recon unit’s final mission in Afghanistan. It blew off his legs and a hip, tore up his intestines and ripped apart his left elbow.

Splinters of Jonathon’s bones had to be surgically removed from a Marine who was nearby.

Jonathon almost died.

That first Thanksgiving was spent at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. Karen Blank sat by her son’s bedside.

Most of the immediate family won’t be able to gather this year for Thanksgiving at Matthew and Karen’s rural Augusta home, where Jonathon, Linden, Abbie and Nathanial grew up.

Except for Linden, the Blanks’ children are scattered around the country and can’t make it to Augusta.

Even Thanksgiving dinner had to be tweaked. The Blanks had theirs Wednesday because Karen is on duty Thanksgiving Day as a Wichita police officer and Linden is working the holiday as an Augusta public safety officer.

This family is all about public service.

Matthew is a special investigator for the Sedgwick County public defender’s office. Linden served two combat tours as a Marine in Iraq. Abbie, a Marine officer, has pulled one tour in Afghanistan.

And now Nathanial, the youngest, is in Army boot camp at Fort Benning, Ga.

The Eagle began writing about Jonathon’s injury four years ago and published a comprehensive story about the family in July 2011. Now we’re taking a look at how life has changed for the Blanks.

And some of the reasons why they’re thankful.

“I still have all my children,” Karen said.

Stress level

Jonathon and Linden, 27, are twins and did everything together while growing up.

“You’re almost the same person,” Linden said.

Both joined the Marines right out of high school in 2006.

Linden left the service four years later, began his Augusta police and fire duties and got married a year ago. Jonathon extended his time in the service so he could go to Afghanistan with the Marines he helped train.

At the time of Jonathon’s injury, Abbie was a senior at the University of Kansas and was taking part in the school’s Naval ROTC program. Nathanial was a high school sophomore, telling his parents he would be a Marine someday.

Abbie became a Marine officer and spent seven months in Afghanistan as a platoon commander. Her duties included gathering military equipment to be sent home as the war began to wind down.

Stress levels spiked for Mom and Dad.

“I told Mom, ‘Hey, this is nothing,’ ” Abbie said. “I never fired my weapon.”

She probably didn’t give her parents the details about the rockets fired at her base, Camp Leatherneck, or talk much about the enemy’s probing attacks.

Now married, Abbie, 25, is stationed at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Southern California and is on the list to make captain next summer.

Nathanial, a 2013 graduate of Augusta High School, is married and has a 1-year-old son. Jonathon talked him out of becoming a Marine and into choosing the Army.

Better chance of being sent faster to one of the world’s hot spots, Jonathon told him. Nathanial joined the Army with an agreement he would be provided a shot at becoming a Ranger, one of the branch’s special forces units.

“I told him to make the most of it,” Jonathon said. “You don’t want to look back and have regrets.”

While Jonathon was going through treatments and rehab at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Nathanial lived with his older brother during his junior year of high school. Nathanial listens to Jonathon.

Matthew sighed as he thought of the possibility of Nathanial also being in harm’s way. In early 2012, Matthew switched from being a private investigator to working as a special investigator for the Sedgwick County public defender’s office, in part to reduce stress.

“I’ve grown significantly grayer,” he said. “It seems like I’m always going to be waiting for one of my kids to come home from a war zone.”

But, he added, “Nathanial has the maturity to make all that work. He has the maturity because life-changing events have pushed us all to understand what matters most.”

Pushing each other

Service is at the Blank family’s core.

“If we’re capable of doing something,” Abbie said, “we need to step up and do it. Our family is capable. Why not us?”

When Nathanial told his parents about his Army decision, he said, “You don’t think I’m going to be the one not to serve, do you, Mom?”

The siblings push each other.

“We have extremely high expectations of each other, even higher than our parents do,” Abbie said. “If one starts second-guessing themselves, we squash it.

