FIRE IN MY EYES

Nonfiction

Unstoppable

FIRE IN MY EYES

By Brad Snyder and Tom Sileo

248 pp. Da Capo

By George O’Har

Fire in My Eyes is the story of one man’s journey to hell and back. Ever since he had watched the towers come down on September 11, 2001, Brad Snyder knew what he wanted to do: become a warrior. Snyder’s grandfather had served in the Navy in World War II, and later spent his life building ships for the Navy.  His influence, and his patriotism, infused Brad. He joined the swim team in high school, and then ended up attending the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was selected to become an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) expert. This was a choice that would ultimately cost Snyder his sight. 

The book recounts, in vivid and exciting detail, Snyder’s training as a bomb disposal expert, his deployment to Iraq in 2008, and his subsequent deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. The story of his first attempt to disarm a real IED mortar in the field is told with heart-stopping detail. But on the morning of September 7, 2011 Brad Snyder’s luck runs out. He steps on an IED while moving to help fallen comrades. At Bethesda Naval Hospital, as his injuries are explained to him by the doctors, Snyder realizes that his metal detector just missed finding the bomb that grievously injured him. There but for fortune.

The rest of the book is devoted to the story of Snyder’s grueling journey through rehab, the operations on his face and eyes, the physical difficulty of learning to walk with the aid of a cane. A highlight of this part of the book is a visit Brad receives from U.S. Army Captain Ivan Castro, who had been blinded in 2006 when a mortar landed near his position in Iraq. Castro tells him, “Don’t be a victim…that won’t get you anywhere.” Brad uses these words as a mantra.

After he is released from the hospital on weekends, and with help from his sister, he runs a road race. Brad also meets up with his old high school swim coach, Fred Lewis, who asks him when he will be “coming back to practice.” This is the lifeline that puts Snyder firmly on the road to health and productivity. He begins swimming again. Subsequently, he receives a call from the United States Association of Blind Athletes (USABA). 

Brad goes on to win three medals, two gold and one silver, as a member of the U.S. Paralympic Swimming team in the 2012 London summer Olympics. Four years later, he won three gold and one silver medal at Rio.

Snyder says winning gold at the London Paralympics was “the most rewarding moment” of his life and that, indeed, he had “never felt more alive.”  It was the moment he knew he was going to be healed. “We all get lost, stumble, and sometimes fall, but eventually, we get back up.”

Fire in My Eyes is the altogether inspiring account of a wounded warrior and hero. Brad Snyder never once lets the tragedy of what happened to him destroy him as he spends his days, and these are not easy days—learning to walk, learning how to put on clothes he can’t see, learning how to use a computer—focusing on what he needs to do to again become a functioning and contributing member of society. Brad Snyder may now be blind. But he is as unstoppable as ever.