Country Music Star Stephen Cochran Gives Hope to Fellow Veterans

WASHINGTON, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Stephen Cochran is a country singer and songwriter who achieved star status thanks to his self-titled 2007 album and his 2009 hit "Wal-Mart Flowers." He is also a Veteran who, after serving two tours of combat duty as a Marine reconnaissance scout and fighting back with the assistance from VA research and healthcare from a severe injury sustained while serving in Afghanistan, helps transform the life of other Veterans by spreading the Veterans Affair's (VA) message of improved quality of life and hope through health research. "I encourage all wounded Veterans to have hope," Cochran says.  “Having hope, and knowing that there are treatments that work and people who care, is what keeps you going.”

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Cochran co-wrote and recorded a song called "Hope" to help VA's Research and Development program communicate its message of hope for a brighter tomorrow and improved quality of life through research. The song's VA-produced music video, featuring Cochran and his band, the New Country Outlaws, will debut during an event to kickoff VA Research Week 2010 on April 22 at VA Central Office in Washington DC. Themed "85 Years of Discovery, Innovation, and Advancement," the week celebrates the long history of critical achievements by VA researchers and staff members.

Cochran will take part in the kickoff event, moderating a "Hope for the Journey" panel featuring Veterans speaking about their participation in VA Research programs. The day serves as a prelude to Research Week events April 26 through April 30.

Summarizing the essence of the upcoming Research Week, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki said, "As we mark the 85th year of VA's research program, we celebrate our innovative researchers who helped turn so many hopes into realities. VA's forward-looking contributions to medical research continue to bring life-improving treatments and pharmaceuticals to our Veterans and the nation."

On September 11, 2001, Stephen Cochran was a singer with a budding career as a country music artist. After America was attacked on that day, Cochran's career did a temporary about-face, as the aspiring star put his artistic hopes on hold to join the U.S. Marines.

On his second tour, he was hit by an IED blast while on security patrol outside of Kandahar in Afghanistan. His back was broken in six places, and he and his doctors feared he might never walk again. After a month at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, Cochran was transferred to the VA medical center in Nashville, Tenn., where VA physicians and doctors from nearby Vanderbilt University Medical Center performed an experimental procedure on his spine that enabled Cochran to walk again. "Hope is what gave me the drive to face the battle of walking after my injuries left me paralyzed from the waist down," he remembered. "That hope, and the experimental procedure performed at VA, is what got me to where I am today."

Of his work with VA, Cochran said, "These Servicemembers and their families have sacrificed so much for this great country, and it's an honor and a privilege to do whatever I can, whenever I can, to salute them and to help them."

Information on all Research Week events, and the VA Research program, is available at www.research.va.gov/researchweek. View "Hope" music video performed by Stephen Cochran and the New Country Outlaws on the VA YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/DeptVetAffairs. Learn more about Stephen Cochran and his support of Veterans at www.stephencochranmusic.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: VA Central Office is located at 810 Vermont Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20420. The Research Week kickoff program will begin at 8:30 a.m. on April 22, and will feature, along with Stephen Cochran, VA Deputy Secretary W. Scott Gould, M.B.A., Ed.D.; Under Secretary for Health Robert A. Petzel, M.D.; VA Chief Research and Development Officer Joel Kupersmith, M.D.; and ABC "Good Morning America" correspondent and author Lee Woodruff, whose husband, ABC News Correspondent Bob Woodruff, was severely injured by an IED while on assignment in Iraq in 2006.

SOURCE Department of Veterans Affairs