Soldier pens children's book about brain injuries

Wounded Warrior Brad Blazek may be retired, but he’s still a soldier on a mission.
And that didn’t stop when they pinned the Purple Heart to his chest years ago.
“I’m retired military. So I can either sit and stare at the wall. Or I can do something,” he said. “And I want to do something.”
And so he has.
That something is a children’s book.
But it’s also more than that. It’s the story of his own battle that he fights as a retired Army Captain suffering from a traumatic brain injury he received in the Iraq war.
The book, which is titled My Daddy Forgets (There is a Boo Boo in his Head), took Blazek six years to write, mostly because he kept forgetting that he was supposed to write it.
“Hence the name My Daddy Forgets,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s the way it is with a brain injury. I’ll forget and then I’ll start over.”
But Blazek is no stranger to starting over.
It was in 2007 when he was struck by shrapnel from a rocket while fighting overseas.
“It was a big attack,” Blazek recalls. “They launched a lot of rockets and mortars at the same time to draw our attention everywhere.”
He woke up in the hospital. And what followed was a blur of surgery, setbacks and therapy that lasted for more than two years. Throughout it all, his wife Terri Blazek was there for him.
“Even when I didn’t know who she was at the time,” said Brad.

FAMILY MAN

Terri and Brad met in 1999 as freshman cadets at then North Georgia College & State University.
And they didn’t wait to graduate before making it official.
“We got married as cadets,” Brad said. “They didn’t know what to do with us.”
After his injury, Brad returned to Lumpkin County because it seemed to hold a special spot in his long term memory.
“Dahlonega was a memory that I retained,” he said with a smile. ‘. . .And Dahlonega people here are so understanding and loving and it’s just a great community.”
The Blazeks soon started a family.
Now as the father of two girls, Belle, 7, and Snow, 4, Brad said he has struggled with ways to explain his brain injury to his children. And he knows he’s not the only one.
“That’s the worst, when you see a soldier with kids and they don’t understand,” he said.
So he’s hoping the colorfully illustrated characters in his book can help.
“The story is about a little girl bunny who explains it to her little sister bunny about their daddy bunny,” he said. “A lot of this is reality… I figure if it can help others that’s great.”
Helping others is what it’s all about, Brad said.
And he’s hoping the community will pitch in with a Kickstarter campaign that will provide his books to children and families in need.
“‘I’m going to take the money from that and buy the books so I can hand them out for free,” he said.
In the meantime, Brad has helped in other ways as he serves as a free mental health counselor at Community Helping Place (CHP).
Being a retiree is a plus, said Brad, since he can be there in a moment’s notice.
“It really sucks about the mental health process that if you need help it can take months,”he said. “But I always help them that day.”
CHP Director Melissa Line can vouch for that.
“I am told that every client who is referred to him has had an instant rapport and he is changing lives for the better,” she said. “… He has a very positive and energetic personality and he is driven to make the world a better place for veterans, trauma victims, and everyone else he encounters. Brad is someone who has turned his own personal heartache and loss into a way to help others.”
Publishing isn’t the only project Brad is working on currently. He’s also teamed with CreatiVets to produce a song about what kept him going through his post-war struggles.
“It’s called Lucky,” he said. “That’s the story of my life.”
Brad is hoping that once complete, that song will help fellow wounded soldiers find their way out of the same dark place that he once found himself in.
But that’s for another day. And another mission.

You can find more info or donate to Blazek’s project at www.kickstarter.com/projects/mydaddyforgets/my-daddy-forgets-there-is-a-boo-boo-in-his-head. Or go to Kickstarter.com and searching Brad Blazek.