FORT PIERCE, Fla. — The last day Jack Simpson had both his legs was Nov. 10, 1968, when he was a 19-year-old Marine Corps soldier deployed for the Vietnam War.
At 6 a.m. Nov. 11 — on Veterans Day — Simpson stepped on an antitank land mine.
As the Port St. Lucie double amputee went through various pairs of prosthetic legs about every two years throughout his life — which ended from COVID-19 in February 2021 — he always branded them with the Marine Corps logo and Vietnam insignia.
