Injured Army Ranger Josh Hargis delivered it from a hospital bed in Afghanistan after being severely wounded in a suicide bombing earlier this month. The salute came while the Cincinnati native was being awarded a Purple Heart, and wife Taylor Hargis posted a letter on Facebook from his team commander with the details.
Everyone in the room thought Hargis was unconscious during the ceremony. Then he surprised them:
"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."
Josh Hargis, a Ranger with the 3rd Ranger Battalion, was wounded in the attack that left four other members of his team dead. They were conducting a mission to try to capture a HVT(High Value Target), in the Panjwai district of Afghanistan.
36 members and a canine unit were attempting to capture a high value target in Panjwai in southern Afghanistan. When the troops arrived at the home, U.S. military officials said, the unit did a typical “call out” asking for those inside to come out.
One man appeared. Reports from the battlefield suggest he dropped to his knees and lifted his shirt to show the U.S. forces that he was not wearing a suicide bomb vest.
As several members of the Ranger unit moved toward the man to begin questioning him, a woman wearing a suicide vest emerged from the house and blew herself up, killing several members of the unit instantly, along with the dog, and injuring others.
Another Afghan male tried to escape from the compound.
As U.S. army medics, explosives specialists and others in the unit moved in to help the wounded, 13 improvised explosive devices went off, killing and injuring more U.S. forces.
Josh was one of the wounded and was evacuated for medical assistance. The photo below is Josh in a hospital in Afghanistan, right after the doctors stabilized his injuries. His wife posted this picture, along with what she received from Josh’s commander, this is a true warrior! No matter the pain we know Josh is in, he render’s the most beautiful salute you will ever see!
Now, Ranger Hargis is walking on prosthetic legs and expecting his first baby with his wife, Taylor Hargis, in May.
“Without question there is a lot going on in their lives and this is only the beginning of a series of adversities that they will have to overcome,” Taylor Hargis’s brother Patrick Griffith posted on the fundraising website he started for the couple.
They deserve all the best and may they both continue to persevere and overcome any challenges they may face.
