Mission One, 2014: SGT Darren Downing and wife, Brook  April 2014 Written for Caliber Technologies Copyright ARLADEAN ARNSON/Caliber Technologies

In a letter to our charity of choice for this Mission, Operation Once in a Lifetime, Darren Downing tells the story of becoming disabled and what he promised his girlfriend who supported him throughout the ordeal.

It starts with US Army SGT Darren Downing being critically injured during a tour in Afghanistan on February 26, 2012.

For the six months that he was in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for recovery and therapy, Brook, his girlfriend at the time, stayed with him. She put her own goals, dreams and life on hold to help his recovery efforts.

In his letter, he describes her hardships of being away from her support system to be with him. SGT Downing writes: “She went through just as much as I did coming back home, if not more. I had support she didn’t. There was no one she could talk to, She dealt with everything on her own. I leaned on her during my whole recovery; she carried both of our weight throughout everything we were going through. She watched me look myself in the mirror every day, with tears in my eyes, disgusted for what had happened to me, for the deformity that my injury had left. She was there to pick up all the pieces when I was angry at everyone. She was there when I was sad and when I couldn’t make sense of it all. She was there to pick me back up and to put me back together when I didn’t know how. To this very day she still does all these things; some days are worse than others, but she is always there.”

Following advice from others, SGT Darren Downing and his young girlfriend, now wife, were married before the process of getting medically retired was completed. SGT Downing writes again: “My wife agreed to get married on such short notice without her dress, without her family, and without her friends. She didn’t get her fairy tale wedding that she had dreamed of her whole life; (one) that she most certainly deserved more than anyone I have ever met. She agreed, under two conditions, one being that we had to get married in a church, not in an office or at a courthouse. Secondly, she made me promise that on the exact date a year from our original marriage, we could have a real wedding ceremony. At that time I made that promise, it seemed like a small price to pay for all she has done for me from the very second I was injured.”

At this point in the letter he spells out that he is asking for assistance with giving her the “dream” wedding she did not receive the first time. Caliber Technologies wishes to help this young couple. We are happily donating a portion of the sales of YOUR ORDERS to SGT Downing and his wife towards their “dream” wedding in Ohio this spring.