Marine Mom Turns Ankle Cast Into Corps Tribute

COURTESY ANITA NIEVES BRINKMAN
After breaking her ankle in September, Marine mom Anita Nieves Brinkman turned her cast into an homage to the Corps.



COURTESY ANITA NIEVES BRINKMAN
Anita Nieves Brinkman, center in red, is seen here with, from left, her son, Cpl. Brandon K. Brinkman; husband, Keith Brinkman; daughter, Cpl. Danielle Beard; and son-in-law, Staff Sgt. Adam Beard.

Marine Mom Turns Ankle Cast Into Corps Tribute

By Andrew deGrandpré - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Jan 10, 2009 8:13:45 EST

Anita Nieves Brinkman was emerging from a hot soak in her backyard whirlpool last September when she slipped and broke an ankle, a bout of bum luck the 44-year-old Marine mom eventually exploited to advertise her adoration for the Corps.

Doctors told Brinkman, who lives with her husband in Rowland Heights, Calif., that she would spend nearly two months in a cast. She told them to make it leatherneck red.

Working upside down with her markers and glue gun, Brinkman proceeded to turn her lower left leg into a fiberglass tribute to the Corps. She sketched some flames on the cast — a shout out to her husband, Keith, a former Marine corporal who now works as a firefighter — and plastered the rest with blue and white stars, an American flag, and the service’s eagle, globe and anchor logo.

It got a lot of looks — especially at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, where Brinkman visited her son, Cpl. Brandon K. Brinkman, before he deployed to Iraq with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, and aboard Camp Pendleton, where she stopped to see her daughter, Cpl. Danielle Beard, a member of 1st Radio Battalion.

a bit more...


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/01/marine_corpscast_011009w/%2e

she did great work. But those toenails?