AUGUSTA — First lady Ann LePage is working on her nerve.

On Aug. 9, she plans to jump out of an airplane alongside a group of veterans, including Travis Mills, a quadruple amputee who was injured by a bomb in Afghanistan.

“I’m going to do it,” LePage said Tuesday during a get-together to announce her plans. “And I’m trying not to think about it.”

The jump will be one of the highlights of a Fort Kent event titled Freedom Fest 2014. The daylong festival, which will include lots of bands and patriotic displays, is a fundraiser for the Northern Maine Veterans Museum & Community Center.

Mills, who is moving to Maine next month, did a similar jump earlier this year.

LePage said she was inspired to jump by Mills, who has toured the country talking about his experience as a soldier and a survivor. Mills met the first lady about a year and a half ago. The two became friends.

Mills said he’d jump if she would. LePage said she’d find the courage.

“Because veterans and military issues are near and dear to my heart, I said, ‘You know what? If this guy can do it, I can do it,’” LePage said.

It won’t be easy for her, though.

“I have a fear of heights,” she said. “I will get on the third rung of a ladder and I won’t go any higher.”

For Mills, a self-described “adrenaline junkie,” it will be fun. He and LePage will jump with the All-American Veterans Parachute Team. Mills, who gets around with two prosthetic legs and a prosthetic arm, and the first lady will jump in tandem, each strapped to an experienced sky-diver.

“I’ve jumped out of airplanes about 50 times in the military, so I don’t think it’s as scary for me as it might be for beginners,” Mills said.

For almost eight years, Mills served with the 82nd Airborne Division, which specializes in parachute landing operations. In April 2012, during his third deployment, Mills was injured in an explosion from an improvised explosive device. It cost him both legs and both arms.

Just over two years later, Mills has received federal recognition for his nonprofit foundation, the Travis Mills Foundation. Though the Michigan native travels the country as a motivational speaker, he plans to settle next month in Manchester. His wife, Kelsey, is from Gardiner.

By the end of the year, he hopes to buy property to make a permanent camp for local veterans and their families.

If his notoriety helps draw attention — he’s also the subject of a documentary — it’s in the service of a cause meant to help all veterans, he said.

“I’m not the only story out there,” he said. “I’m not the only wounded guy. I didn’t serve any more than anybody else, whether they had injuries or not.”

And he seems to be having lots of fun.

Since his injury — making him one of only five surviving quadruple amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan — Mills has snowboarded and cycled downhill. For the latter, his arms were duct-taped to the handle bars and his thighs were strapped to the brakes, he said.

“I like it, the adrenaline rush of it all,” he said.

For the August jump, he guessed the plane would ascend to about two and a half miles before the sky-diving begins.

“This is a minute and a half of falling, basically,” Mills said during the news conference. “How many times have we fallen in our lives?”

It didn’t reassure LePage.

“I’ve never fallen two and a half miles,” she said.

Mills did his best to ease her worries.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “Gravity’s going to take place. It happens.”

Gov. Paul LePage will watch from the ground, his wife said.

“He thinks I’m out of my mind, but he knows he can’t stop me,” she said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link