One of my gunnery sergeants, Brian Jacqueline, who was on the roof top with two other Marines and then we switched out because I wanted to be able to see what was going on, so I was up there for a few minutes and then shortly after I got up there, I was engaged by a fighter who had shot the Marine to my left and then also shot me into the bullet went into my shoulder and then lodged my spine.

Welcome to Combat Story. I'm Ryan Fugid and I serve Warzone Tourers as an Army attack helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15-year career. I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat.

On this show, I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their front lines. This is Combat Story.

Today we hear the remarkable combat story of Derek Herrera, a former Marine Special Operator who led Marines in Iraq, Haiti, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.

While on a Marsock operation in Afghanistan, he was shot and paralyzed on the objective.

Derek is another one of these guys that makes me feel lazy and that he might have more time in a day than I do.

Rather than give up after being injured, he medically retired from the Marine Corps and has achieved significant success while continuing to serve others.

He's the President of the Board of Directors of the Marine Raider Foundation, Chairman of the Board of the Med Tech Vets, Founder of Habit Camera and Euro Dev Medical, a keynote speaker and host of the Forward Podcast.

Derek is the real deal who spends all of his time putting others ahead of himself just like any Marine and I know you'll enjoy his inspiring combat story as much as I did.

Derek, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking some time to share your story with us.

Thanks for having me. What is all mine?

So I like to start out with people's origin stories, childhood, but for you, I would lump you into this category as being one of these guys that I want to hate because you make me feel so damn lazy with everything you do.

And people who have heard the intro, you've got a couple of companies, you've got this nonprofit effort, you're on boards, you've been in the special ops community, great experience there and will dig into a lot of this.

I think my first question though is, does your wife ever look at you and she's like, Derek, can we just like slow down for a week here? Are you just always going, man?

At this point, I think she knows better. So she knows me better than anyone.

So we've been, we've been together since my senior year in high school and so longer than more than half our lives.

We've been together dating and then we got married right after graduation from Naval Academy. So I was 22. She was 21 and so she knows better now.

Yeah, but she does, you know, I have become more, especially after having kids, I've become more attuned to that and more sensitive to that to try to, and I do try to prioritize time right to just sit and unplug and be around family and hang out and do that. So yeah.

Yeah. So probably the same time timeframe here, my wife and I, we met when we were 15 and I often say she's seen me, anything stupid I've ever done, she knows about it.

Like from that point of my life on site, there's nothing to hide. She knows exactly how I'm going to act and what I'm going to say and do. So that's funny to hear.

Yeah, I live in a small town. So like, yeah, not many secrets. And yeah, growing up a lot since then, mainly because I heard which is awesome.

And if we, if we rewind back to you as a kid, were you, I mean, you're an entrepreneur, no kidding right now. Did you have that entrepreneurial spirit? Was it go, go, go for you from the start?

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