Matthew joined the Army in 1996 as part of the 2/75th Ranger Regiment where he spent eigaht years serving. During this time he was deployed to combat in Afghanistan for 5 ½ months. He was deployed to Iraq during the initial invasion for 5 months. Following this tour, he made it to CAG at Ft. Bragg and was then deployed to Iraq for a second time. On July 14th 2005 during an operation in Baghdad, Matthew was injured in a helicopter crash. The AH-6 Little Bird he was on-board had debris sucked into the main rotor which resulted in the helicopter going into an uncontrolled spin. Matthew was thrown in to the tail boom having his right leg cut off by the main rotor below the knee before being thrown head first into a wall. Matthew sustained a compound femur fracture in his left leg, a crushed left foot, a collapsed lung and traumatic brain injury. After his injury, Matthew made an attempt at climbing Mt. Denali however after reaching 17,200 ft, High Camp, was turned down the mountain due to altitude sickness. In 2010 he returned and successfully summated. He went on in the same year to climb Mt. Lobuche with ‘Soldiers to Summits’. His goal is to climb the seven summits.