CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA (MPG) - James Miranda is an Army Veteran 9th Infantry Division and chaplain and veteran service officer in the American Legion Post 637 in Citrus Heights.

Miranda’s life has taken many twists and turns in his 75 years. Most veteran biographies begin with their military service, when and why they entered the service, where and in what branch they served and what their assignments were.

Miranda’s service in Vietnam from 1968 when he volunteered for Vietnam to his medical discharge in June of 1970 was not typical.  His first 20 years of life began his life as a survivor.

Born in 1948, he spent his second two years of life in a children’s home. At five years of age, from 1953 to 1962, he lived with his mother’s boyfriend’s parents in Corning, Calif.  From 14 years to 18 years, he lived with his sister and her family. While attending Elk Grove High School in 1965 he explains, “I was expelled for riding on top of a school bus.”

In 1967, while living with his brother and family in Sacramento, he experienced a life-changing event. “One weekend I was at a restaurant a block from school when my girlfriend’s brother came in drunk and wanted to fight me. He didn’t recognize me and picked a fight with another guy.” Miranda explained how her girlfriend’s brother ended up being stabbed by another teen he had begun beating. Miranda caught him as he fell. “I held him as he slumped over in my arms. I saw the blood on his chest. I put my jacket under his head. He died in my arms.”

In 1968 Miranda enlisted in the Army and volunteered to go to Vietnam where he worked as a gunner. He was wounded three times in six months and 22 days. He accepted only one of the three Purple Hearts he had been offered.  The first wound was three pieces of brass shrapnel in his back from a firefight. The second wound was one piece of shrapnel in his left side near his waist from a boobytrap. His third wound was sustained when he and five others were hit by a IED which blew them over 40 feet in the air off an armored personnel carrier (APC) leaving him a quadriplegic. He was flown to Letterman Hospital, San Francisco, Calif.

By 1970 Miranda gradually regained feeling back in his leg and hand. He still had two discs smashed in his lower back and one bulging disc in his neck. He was transferred to Fort Ord in Marina, Calif., as a barracks sergeant. While driving a Volkswagen bug at night it hit a hole. He was thrown out and it rolled on top of him. He suffered new injuries in his legs and his right leg, both hips and ribs, again leaving him a paraplegic. He was flown back to Letterman Hospital in a chopper.  

After his release, now in a wheelchair, again no leg movement, he was not feeling much about life. While riding in a friend’s car high on weed, he overdosed on a capsule of mescaline. His friend revived him twice. He was given a medical discharge on June 30, 1970.

By 1972 physical therapy helped him regain the 35 pounds he had lost in his leg muscles, so he could walk again, 2 years later.

He was able to work again. For five years he drove a forklift and truck for Coors Beer in West Sacramento. However, living with a school friend drug dealer, riding motorcycles and hanging out with Hell’s Angels, Miranda was ‘reaching out’.

God answered his call for help. In 1978 while a bouncer at a bar, he met a church girl. While at home alone and stoned, Miranda said, “I heard audibly a voice say out loud and clear “TURN OR BURN”. He replied, “if that’s you God, get me out of here.” God did. In1979 Miranda began attending Warehouse Ministries Church. He shares, “In the front row I visioned my life flash before my eyes of all the times I should have died. Vietnam, Quad, Para, car accident, two motorcycle accidents, overdose on drugs. I accepted Christ as my Savior”.

He then got a job with the State of California for almost 20 years until 2006.

However, he was paralyzed for a third time working for one year with the California Highway Patrol Telecommunications. While bending over to pick up a radio something snapped in his lower back, eventually resulting in paralysis. He received two operations where they found bone fragments from two prior injuries. He returned to the State upon recovery and retired in 2006.

Miranda and his wife, Sharon, met at the end of 2008 at a party at her friend’s home and were married in 2009. When they were first married, they were both teaching 1st and 2nd graders in Sunday School. They are now at a different church where Miranda serves in the Men’s Ministry and helps with security.

In 2012 he met Larry Minassian who brought him into the American Legion Post 637 and Dust Off Ministry.

At Dust Off Ministry Miranda visits veterans in the Sacramento Post Acute Care Home and gives them the hats with their service emblem on them and other gifts at Christmas, Memorial and Veterans Day. Miranda and his wife also share an array of other ways to volunteer to help veterans. He sees this as his way of ‘paying back’ in thankfulness for still being alive and being able to help other veterans who have experienced so much.

His wife Sharon says, “He has a true servant’s heart when it comes to helping other veterans.”

John 15:13 “Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friends.”