Chapter 14: Never Give Up
This is the latest chapter of The Ice Man, my book about the Navy SEAL platoon in Iraq that took the blame for a CIA homicide. The full book is available only to paid subscribers.
Long after he left the SEALs, Justin Legg was still fighting the ghost of the Ice Man. He spent more than a decade battling the Navy bureaucracy to get his “abuse” conviction overturned and the punitive letter of reprimand removed from his file. Most people would have given up years earlier. But most people don’t have to contend with the things Legg had to face in his life at a young age. The same unstoppable will that made him a Navy SEAL kept him pushing forward to clear his name. He just would not quit. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong when I know I’m right,” Legg said. “Don’t tell me I can’t when I know I can do it. Those are the two worst things you can ever tell me.”
Legg kept fighting to clear his name as Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home in New Orleans in 2005. He kept fighting as he was diagnosed with leukemia, which Legg believed had something to do with his mission in Iraq. Legg had inhaled some noxious chemical while some of his men were searching a large, old Bedouin camp in w…