Otto: Welcome home a wounded warrior

Column

Michael Nicholson is coming home, and you can be there. It could be — should be — and most likely will be that thousands of us are going to line the route to show our gratitude and welcome home an American hero.

Mike will be coming home a week from Sunday, arriving at 1:44 p.m. Feb. 19 at Tampa International Airport.

There will be a slow-moving motorcade that will take him from the airport, briefly down Bayshore Boulevard and up to Christ the King Catholic Church on Dale Mabry Highway, where there will be a short ceremony in the outdoor pavilion. Then Mike can go home to his family and the house that's been remodeled to allow him to move around.

I exchanged emails with a reader this week. He was talking about issues in the political campaigns, and he said "now that the war is over" as part of his argument.

If you are one of those who believe it is halftime in America, well it is more than that for this young hero who will be starting a new life and is well on his way to recovering from having his world shattered on a July afternoon last summer.

The 22-year-old Marine corporal was on foot patrol in Afghanistan when a hidden explosive went off. He lost both legs and his left arm on that forsaken road in a country that has cost us so much.

For the Plant High graduate, his war was just beginning. I don't know how many surgeries he has undergone. The last number I saw was 19. He continues the long, extraordinary recovery process at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

A lot of you already know the stories about what has been happening here. There have been fundraisers. Marines and others have helped to remodel the family house in South Tampa so he will be able to get around when he returns.

You know about the courage of his parents and how his mother, Mary Nicholson, has stayed in Bethesda while John Nicholson has made countless trips back and forth. You may have read that before her son was injured, Mary organized a support ministry for other Marines and their families serving in combat.

You may even have read about the young Marine's faith and how less than two weeks before his injury he called to talk to the Rev. David Toups at Christ the King about the death of a close friend.

If you want just a glimpse into this young man, there is a video on YouTube of him taking his first steps with his first prosthesis.

It is an exercise in courage by one of your neighbors.

My guess is you will feel like I do, that you have to be there on Feb. 19 to welcome him back.

This country has been at war for almost all of his and his generation's lives.

It has been a constant that has been easy for much of the country to put on a back burner and forget.

This would be a good time to take an hour and demonstrate to Mike and the huge military community of Tampa that we have not forgotten and that we are grateful for those who sacrifice so much.