“We’ll support each other no matter what, but we expect a lot. So far, we haven’t disappointed each other.”

The family brings it all with high energy.

Abbie recently drove five hours after work to Las Vegas to run her first marathon, clocking the distance in three hours, 57 minutes and 22 seconds to finish 686th out of more than 3,208 runners.

Jonathon also refuses to slow down.

Even while going through rehab in San Antonio, he went scuba diving, hunting, snow skiing and sailing. Ocean spearfishing is coming up.

Recently, he and a buddy from his Marine days went hunting in Montana. Jonathon, a scout sniper as a Marine, shot a bull elk from 951 yards away – or 9 1/2 times the length of one football field.

He also went to Virginia to be an extra in an episode of the AMC series “Turn: Washington’s Spies,” a Revolutionary War drama that is scheduled to resume in 2015. He played a one-legged pirate.

“It was a blast,” he said.

Watching Jonathon live life with zeal inspires Abbie.

“I pull a lot of my strength from him,” she said. “Honestly, we’ve been blessed as a family. We’re all still working through what’s happened, but we’ve come to terms with it.

“I’m thankful we have one another and have this incredible support system of each other.”

Jonathon also draws on that support, even if now it’s from a distance while living near Salt Lake City in Tooele, Utah. The past eight months have brought a new chapter for him.

He was required to stay on active duty until surgeries were completed and he was well down the road on rehab. He still had the familiarity of the military.

But he retired from the Marine Corps in March and is on his own. That has meant a different set of problems.

His medical care now comes through Veterans Affairs, which in recent months has been the target of federal investigations because of delays in care.

Jonathon has to take a “grocery sack full of medications,” as his dad put it. Sometimes the VA is late sending those meds, which causes problems.

“They’re so slow to react to everything,” Jonathon said. “Everything is covered with paperwork. No one wants to help.”

Karen was an occupational therapist before switching to police work at age 46, so she understands her son’s frustrations and needs.

“He hurts every day,” she said.

Karen takes pictures of flowers to relieve stress. She has more than 150 stored on her smartphone.

Jonathon has prosthetics but limits his use of them because they can be awkward and irritating. He has chronic pain in his left arm, and his right arm gets worn down from trying to compensate for his left.

Kelsi, his dog, helps. She’s a 70-pound Belgian Malinois that Jonathon adopted in 2011 out of the military service dog program.

“She’s not a full-blown service dog,” Jonathon said. “But she can retrieve this or that. She can pull my wheelchair around. I take her everywhere.”

Making a difference

Part of Jonathon longs to be able to go everywhere and do what he wants. Before his injury, he planned to either stay in the Marines or get out and become a firefighter or a federal agent.

“Now, everything I’ve thought about has fallen off the table,” he said, “and I have to start from square one.

“It’s really hard to find something that still means something to the world, that means something to me and makes a difference.”

Remember, making a difference is ingrained in his family’s DNA.

So he’s making meaningful plans. Carefully.

“Once I narrow it down, I’ll go back to school, use the GI Bill,” Jonathon said. “But I don’t want to just go to school and change majors a thousand times before finding out what I want to do. I’ll do research first.”

The outdoors is his passion.

“I’ll find a way,” he said.

He’s thankful he can believe that.

“My life isn’t easy, with all the pain and loss,” Jonathon said. “I have all kinds of crap I deal with every day.

“People look at me differently – people who don’t know who I am or what I’ve done – but I’m still thankful I’m around. I can’t get out there and do everything, and that’s become a way of life.

“But falling out of my wheelchair in public doesn’t bother me like it used to. Falling off my prosthetics in public doesn’t bother me like it used to. People staring at me doesn’t bother me quite like it used to.”

You can hear the drive in his voice.

“I still have the power and ability to affect other people’s lives in a positive way,” he said, “and I’m thankful for that.

“My life may not be easy, but it’s not over.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 7:20 AM with the headline "Injured vet, family find reasons to be thankful through hard times."