After his brother was killed in combat, he enlisted — and took four bullets to the gut

WOODBURY, Tennessee — Their 2007 Father's Day celebration stopped when two Army officers in uniform parked in the driveway and started solemnly walking toward the front door.

"Everyone was having a good time and partying," Franz Walkup said, "and the environment changed completely as soon as Mom and Dad opened the door."

Walkup and his siblings went to their rooms as the officers spread documents and letters onto a long table.

When the Army guys left, Walkup, then 18, and his two teen brothers and twin 8-year-old brothers gathered around that table with their parents.

Mom stared ahead with a blank look on her tear-streaked, red face while their father delivered the tragic news: Their oldest brother, Frankie, got killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Upset, Walkup ran from the house about 30 minutes later, his mind spinning with questions. Wait, my big brother isn't coming home? The guy who took me to soccer practice and taught me to drive? The guy who talked to me about girls and sports? My idol's not coming back? Why are troops over in Iraq anyway? What's up with this war?

Mike Farmer, a longtime family friend and a baseball coach for the boys, found Walkup a while later sitting by himself in Dillon Park in their tiny Tennessee town of Woodbury, about 50 miles southeast of Nashville.

Farmer patiently and quietly explained the Iraq War and his older brother's selfless sacrifice.

"How you go forward," Farmer said, "is to live your life to honor him."

Two years later, Walkup reported for basic training at Fort Knox in Kentucky.

Three years after that, Walkup nearly got killed in combat.

Afghan National Army soldiers who had been training with U.S. troops suddenly opened fire on the American soldiers, killing two and wounded three others, including Walkup, according to Walkup and published accounts of the 2012 incident.

Since then, he's had more than 80 surgeries because of those injuries. His right leg was amputated. He needed a colostomy bag, He endured hundreds of hours of physical therapy to walk with a prosthetic leg.

Walkup said he would do it all again.

'I'll be home soon'

Walkup comes from a long line of military service. His father served in the U.S. Army, and his grandfather joined the Navy.

Men in their family have served in the U.S. military going back to the Revolutionary War.

Walkup's older brother, Frankie, wanted to be in what they jokingly call "the family business," so he joined the ROTC when he enrolled at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The Sept. 11 attacks happened when he a freshman, further steeling his resolve to serve.

It was yet another reason Franz Walkup worshipped the brother five years his elder. Plus, they loved hanging out together.

During his older brother's few visits back home on military leave, they would ride in Frankie's black Isuzu Trooper all through their hometown.

The two emailed each other. He always put on a cheerful front in his emails to his younger brother. "Everything's fine!" the soldier wrote. "I'll be home soon."

Franz started to get worried when his older brother told their dad that guys in their unit were getting killed in Iraq now and then.

A month after Franz Walkup graduated high school, a roadside bomb killed his big brother. The younger Walkup enlisted two years after that, and he ended up deploying overseas twice, first to Iraq, then Afghanistan.

In Iraq, Walkup got a visit from his older brother's sergeant major, the highest rank among the enlisted. He told Walkup how brave his older brother was and how much the Army appreciates Walkup following in his brother's footsteps.

Walkup also got a commemorative coin from his brother's division.

"That visit supercharged me and validated that Frankie was what we thought — awesome," Walkup said.

'What the hell just hit me?'

On Sept. 29, 2012, Franz Walkup was talking to his platoon sergeant and buddy, Daniel Metcalfe, at a checkpoint mission they were conducting with Afghan National Army soldiers near Tangi Valley.

Pop! Pop! Pop pop pop pop!

A quick succession of M16 rifle shots fired nearby. Metcalfe fell instantly, killed by three bullets, Walkup said.

Thump!

Walkup felt the first of four bullets tear through his gut. "My muscles contracted, like the wind just got knocked out of me," Walkup said. "And I thought, 'Oh, what the hell just hit me?'"

Walkup, facedown, tried to get up and run as he saw two Afghan National Army soldiers firing at U.S. troops But he couldn't get his legs to move, so he fell forward on his face. Walkup said he started crawling toward sandbags about 40 feet away to try to get near some cover.

While crawling, he saw one of the Afghan soldiers charge toward Walkup. The Afghan shot him once in the back.

"That one felt like someone dropping a sledgehammer on your back," he said.

"I just froze and laid there. I guess he thought that round killed me, because he started engaging the rest of our guys. So I turned over and shot him and killed him."

Walkup fired a few more shots at the attackers before reaching for his first aid kit. He started packing gauze and mud into the heavily bleeding wounds in his abdomen. Walkup then called for help from the medic, who had been shot in the ankle.

Within minutes, Walkup was loaded onto a truck, but the truck started taking fire, he said.

"Hey man!" the medic shouted, "we gotta go or Franz isn't gonna make it."

The driver punched the accelerator, and within a half hour, Walkup was put on a helicopter to airlift him to a hospital. On that flight, Walkup, whose breathing became more shallow, crossed his hands over his throat to let medics know he was getting no air.

They performed a tracheostomy, shoving into the hole in his throat a tube attached to a squeezable bag for Walkup to breathe. The chopper landed at a field hospital and Walkup remembers seeing a giant U.S. flag there.

His next memory is waking up at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland nearly six weeks later. It was the start of a years-long recovery that's still on-going.

Lt. Dan built him a house

Walkup laid flat on his back for six months as doctors assessed the damage and started repairs. The bullet to his back severed a nerve that rendered his right leg useless.

He had a fractured hip and femur. He had nasty infections because of the mud he packed into his wounds.

Doctors told him he probably wouldn't walk unaided again, and he definitely would never run again.

"I said, 'That’s no problem, I never really liked running anyway,'" Walkup said, laughing.

Seeing other wounded service members gave Walkup perspective.

"I'd see quad amputee guys, they were pretty motivational. You saw them going on with life and taking care of themselves. I'm like, man, I could do this, I don’t have it that bad."

His visitors in military hospitals included Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, who both gave him presidential coins. Then Vice President Joe Biden, baseball legends Pete Rose and Derek Jeter, and actor Charlie Sheen also visited with Walkup.

Those aren't the only celebrities who supported Walkup's recovery. Ellen DeGeneres, on her national TV talk show, presented Walkup with a big check — and he in turn gave her his Purple Heart, which she sent back to him seven months later.

Actor Gary Sinise — Lt. Dan in "Forrest Gump" — started a foundation for wounded veterans. That foundation built Walkup a wheelchair accessible home in Walkup's native Woodbury.

Oliver North, the retired Marine of the Iran-Contra scandal who was once president of the National Rifle Association, connected Walkup with a guns manufacturer who gave the wounded veteran a job.

In October 2017, surgeons removed Walkup's right leg below the knee so he could start using a prosthetic.

Today, Walkup is a customer service repair representative for Barrett Firearms. He is married to a high school classmate, and the couple is expecting its first baby.

All four of Walkup's younger brothers — Mitchell, Kevin, Josh and Jake — are in the Army.

Walkup, working through his physical and mental trauma, has an uplifting take on it all.

"Everyone has PTSD. I’m reminded of my trauma every day when I put my leg on. For some people that would be triggering, but for me, it gives me an opportunity to tell them about my older brother. So his memory is preserved," he said.

"There were some terrible times, but I made the best of it. What’s happened to me gives me a better chance to share his story. When people ask me my story, I’m always able to bring Frankie into it."

Reach Brad Schmitt at [email protected] or 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Retired Army soldier in Tennessee honors brother this Veteran's Day