Video

Hundreds of people lined River Drive today in downtown San Angelo to show their appreciation to 26 veterans who were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan. Watch »

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

RELATED STORIES

• Letter: City welcomed military heroes
• Heroes held in high esteem
• Hundreds honor troops at Hunt for Heroes parade
• San Angelo parade to honor recently wounded veterans

More Local News

• Tom Green County Jail books 109
• No headline - 2009-01-05 18:26:04.423862
• WINDMILL: Cotton conferences look to protect producers

Social Bookmarking

LIVE OAK SPRINGS RANCH— Marine Cpl. Donny Daughen­baugh killed his first whitetail deer Saturday on the first morn­ing of his first deer hunt.

A heavy- horned eight- point buck hung upside- down with two more deer, the fruits of a cold morning hunt on this ranch south of San Angelo. Hours later, Daugh­enbaugh, an avid fisherman and less- frequent bird hunter, was casting a worm into a large pond and reeling it back slowly, waiting for the next bass to strike.

The cloudless day passed slow­ly and comfortably as others sat around the campfire talking about hunting, trading stories and speculating on the night’s matchup between Texas Tech and Oklahoma.

The Iowan couldn’t think of much being better. “ This is all more than I expected,” he said.

“ I had been invited to come hunt, but the support we have gotten from the whole town is unreal. I wish there were more places like West Texas.”

Daughenbaugh, 27, and the other 27 troops who hunted as part of the Hunt for He­roes this weekend, loved the hunts and the guns, the clothes and scopes that were given to them for the hunt.

The overwhelming out­pouring of support from people they have never met might mean more than any­thing.

It began in Midland where they met, continued to Gar­den City and Sterling City, where school let out so chil­dren and others could line the streets as they passed and continued to San Ange­lo, where a parade was held in their honor.

“ Few people want to help with injured vets,” Daugh­enbaugh said. “ The people here are amazing. It was re­ally cool seeing all the kids. That could never happen back home because some of the parents would say, ‘ I don’t know how I feel about the military.’ ” In 2004, Daughenbaugh and others stopped a vehicle in Iraq after it tried to run into some troops. While he was searching the vehicle, the driver pulled up an AK- 47 assault rifle and shot Daugh­enbaugh in the face.

The bullet broke his upper and lower jaw and destroyed some nerves, leaving the left side of his face without feel­ing. All that’s visible now is a small circular mark on his left cheek. He still has massive headaches at times, he said, and his sinuses are sometimes a mess.

His wife, Sarah, stayed behind in Midland to shop, and the trip to Texas for her means as much as it does to Daughenbaugh, if not more.

Like most wounded troops, he said, there are good days and bad ones.

Some days, the headaches are so bad, he can’t help out around the house or with their two small children.

“She takes the brunt of it,” he said. “ I’ve never been able to show my wife the type of appreciation she is being shown by the people of Tex­as. She is being treated like a princess.”

As the day warmed at the ranch, the troops ate a huge meal of chicken fried venison with gravy, potatoes, beans, jalapeño poppers and peach cobbler. Several people sat or stood around a campfire and talked about the Tech- OU football game, while most of the troops eventually found their way to the pond.

Daughenbaugh tagged out Saturday morning but said he heard there was a turkey around that he might get a shot at.

Landowner Kirk Cleere said, “ There isn’t enough we can do to show our apprecia­tion” of the troops.

“ What they have gone through for us to have what we have, anything we can do for them, we want to do” he said. “ They risk their lives so we can have ours.”

Sgt. 1st Class John Clipp was the only hunter who didn’t get a buck on this ranch Saturday morning. The cold morning didn’t bother Clipp, who is from Pennsylvania and has hunted through many snowstorms.

He has been an avid hunt­er since he was 12 and has plenty of stories of hunting game.

Still, the hunt this week­end was special.

“ No one has ever done any­thing like this for me before,” he said.

Clipp has been in the Army for more than 18 years and also is a youth minis­ter. He said he has been pop­ping shrapnel out of his body since a hand grenade went off about 6 feet away from him during an ambush.

He saw 14 bucks but noth­ing he wanted to shoot, so he was ready to take his chanc­es again that evening.

There are two types of healing, he said — physical and mental. This weekend’s hunt helps people heal emo­tionally.

“Just the camaraderie,” he said. “ You know you are not alone in the boat, that other people are going through it too. It’s awesome.”

He added later: “ The sun comes up in the morning, and it’s good to be alive. You could sit alone in the house and wallow, but you should do something like this. You get to be around all these great people.”