Staff Sgt. Shilo Harris On Surviving an IED Explosion & His Incredible Road To Recovery

Team Never Quit

Marcus Luttrell

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Education, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Self-improvement

4.9 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2023

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week’s Team Never Quit guest, Shilo Harris, has an amazing story to tell. He speaks with Marcus about the details of his second deployment with the U.S Army’s 10th Mountain Division near Baghdad. Shilo’s armored vehicle was struck by an IED, which killed three of his fellow soldiers, injured the driver, and burned a third of his body, causing the loss of his ears, the tip of his nose and three fingers. The explosion also fractured his left collarbone and C-7 vertebrae. As a result, he spent nearly three years recovering and undergoing intensive physical therapy at the burn unit of Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX. While there, he was the first soldier to participate in regenerative stem-cell research to regrow his fingers, and later received prosthetic ears, and he has a hilarious story to share about them.

Today, Shilo is a motivational speaker, raising awareness for PTSD and serving as an inspiration to fellow soldiers.

“Everything in life is a gift. Sometimes it may not be the gift you want, but you realize that your challenges are a new beginning.”

In this episode you will hear:
• I’ve been extremely blessed. (17:53)
• Me being a burn guy, I have a hard time regulating my body temperature, because the scar tissue acts like wearing a jacket all the time. It just doesn’t breathe. (18:50)
• [While shopping for a hat, the girl] like a good salesperson, figured she could just size me up. She set that hat on me and popped it down. When she did, both my ears popped off, and hit the floor, bouncing around. (20:06)
• I was in a van one day, and there were several wounded warriors, and everybody was missing something. One of the guys looked around and said “Damn, all of us together make like one whole man, maybe two.” (24:47)
• My dad, being a veteran, we spent a lot of time at the American Legion. The American Legion out there was kind of like a bar. (25:52)
• I knew what I wanted. I wanted combat arms. (33:01)
• [In Bagdad] every day, there was an IED that went off in our area somewhere. (39:30)
• I could see that my face was charred black, my hair was gone, my ears were gone, my nose was gone, I had blood running out of everything, and I started panicking. (50:29)
• I was thinking: “I better get a day off for this.” (51:02)
• I spent 48 days in a medically induced coma. (52:51)
• [I had given up] and my dad said, “Are you done, soldier?” And it just washed over me, thinking holy crap, I’m a quitter before I even tried to start the fight. Where did my pride go? (55:24)
• When he walked out of the room, he [my dad] literally just looked at me and said “Then get your ass up and start doing the work.” And I did. (59:59)
• I was actually one of the first individuals to attempt regenerative growth. (66:00)
• Faith, regardless of what it is, can get you through your worst days, your darkest moments. (75:17)

Transcript

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0:00.0	The team never quit podcasts is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union partner up with Navy
0:05.3	Federal to pay down credit card debt. You can learn more about this at NavyFederal.org.
0:30.0	All right everybody welcome back to the TNG Podcast. I'm your host Marcus Matrell. Every week
0:44.6	it's my job to fire you up to ignite the legend inside of you and to push you to your greatness.
0:49.7	Join me every week and I take you into my briefing room with some of the most
0:53.4	archer-charging people on the planet. They're going to show you how to embrace the
0:57.0	suck of life, teach you the values of working your ass off, and charge through whatever life throws at you.
1:02.1	This is the team never quit podcasts. Don't buckle up, buttercup.
1:15.4	Ladies and gentlemen welcome back to another episode of Team Never Quit Podcast. As always thank
1:20.3	you everyone for listening, watching, viewing and please hit that subscribe button if you enjoy
1:25.3	listening to our shows. So before we dive into today's special guest let's kick it off with our
1:30.6	Patreon question of the day. If you're going to describe your high school experience in three words
1:37.7	what would they be? I hated high school. What? I loved high school. I went to four different high
1:44.3	schools. So I just I did not have a typical high school life. We moved around a lot. I absolutely
1:54.4	hated high school and I could not wait to just get out in the world and be an adult.
2:02.2	Okay. I did. I did. I did. That's why I see so tough. I hated high school. I always worked like
2:09.8	at least two jobs after high school because I didn't have I didn't go to the same school my whole
2:15.8	high school. So I didn't have like kids. Yeah I never had a rhythm. Oh how about you brother?
2:21.6	Yeah. Yeah I grew up in a community where we had a big school but outside of the town was like
2:28.8	farming schools as I one of my friends graduated with a class of like 30 people. My class I think we
2:34.6	were about 80 close to 80 students. Anyway one of my best friends he was over here visiting the
2:40.9	other day he said he was from up north somewhere in his graduating class. There was almost 2000
	...

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