KPLC 7 News, Lake Charles, LouisianaWounded Marine, wife wed after recovery from near-fatal IED blast

Wounded Marine, wife wed after recovery from near-fatal IED blast

SAN DIEGO (KNSD/NBC) - It turns out, sometimes second weddings are what every girl dreams about.

Or at least that was the case with Debbie Barron, who describes her first wedding just last year as less than fairy tale.

"It was just really fast in the courthouse," she said, "Nothing romantic the way I thought it would be, just a quick signing of papers and we were out."

The reason for haste was her Marine husband, Josue Barron, was about to deploy to Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, along with the financial benefits of military marriages comes the fear of what no spouse wants to imagine. That fear came true last year when two Marines knocked on Debbie's door.

"I just automatically thought he was dead," she said.

The Marines told her that her husband was actually alive, but barely.

Josue Barron had been trying to help a friend out of a trench when an improvised explosive device went off, changing life in less than a second. The IED took his left eye and his left leg.

Rarely are the vows of two newlyweds tested so soon.

"I never thought we would be normal again, a normal couple," Debbie Barron said. "I just thought that was going to be our life forever in a hospital or in a wheelchair."

In time, Josue was fitted with a prosthetic leg, a glass eye with his Marine unit's symbol, and figured out there was still a lot he could do. He's taken up skiing, and racing hand bikes.

In fact, if you ask him whether he would change all of this, given the chance to go back in time, he'd give you the answer you'd expect from a Marine, and he means it.

"I wouldn't take it back for anything, and I don't regret it," he said. "It's dangerous, but that's the life we chose."

His wife, on the other hand would have changed one thing.

"I wanted a big white dress. I wanted all of my family to be there, to walk down the aisle," she said.

Debbie Barron says when they got married the first time, they vowed to do it again when her new husband returned from Afghanistan.

After life changed, the wedding they always dreamed of, became the wedding they could never afford. Still, it was the wedding someone else thought they certainly deserved.

Al Ransom owns Los Willows Wedding & Events Estate in Fallbrook, CA.  A retired Marine pilot himself, he and his wife, Cathie, own 44 acres and host more than 100 weddings a year.

And in this case, the bottom line was more important than the business.

On Sunday, January 15, Josue and Debbie got their dream wedding.

Ransom estimates it was about a $50,000 wedding, for free.

From food to flowers, photography, and all the little details, the entire wedding was donated.

"No one gives more than the military man, nor receives less," Ransom said. "It's just been very touching and very moving to me, and it's an experience that in my opinion was meant to be."

Every wedding is special for its own reason.

In this case, it's likely because this is a young couple that already has a pretty good understanding of the 'In Sickness and in Health' part, and an outlook wise beyond their years.

"He's a good guy, or I wouldn't have married him twice," Debbie Barron said. "He's an inspiration and I think we're lucky."

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