„Today I met the man I gonna marry”

The great day happened on October 6, 2006. The public was stunned. The governor of Illinois proclaimed the day a state holiday and the media covered the event, writing: “Love conquers all!”.

Ty’s sense of humour kept his spirits up through the long months of recovery. His deadpan wit was one of the reasons Renee had fallen for him. She was just 15 when Ty, an athletic, handsome 18-year-old, began working as a mechanic at her dad’s garage.They were barely more than children then, and kept their relationship a secret from Renee’s family. It was more of a flirtation.

When Ty was sent to Iraq for the first time, they had just started dating.

He returned home in the summer of 2003, and three weeks later, Renee’s father died in a quad-bike accident.

A suicide bomber irrevocably took away his youth in that fateful 2004. Ty lost his left hand, three right-hand fingers, a part of his skull, he cannot see on one of his eyes and his face is entirely disfigured.

Donna had been shocked when she found out the extent of Ty’s injuries, but she told her daughter she simply had to “follow her heart, and that we’d make it work, if she wanted it”.

“Nothing was ever really wrong. It just wasn’t right. Going into the marriage? I’d never been married before. I think we were okay. The wedding – it was so planned. There was this thing… ”

Marine wedding

…

Apart from his appearance, his behaviour was a problem also. Ty suffers from a severe type of PTSD, often having mood-swings. He was not fully capable of having sex either, because too much excitement would knock him unconscious.

Therefore, she just left in January this year. Tyler assumes she is with another man …

He does not regret his love because he is aware she has had a tough time and he will eternally be grateful to her because she stuck by him during the hardest moments of his life.

He even had a tattoo done, reading: “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift!”

Historia Ty Ziegela i Renee Kline:

www.ariel-leve.com/st_features/Tyziegel.html

www.theodoresworld.net/archives/2007/09/a_hero_and_his_bride.html

Inne foto:

The young man does not regret what happened to him because he is a burning patriot and Republican. Ty’s younger brother, Zach, 22, is also a marine.