War hero Jason Redman prepares for New York City Seal Swim 2025

His motto is to keep swimming.

Jason Redman was at the door of his death after an al -Qaeda ambush in Iraq in 2007, during which he was shot eight times, holding serious injuries to his face, arm and body.

However, against all the disputes, the decorated Navy seal made it alive, gaining a purple heart for wounds taken during the attack.

Now, still holding the wounds of that fatal day in the desert, he will oppose the chances once again with another junction-Nju York City Seal of Saturday New York attacks 2025, a grueling plate, 3½ miles beyond the Hudson River, where he and others will fight dangerous currents to raise money for charity.

“It’s a harsh swimming, it’s a real intestinal control – we have to save people every year,” Redman, 50, who will end the event for the third time, told The Post. “Even Michael Phelps couldn’t swim against that current.”

The military man will be joined by hundreds of other stamps, veterans, police officers, firefighters and other first responders who will make the water travel from the Liberty Park of New Jersey to Manhattan – where they will participate in a “in training” flag near the 11 September memorial.

Along the way, competitors will stop at the statue of Liberty and Ellis Island-completing 100 power and 22 withdrawals every time.

Talk about a sustainability test.

“I have done many difficult things since I was injured, but I mean, that was probably one of the biggest things I did,” Redman confessed.

However, he believes in the importance of water judgment, which was started by former -Navy Seal Bill Brown in 2019 to honor fallen heroes, including those who lost their lives on September 11.

He also raises money for the Navy Seal Foundation, which benefits their veil and their families – and financially supported Redman through his healing.

While only 35 stamps appeared until the inaugural event, this weekend swimming is expected to attract 375 competitors – and collect a high $ 700,000 at the top of over $ 1 million raised so far.

“Next to an additional goal to keep me in shape and get involved in something that is fun and makes an impact,” said Redman, who starts training at least six months out of the event and enduring weekly training involving a long mile swimming, hundreds of rugs, a rigorous external and fictional runs.

It marks an extraordinary, constant return for a man for whom survival – let go of the distance – once it seemed impossible.

Redman’s trip to Hudson began on September 13, 2007, until the end of a “very influential” setting in Western Iraq, where his colleagues ran numerous missions “to go after middle and high level leaders Al Qaeda and insurgents,” he said.

“My team and I went into a very executed ambush,” Redman confessed to changing his fire, enraged, “and some of us were shot by numerous machine guns.”

The Lieutenant Colonel took two rounds in the elbow and numerous rounds from his helmet, with his “night vision tube” tube.

When he turned to move toward his team, Redman “caught a round on his face,” He said.

“It hit me from behind right in front of my ear, stabbing on my face, removed my nose, exploded my right apple,” Redman said. “He broke all the bones over my eye, broke my jaw head.

His team was rescued after an urgent strike from a firearm, and the crews evacuated Redman and the two teammates wounded in a hospital in Baghdad, where his condition stabilized – but his war was far away.

“It would take four years and 40 surgeries to join me,” said Redman, who was torn while recalling his significant injuries and the long road to healing.

Due to his destroyed elbow and left -handed left hand, doctors at the National Marine Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, first considered the amputation of his arm, but were eventually able to save him.

Unless, the number of the number was not just physical.

“There is a natural tendency to want to return to the same person you were in front of your injuries,” Redman recalled. “I will never forget the first session of rehabilitation. I had no use in my left hand, and they wanted me to get these plastic cones that probably weighed half ounce.

“I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get my hand to work to catch this cone,” the wounded fighter said. “I will knock it, and it was super disappointing.”

He finally admitted that he would never “never be the same,” Redman complained.

“My body is very badly damaged,” he said. “You just have to understand,” What is my elite version now? “And that became the way forward.”

Redman has since taken major steps, despite nerve issues and restrictions that include movement and its muscles-and is even able to make withdrawal and push again for the next event.

He also learned to adapt to his limited range of movement in the water, which he said he felt like half -wing swimming.

“I wasn’t a freestyle swimmer and stamp teams, we usually swim sideways or chest,” he said. “But the way my arm is configured. It actually works well enough for free style.”

This is how Hudson will handle this weekend, and ultimately he hopes that awaiting success – not to mention his trip for years – will give an example to others who fight with disaster.

“We all have failures. We all fall down; we all broken,” he said.

“And for me, I’m living a second chance, and I hope you tell other people,” Hey, you can do that too. “