Last year, Team Schlitz was a huge success at the Tunnel to Towers run in New York City.  The effort was to help built a smart home to help Michael Schlitz get around and otherwise live his life.  Michael was a Ranger who lost both his arms in an IED blast and was severely burned over almost all of his body.

Now that Michael is set, he is now passionate about helping other Special Operations veterans who have suffered amputations.  This year Michael has picked Captain Ben Harrow to support.  Ben is a West Point graduate and Green Beret who lost both his legs in an IED detonation.  The Tunnel to Towers run, which Team Schlitz will be ruck marching again, isn’t until September, but you can begin pre-ordering your Team Schlitz shirt now over at Ranger Up!

Please consider coming out with Team Schlitz this year to support another Special Operations veteran who needs out help!

You can read more about Ben’s background at Harrows Heroes:

Brooklyn native, Benjamin Harrow is a 2000 graduate from Woodberry Forest School in Orange, VA, a 2005 graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an accomplished officer and leader of Army “Green Beret” soldiers, and a decorated American Hero.

CPT Harrow has always been impressively self-motivated demonstrating purposefulness in every endeavor. In high school, Ben was a driven student, opting to learn the difficult Japanese language, and he was a remarkable athlete, earning many State accolades and numerous college lacrosse scholarships following a state championship.

Motivated more by Duty, Honor and Country, Ben chose to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps to attend one of the Service Academies to play lacrosse for “Army,” eventually leading the “Black Knights” to repeat conference titles and receiving the “Unsung Hero” award his senior year. Ben achieved this on-field success while balancing the physically draining and rigorous academic demands placed on any West Point Cadet. It was this resilience, competence, and initiative developed at West Point that drove Ben to pursue the elite Army Special Forces following his commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in 2005.

For Ben, the hard work had only just begun, as he embarked on a relentless continuum of challenging training exercises in Infantry Officer Basic courses and stressful classroom evaluations in Ranger School. In 2006, he emerged as an Infantry Platoon Leader and prepared for his first 15 month combat operations deployment to Iraq. Upon his safe return in June 2008, Ben went to selection for Special Forces training to wear the coveted Green Beret.  Ben not only emerged mentally and physically successful throughout such rigor, but he also strove for a spiritual renewal, opting for a baptismal amidst more pre-deployment exercises in 2008.  Soon thereafter, Ben married his hometown sweetheart, Gina.

Since then, Ben has earned the rank of Captain and has fulfilled his duties as an adept commander of Unconventional Warfare units in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. In 2011, Ben stepped into a new role, that of Father to a healthy newborn son, named Peyton. He and Gina could not have been happier.  Life could not have been better.

On May 15th, 2012, Ben’s life would forever be changed.  Once again deployed to Afghanistan, Ben was leading a team of Green Berets on an anti-terrorism mission, when he stepped on 30 pounds of explosives, in the form of an improvised Explosive Device (IED). In the wake of the blast, Ben’s training took over as he had only enough time to hand his medical pouch to his medic before passing out and fighting for his life. Once out of harm’s way, it was determined that Ben had lost both his legs above the knee, a large portion of flesh from his right forearm, and two fingers. To make matters worse, his legs were badly injured and appeared to be infected.  He was MEDEVAC’d to Ramstein US Air Force Base in Germany immediately, and within a week was under the care of the world-renowned doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, MD.

Continue reading about CPT Benjamin Harrow