Kevin Holland grew up in the foothills of North Carolina and signed up on the delayed entry program to join the US Navy in 1988 after high school. He completed boot camp and Navy Photographer School and volunteered for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. He arrived in Coronado, CA in November 1988.
His BUD/S class started with 80 people, and in July of 1989 at their graduation only 8 remained. The entire class was assigned to SEAL Team 8.
Kevin then drove to Fort Benning, GA to US Army Airborne School. He was the youngest in his class of 300. Upon graduation, he reported to SEAL Team 8, located in Little Creek, VA.
He was assigned to a platoon, and they began an 18-month work-up preparing for deployment. This includes jumping, diving, land warfare, survival, close quarter battle, ship boarding and various training exercises in Europe.
They deployed in 1990, and during their deployment Desert Storm began. They were assigned to Northern Iraq, doing deep reconnaissance and sniper missions. Upon completion of the deployment, he was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal and sent to Sniper School. He had proven he was a good candidate conducting real world sniper missions without the training.
Kevin attended Naval Special Warfare Sniper School at Atterbury, Indiana and completed the school as honor graduate and received the top shooter award. He returned that spring as a guest Instructor.
He interviewed for and was accepted to Naval Special Warfare Development Group. This organization recruits the top 1% of all SEALS in the Navy. In the summer of 1992, he left SEAL Team 8 and checked in to Dev Group.
In 1995, he separated from the Navy and went in business with his dad in the textile industry. When NAFTA was passed, all the work was sent overseas so he applied and was accepted to the Wildlife Enforcement Division here in NC. He attended the academy in 1997, along with 16 other candidates, and was awarded top marksman out of his class.
Kevin was assigned to Henderson, Montgomery and finally Wilkes County, his home county. He was home enjoying his family and working as a game warden content to live out life and end up a fat old wildlife officer driving around to all the gun stores “working” till retirement.
He would occasionally teach platoons of SEALS survival and land navigation to supplement a game warden’s meager income.
Then 9/11 happened, and all that changed. Kevin immediately called his old command and spoke with some people there about coming back to help out. He had a friend there that was with the US Army Special Operations in Somalia in 1993. He told Kevin that organization was already in the Middle East and if he was, he would go try out for that unit. Kevin contacted them and went and tried out.
He attended their selection with 116 other candidates and one month later 16 of them remained. Kevin was then assigned to Fort Bragg. He has been assigned to the US Army Special Operations Command since 2002.
He completed the eight-month Special Forces Qualification Course (Q Course) in 2005 and earned his Special Forces Tab and Green Beret.
Kevin has deployed 20 times to the Middle East, conducting over 2000 combat missions. He was wounded with shrapnel in 2004 when an IED exploded behind his vehicle killing one of the members of my team.
They would have insurgents hide in the palm groves and they would have to go in and ferret them out in close quarters sometimes ending up in hand-to- hand combat. They conducted hundreds of these type missions.
It was on one of these type missions that Kevin wasn’t so fortunate. It was March 2011 as they watched a patrol of foreign fighters. All were well armed and on a mission. They took a house from a villager, and that’s when they launched. Kevin’s team’s mission was to eliminate two individuals that had walked out into a palm grove behind the house. As they came in on helicopters, the individuals started shooting at them, so Kevin’s team returned fire with a grenade launcher, wounding one of them. The other one ran deeper into the palm grove. They landed and eliminated the wounded individual that was still shooting at them, and pursued the other. Kevin was being directed to the insurgents’ location and when he rounded the corner of the villagers’ house, the insurgent opened fire with a belt-fed PKM Machine gun from 20 yards hitting Kevin in the chest above my armor, immediately paralyzing his left arm. Another round glanced off the weapon magazines on his chest and another shot his radio in half, which was on his side. Kevin dove into an irrigation ditch as the individual kept firing his 200 round belt of ammunition at him, hitting the pack he was wearing multiple times. The shooter then started firing at Kevin’s team, and when Kevin realized he wasn’t being shot at anymore, he raised up above the water, laying his weapon on its side on the mound of dirt in front of the ditch and started shooting at the insurgents muzzle blast. The shooter then came running at Kevin as he was shooting at him. Kevin was told later that he was shot in the foot, and that’s why he fell nearly on top of him and hobbled out of the gate where he was captured.
After about 10 minutes, Kevin got out of that ditch and found his team, got patched up, walked out to the helicopter and flew to the nearest base.
Kevin has been re-habilitating ever since, trying to regain full function of his left arm. He retired from active military service in 2013. The doctors have told him they do not have a lot of data on my wound because not a lot of people survive being shot through the chest where he was shot. They don’t know a whole lot about how long it will take the nerves to come back, if they come back.
Kevin says the Lord was watching out for him that night and has been every since. He is thankful to be alive.
Among over 30 awards are included seven Bronze Stars with two awarded for valor in combat along with two Purple Hearts.
Since retirement, Kevin works as an independent consultant contractor for the government and in product development with Daniel Winkler of Winkler Knives.
He lives with his family back in the foothills of North Carolina not far from where he grew up. His wife Tram, stepdaughters Sophia and Ava, and son Colton live together there. His daughter Makenzie is a journalist in Wilmington, and his son Connor is a US Army Ranger stationed in Savannah, GA.