Van of Valor

Marine’s purpose finds new altitude

By Dr. Kevin Wallace
Van of Valor

MIAMISBURG, Ohio – The buzz of a hundred conversations filled the hotel ballroom in Austin Landing, a planned community about 14 miles from Dayton, Ohio. 

It was the opening dinner of the 2016 Team Fastrax Warrior Weekend to Remember, and the air was thick with the cautious camaraderie of warriors from different branches and eras, all getting their bearings. 

David Hart, a former Army Ranger and the event’s co-founder, was at the front, politely asking everyone to find their seats so we could begin. His request, met with a sea of slow-moving smiles and continued chatter.

Then, a voice cut through the hum. It wasn’t angry, but it was absolute — a tone that brooked no debate, forged on parade decks and in fighting holes.

“Take your seats NOW… please!”

The room snapped to order. 

Chairs scraped, conversations ceased mid-sentence, and a hundred bodies found their places with sudden, respectful efficiency. 

My eyes tracked to the source of the command. 

It was a barrel-chested man with a quiet intensity, his posture straight even in a polo shirt. That was my introduction to Gunnery Sgt (ret.) Samuel Deeds. 

In that instant, I didn’t know his story — the IED, the Purple Heart, the rip current rescue, but I knew his character. His command quickly rewound my mind to active duty, and I loved it.

Here was a natural protector, a man whose instinct was to bring order and safety, even in a peaceful Ohio ballroom. We shook hands later, and in his firm grip and steady gaze, I saw the familiar look of a man who had navigated the dark but remained anchored in purpose. 

I would learn the full weight of that commanding voice. It was the same voice that, in 2005 on an Iraqi road, had warned his Marines of danger, even as he placed his own body between them and an improvised explosive device he had identified and they’d not-yet seen. 

The blast that followed wrote his sacrifice in scars and shrapnel, earning him the Purple Heart and a brutal road of over forty surgeries. Yet, the protector in him could not be medically retired. 

Just three years later, on a North Carolina beach, that same instinct launched him into a raging rip current to save three struggling swimmers, an act of valor that earned him the Navy and Marine Corps Medal.

That should be enough of a legacy for any man. But for Deeds, the thread of service needed to find a new weave. He speaks openly of the hard years after the Corps — the surgeries, the PTSD, the TBI, the search for a “new normal,” coming home to what felt like nothing. 

He was scanning the horizon for a mission with the same focus he once used on patrol.

“All I had to do was open my eyes,” he said. “Because it was right in front of me.”

What was in front of him was the sky… and a flag… 

Deeds found his new mission with Team Fastrax, America’s Skydiving Team, and the largest skydiving team in the world. 

As their Senior Ground Safety Specialist and Conditioning Coach, he now ensures that other heroes — performers who leap from planes with the Stars and Stripes billowing behind them — do so with precision and honor. He just returned from jumping in Africa, a testament to the life he’s rebuilt. But when he talks about the work, it’s not about the thrill, it’s about the inspiration.

He speaks of the “oohs and aahs, the tears as our National Anthem plays, and the thunderous roar as the crowd erupts.” Every jump, he explains, is a tribute to a fallen service member or first responder. The sky becomes a cathedral, the descending flag a living, breathing memorial. And in that moment, Deed’s thread, the protector, the inspirer, connects with thousands on the ground. He uses his own story of adversity, sharing it openly, hoping to spark that same fire of resilience in just one person in the crowd.

On a sunny day back in 2013, in his hometown of Erlanger, Kentucky, a special honor was bestowed upon Deeds, an avid NASCAR fan. 

The Crown Royal “Your Hero’s Name Here” contest had chosen him as that year’s everyday hero. They surprised him, renamed the Brickyard 400 in his honor, and country star Justin Moore debuted a song called “Heroes” just for him. It was a national recognition, a moment where the country paused and said, “We see you, Gunny Deeds.”

But the truer measure of the man is not in that single moment of fame, rather it’s in the daily choice. It’s in the sound of his voice on the HomeFront Sitrep podcast, showcasing other veterans. It’s in the coaching he does with youth in Kentucky. 

It’s in the disciplined care he takes preparing his skydivers. It’s in the way he credits his wife, April, as his “greatest coach,” who inspires him to be better every single day. It is in the quiet, determined journey from a bomb-scarred road to the edge of the stratosphere, carrying the same mission: protect, inspire, serve.

That night in Dayton, I saw a leader bring a room to order with a single, purposeful phrase. Today, I see that same man using his life to bring a sense of order, purpose, and inspiration to others. 

Gunny Deeds teaches us that valor isn’t a finite resource used up in one explosion or one rescue. It’s a renewable force. 

It’s the fuel that drives a man to save lives on a beach, to command respect in a room, and to touch hearts from 4,000 feet above, ensuring the flag he defended so fiercely continues to fly, in the air and in the spirit of every person who hears his story. 

That is a patriot. 

That is an American life, fully lived.

Note: Gunnery Sgt. (ret.) Samuel Deeds and author Senior Master Sgt. (ret.) Dr. Kevin Wallace, both Purple Heart recipients, are displayed together at the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor in New Windsor, N.Y.

Author’s note: this story is an opinion piece from Dr. Kevin P. Wallace, a friend of Deeds’ for more than 10 years. A video interview will be hosted at a later date.