Preparations for 9/11 memorials and remembrance parades are underway on the Grand Strand.
Operation First Response, a veterans assistance group, and BOOST, Business Owners Organized to Save Tourism, teamed up to bring veterans from all over the country, here to the Grand Strand.
NewsChannel 15 caught up with some of them as they landed at the Myrtle Beach Airport Thursday.
As one person put it, all Americans were linked after 9/11, as our country changed so much as a result of that day. Perhaps the most profound changes happened in the lives of the service members who have fought for America.
One of those profound changes occurred in the lives of Ian Newland and his wife Erin.
"It was December of 2006," recalled the U.S. Army Sergeant and Iraq War Veteran, "I had a 19 year old soldier from Knox, Pennsylvania save my life. He picked up a hand grenade and laid down on it. Saved my life."
Erin remembers thinking, "Oh my gosh, is he ok? I didn't know the extent of anything."
"I took about 80 pieces of shrapnel of the grenade in both legs both arms, face, forearms," said Ian.
"My father-in-law was like, 'He got blown up' and you hear 'blown up' you think 'blown up,'" continued Erin.
Peggy Baker, the President of Operation First Response and mother of a service member knows first hand that "Every one of them has an incredible story to tell," she told NewsChannel 15.
"We wouldn't be the country we are without (those) people," said Robert Kelly, President of BOOST, organizers of the Grand Strand Freedom Festival.
Erin Newland remembers the hardships she and her two children faced as their husband and father returned from war a changed man.
"It was difficult to go home and to see him like that, to see someone so strong who takes care of us, to be down like that and to not be able to walk," said Erin about Ian, who now uses the assistance of a service dog and cane.
It's for people like Ian Newland that Peggy Baker says events like the Freedom Festival are not only possible, but essential.
"We're going to honor them in the way it seems quite fitting for all they do for us," said Baker.
While he welcomes the welcome, Ian knows perhaps one other place he'd love to be.
"I'd love to be back there now doing it again," he admitted. "There's nothing better than waking up every morning and putting your uniform on, looking in the mirror and seeing the flag on your shoulder, and know that you're doing what your country has asked you to do. Nothing makes you more proud"
About the welcoming that he received at Myrtle Beach International Airport, Ian said, "It's overwhelming. It makes you proud again, swells you up. It feels great. It feels great. There's a lot of guys that don't get home comings like this, so it makes you proud ... I live everyday in their honor, in their memory. Because they don't have the opportunity to talk to you," added Ian.
"He is my hero," said Erin about her husband. "I'm very proud. I'm very honored to know that what he has done, what he has sacrificed, not for himself, but for us, for his friends, and you know, it's very proud."
That festival that BOOST and Operation First Response are putting together is the Grand Strand Freedom Festival up and down the Grand Strand.
Two Army, Iraq war veterans who also tour the country and perform in military ceremonies stopped by our NewsChannel 15 studios Thursday and gave us a preview of what you can see and hear this weekend.
Sergeant Daniel Jens and Sergeant First Class Sean Bennett will help kick off the Freedom Festival at La Belle Amie Vineyard in North Myrtle Beach at 8pm Friday.
The festival wraps up with a firework show at Freestyle Music Park Saturday night.
Jens and Bennett talked about what it's like to now play their music for the military.
"Every voice you have, you have to curtail it to fit everyone else, and that's the best part about it, because you know there's people out there that have the same experiences you do," said SFC Sean Bennett, with the US Army, who's an Iraq War veteran.
"To be able to perform, not just for other soldiers, but for their families as well, it's just a way of giving back," said SGT Daniel Jens, with the US Army who's also a veteran of the Iraq War.
For more information on the Grand Strand Freedom Fest, click on the link below.
