Fact Check

Prayer Request: Tony Mullis

Prayers are requested for Tony Mullis, a 20-year-old soldier who lost his legs while serving in Afghanistan?

David Mikkelson

Published Apr 11, 2011

Claim:   Prayers are requested for Tony Mullis, a 20-year-old soldier who lost his legs while serving in Afghanistan.

TRUE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, April 2011]


PRAYER CHAIN FOR THIS FAMILY — Tony Mullis is a 20 year old from Hawkinsville, Georgia serving in Afghanistan. He is married to Jeannie Bush Mullis also from Hawkinsville. Two days ago, Jeannie gave birth to their baby boy. Yesterday, Tony was struck by an IED and has lost both legs. Prayers are very much needed.



 

Origins:   This prayer request is true in its essential details: 20-year-old Marine Cpl. Tony Mullis lost both his legs to an explosive device while serving in Afghanistan in April 2011, just one day after his wife gave birth to their son:



Cpl. Tony Mullis, 20, a Marine for two and a half years since he joined fresh out of Hawkinsville High School at age 17, was serving his second tour of duty in the Middle East. He'd arrived there late [in March 2011].

[According to his mother,] Mullis and members of the 2nd Combat Engineering Battalion, Alpha Company, from Camp Lejeune, N.C., came under attack [and] he was "hit with" an improvised explosive device, or homemade bomb, she said, but details were still sketchy. [She] said her son's injuries resulted in amputations on both of his legs — a few inches below his right knee and a little above his left knee.

As he was being transferred through a chain of military hospitals on his way to a base in Germany, Mullis, who turns 21 next weekend, talked a nurse into giving him her e-mail address so his wife could send him a photograph of his son. But he was moved to another hospital before the picture went through, and as of Friday afternoon, Quigg said, he had yet to see what Cason looks like.


Last updated:   11 April 2011

Sources:




    Kovac, Joe.   "Hawkinsville Marine Loses Both Legs Day After Wife Gives Birth."

    The [Macon] Sun-News   9 April 2011.


By David Mikkelson

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.