Bob and Lee Woodruff on Stand Up for Heroes event to help wounded vets
ABC News correspondent Bob Woodruff was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb 10 years ago while on assignment in Iraq. He spent five weeks in a coma, but he recovered and returned to work 13 months later.
The experience inspired Bob and his wife, Lee, to start the Bob Woodruff Foundation to help wounded service members, veterans and their families.
“I think everyone in this country, we know how much we owe those who have served in these wars and risked their lives to accomplish what they have,” Woodruff told “CBS This Morning” on Monday.
Their family – and the foundation – have come a long way over the past decade. “I think being so privileged, Bob being a journalist and having been injured on the job – as, if any of you were, CBS would bring everything to bear – and so we had so much for his recovery,” Lee Woodruff said. “And we looked at the others in the hospital who were in the military who didn’t necessarily, and we thought, no one knows this is going on. Everybody in America just assumes that our service members are taken care of when they come home. And 10 years ago, that was not the case.”
Since 2007, their annual benefit Stand Up for Heroes has raised more than $33 million. It brings together some of the biggest names in music and entertainment. The event’s 10th anniversary, which has already raised more than $5 million, will feature Bruce Springsteen, Jon Stewart, Louis C.K. and more on Tuesday.
“Early on, the New York Comedy Festival, the amazing people from there, saw some of the stories we were reporting on about a year after I came back – exactly the issues we’re talking about. And they looked at this, and they were so moved by it, and so upset by how the veterans [were] being treated, they said, ‘Listen, we can have a little fundraising event. We can have amazing comedians who’ll donate their time to come here and do a little fundraiser.’ Next thing we know, Springsteen wants to come and do the same thing,” Bob said.
Watch the video above to find out what Bob remembered about Bruce Springsteen after waking up from his coma.