SARATOGA SPRINGS -- A former Green Beret spoke about his lessons learned on the battlefield during a Veterans Day dinner Tuesday.
Ret. SSG. Kevin Flike of Stillwater was shot in the stomach during his second tour in Afghanistan in 2011.
We were doing a valley clearing operation. We were going to start at one end of the valley and go through each of the villages along the way and talk with people there, see what was going on, if there was any Taliban activity, About an hour in we started taking heavy fire and ten hours in after fighting on and off through the day I ended up getting wounded, recalled Flike.
Flike credits an Afghan soldier for pulling him to safety where he was worked on and later transported to a hospital tent.
He says during his first tour, he realized he needed to live every day like it was his last. After being shot, he was able to focus on getting better, instead of regrets.
You think one minute you're going to die and you wake up a couple days late in a hospital and realize you're alive and you have a second chance at life. While it was an incredibly excruciating experience to go through Im so thankful to God he allowed me to survive and to everyone who helped me along the way, said Flike. Nerve re-growing is a very slow process so I dont try to get ahead of myself and play the long game with this. February 9 will be three years and Im going to try to run again February 9. Im so eagerly anticipating that day and if that doesn't work out then I'll wait and try to run again.
