Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State student and wounded combat veteran Aaron Rice will be the featured speaker Monday [Sept. 11] at a campus event marking the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
The ex-Marine from Sumrall, who lost a leg in Iraq, will speak during a noon-1 p.m. "Patriot Day" commemoration and celebration at the flagpole on the historic Drill Field. The university's Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity is sponsor.
The ceremony will open with a presentation of the colors by Air Force ROTC cadets and the Pledge of Allegiance led by Army ROTC.
According to Alpha Phi Alpha members, the event will "demonstrate our respect for the victims of this horrible day by commemorating the lives that were lost and damaged" during 2001 assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The ceremony also will "honor and celebrate the countless acts of courage, compassion, loyalty and responsibility that represent the best in human nature."
A junior political science major and 2002 graduate of Oak Grove High School near Hattiesburg, Rice serves now as attorney general of the MSU Student Association. The son of Charles and Deborah Rice, he was awarded a Purple Heart for his service as a Marine lance corporal in war-torn Iraq.
Rice was driving a Humvee during a mobile assault mission in Al Anbar Province on March 18, 2005, when his vehicle struck a land mine. The explosion left the vehicle a heap of twisted metal and mangled body parts entwined along the desert highway west of the Euphrates River. Rice described his left leg as "hanging on by tissue."
"I looked down and my left leg, below my knee, was pointing back up at me," said Rice, a 22-year-old former reservist with Jackson-based Echo Battery, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment. "My boot was lying in my lap.
"The first thing I did was reach in my flak jacket and pull out a picture of me and my wife (Kelly)," he recalled in an interview during his recovery. "I told my buddies not to worry about me--that I was lucky. I was going home to see my wife."
Three fellow Marines crawled underneath the Humvee, pulled Rice from the wreckage and assisted in his medical evacuation. He lost the leg below his knee.
Rice said he learned later that only six members of his original 20-member platoon had escaped death or injury since he was separated from his unit.
For more information on the ceremony, telephone (601) 832-4668 or e-mail mcc106@msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.