Wounded Vet and Lake H Competitor Promoted

Those who participated in the Marines Helping Marines Fishing Tournament on Lake Hopatcong the last two years have gotten to know Lance Corporal Larry Draughn, who participated last year just six weeks after losing both legs in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, and returned for the tournament this June with his prosthetics. 
On August 3, tournament organizer and regular Lake Hopatcong fisherman Eric Kowal was invited by Draughn to Walter Reed Hospital in Maryland, where Kowal had the honor of promoting Draughn to Corporal. "I was truly honored, as he could have chosen anybody in the Marine Corps to promote him, and he chose me, a former Marine, out for five years," Kowal said. "He said our fishing tournament helped to get him to realize there was more to life than just laying in a hospital bed."