Marine’s banner banished bitterness
The American flag that Staff Sgt. Jose Luis Sanchez was waving as he crossed the finish line on Boylston Street Monday was a gift from his brothers in arms that inspired him to set off on a path to recovery that led him to the Boston Marathon some six years after he lost his leg in Afghanistan.
“I wanted this flag to come out of the ashes and fly again,” Sanchez told the Herald yesterday. “My life was spared for some type of reason, and I think this is the reason.”
Sanchez, 33, carried the Stars and Stripes 26.2 miles after the Semper Fi Fund paid his way to Boston.
And though the video of Sanchez proudly finishing the race quickly went viral, he says the journey to the finish line was an arduous one.
Just two weeks from the end of a tour of duty in 2011, Sanchez stepped on an IED during a ground patrol.
“When the smoke settled, I looked down and my legs were covered in blood,” Sanchez recalled. “A medic picked me up and my leg slid right off.”
The flag he carried Monday was a gift from members of his unit while he was recovering in the hospital, though Sanchez said he couldn’t bring himself to look at it.
“I didn’t want anyone’s help,” Sanchez said. “I was anti-military, anti-civilian, anti-every (expletive) thing, I was caved off, I was angry at the world.”
Sanchez said the flag sat in a box for years until 2015 when he found it and finally read the handwritten notes from his fellow Marines. Their messages, he said, inspired him to carry the flag in the Marine Corps Marathon that year. When he collapsed at mile 18, Tina Cosentino of Medfield found him lying by the side of the road, clutching his flag.
“He was done,” Consentino recalled. “I tried to be sweet and see if he was all right and do the warm and bubbly thing.”
But when she realized the frustrated Marine wasn’t responding, Cosentino decided to get in his face.
“I stood up in front of him and said ‘you are a (expletive) Marine, get on your feet and move,” she said. “So he got up.”
After finishing the race together, the pair became fast friends.
As he battled through the course Monday, Sanchez said the strain from carrying the flag wore on him. His muscles ached and he felt pain shooting through his left leg, which was amputated just below the knee — but the roar of the crowd of Bostonians cheering him on kept the San Antonio native in the race.
“You could feel the love, the energy from everyone” he said. “I felt the spirit of the city come to life and it was just incredible to witness it, to feel it within your heart.”
And as he finally reached the finish line, Cosentino ran into the street to hug him and his wife, Dulce, who joined him for the last 9 miles.
Though he isn’t sure if he’ll run Boston again, Sanchez said he hopes his story will inspire others.
“You can only go so far alone and your ship is going to sink,” he said. “The marathon was like that. I couldn’t have done it myself.”