Lexington’s Veterans’ Day Parade is at 2 pm on Saturday November 11. The Lexington Veterans Day Parade committee has selected two central Kentucky residents as grand marshals for the city’s 2017 parade. This year’s grand marshals, Micki King and Matthew Bradford, represent two of America’s armed services and both are groundbreaking in their accomplishments.
Micki King retired from the U.S. Air Force as a Colonel after serving 26 years on active duty. In 1972, King represented the United States in Munich as a member of the U.S. Olympic diving team. She won a gold medal in the springboard diving competition. In Lexington, King served as an assistant athletic director at the University of Kentucky, where she worked for 14 years.
Matthew Bradford served in the U.S. Marine Corps for seven years. In 2007, he was severely injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq, losing his sight and both legs to amputation. After years of rehabilitation, Bradford, in 2010, became the first blind, double amputee to re-enlist in the Marine Corps and served in the Wounded Warrior Battalion until 2012.
In May 2017, Bradford graduated from UK with degrees in History and Media Arts and Studies. He is currently serving as a national security fellow in Congressman Andy Barr’s office in Hamburg, focusing on veterans’ outreach. A participant in hand-cycle marathons and Spartan races, Bradford lives his life with the motto “No legs, no vision, no problem.”
This article also appears on page 4 of the November 2017 printed edition of the Hamburg Journal.
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