ASHEVILLE – Nineteen years old and stationed on the Syrian border in Iraq amid the Global War on Terrorism, Lance Cpl. Kevin Rumley could feel improvised explosive devices shake the earth beneath him every day.
Raised in a Virginia military family and eager for structure in his life, Rumley enlisted in the United States Marine Corps shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Fresh out of high school in 2003, Rumley was soon stationed in one of the most dangerous places during the war, where attacks on American service members were commonplace. Often these strikes took the form of complex IEDs, loaded with C4 razor blades and packed in animal carcasses or in cement walls, Rumley said.
“It would displace the air so quick that you could feel the blast echo rattle through your body and shake your brain,” Rumley told the Citizen Times June 26…