WHO DO WE SALuTe?

JD Hanbery

My name is JD Hanbery and I am part owner in Salute. I am a 19 year old in business school at the University of Mississippi. I Salute all of our service members, cops, firefighters, but I have a special connection with doctors, nurses, and EMT. My brother when he was 7 months old was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis, which caused life threatening problems for him. On June 21, 2012, my brother Drew had a fever of 103 and became lethargic. My mom and step dad rushed him to the hospital and when they got there he could barely breath. The doctors and nurses flooded the room and had to intubate him right in front of them. One of the nurses told us that if we would have arrived any later he wouldn’t have made it. My brother spent 5 weeks in the hospital, 9 of those days he was on a ventilator. He was having severe seizures that could only be stopped with injections. It took a few weeks for Drew to even open his eyes. Drew couldn’t cry, smile, or even move his arms for months. Drew spent a lot of time at physical therapy learning the very basics of human life, like how to sit up, grab things, and even drink. He was also in the hospital weekly getting more and more tests done. For years he also had nurses that came to the house during the day, every day, to solely take care of my brother. On October 27th 2018, Drew passed away in the middle of the night, but his legacy didn’t stop then. Drew will be remembered as one of the toughest people I know. In his life he never stole anything, never hurt anyone, never bullied or made fun of anyone, in fact all he did was live a life that showed us all how we could expect less and do more while smiling and laughing. That’s why I Salute nurses, doctors, and EMT’s, because without them I wouldn’t have gotten to know my little brother. They saved his life at 7 months old and didn’t stop caring for him until he passed away at 6 years old. They all showed the same love that my family and I showed him everyday. I pledge to help grow this brand to give back to the people that helped my brother.

Brian Elza

My name is Brian Elza and I am a part owner in SALuTe. A man that has always inspired me is my grandfather, Bazel Anderson, drafted at 18 from the shipyards in Virginia Beach, landed on Omaha Beach first wave D-Day, fought in the major battles in France, Germany, Belgium and ended at the Battle if the Bulge. He later liberated a concentration camp. I asked him if there was any good days of that time. He said the sound and sight of the cloud of planes coming to assist in the fight and the best day was liberating the camp and taking care of the officers running the camp. He was a sharpshooter marksman who went ahead to take out the enemy lookouts. In doing so, he had to destroy church steeples as they were the highest point in the towns. He did not like doing that, but "it had to be done to get rid of evil".

I asked him what was going on in his mind heading to shore or battle - "kill or be killed"

He took his training well and was named a model soldier. He still lived with the horrors after returning home. We never knew growing up that we lived among heroes. When starting this brand we all thought of who it was that we SALuTed….my grandfathers Bazel Anderson is my hero. I am thankful for his time spent here with us well after World War 2 and all that he did for our great country. My hope is that SALuTe will help all the soldiers like my grandfather who suffered from PTSD and any soldier that has endured Injuries while serving our great country.