I'm writing this regarding some close friends of ours, Taylor and Krista Anthony and their three boys, Kegan, Trenton and Bryden. Taylor and Krista have been married for 16 years and were high school sweethearts when they were married in 2004. In 2006, he went into the Army to begin his military career and provide for their future family. Taylor went on to become a Staff Sergeant and complete three combat tours while deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan as an Army Ranger in the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Unfortunately in 2014, he was forced to medically retire from the Army after serving seven years due to severe PTSD, a brain tumor, ruptures, tears and fractures to his back, knees, and rotator cuff as well as heavy hearing loss, all suffered from his time spent as a Ranger. Believe it or not, he was only 29 years old when he was forced to medically retire from the Army. Unable to work, he has been forced to support his family of five on his Army pension. A very difficult thing to do when you have children that play sports and require all the things that children do as they grow. He decided that he was going to go back to school to attempt to get a Bachelor's degree which would provide some immediate financial relief since the Army would provide him extra pay while enrolled in school, but the injuries to his back worsened until he was in a wheelchair with loss of the use of his left leg and he was once again forced to stop due to injury. He underwent back surgery and had a Neuro Stimulator Implant installed, which has helped some with the pain and has allowed him to regain approximately 80% use of his leg, but his severe PTSD has kept him from being able to enroll into school again. Taylor is on heavy doses of painkillers and other medications every single day of his life and on top of that, severe cramping, pain and nerve damage to different muscle groups all over his body due to the trauma suffered while in the Army. He deals with this every single day of his life, and he's only 35 years old. He feels stuck and fights off hopelessness along with the daily battle with anxiety and PTSD. Our hearts break for him and his family. They are some of the sweetest people you could ever hope to meet. Very humble and proud of their family and of their boys. It took me quite a bit of talking to Taylor for him to agree to this. He said that he believes a man should work for what he is given and it is very difficult for him to have to rely on others to provide for his family. He was hesitant to use his military service while talking about what he's going through, but we decided that people need to know, as much as they can, about who he is and what he's done. We reminded him that as Christians, what one of us is feeling, we all feel. And that God uses His body of believers to bring blessing and healing to His children. He begrudgingly allowed us to put this together for him and I'm hoping that we can show him what his service means to us. Taylor said they have accumulated approximately $30,000 worth of debt that they struggle with every month and that it has caused a lot of stress on his marriage to manage that debt the best they can. Any little bit will help, but I'm really hoping we can take care of a part of that debt for him and help relieve some of the financial burden from them. To this day, it breaks his heart not to be a Ranger. If he could physically do it, he says he would still be deployed as often as they would let him and whenever he steps foot on base, it's overwhelming emotionally. I don't know what God has in store for this, but I pray that this is a step in bringing hope, healing and blessing to the Anthony family and showing Taylor that he may no longer be in the United States Army, but he's still in the army of God and all of his brothers and sisters in Christ have his back. Thank you so much for your help in changing this family's lives. Sincerely,  The Bangs Family