crew hunkered down behind the scenes. With a shout of “action!” from the director of the day (Len went through so many, I’d given up keeping track), in they came: a man and a woman, just as Len had promised.
But they weren’t at all what I had expected. For a start, Bonnie was pushing Staff Sergeant Mike “Mikey” Donovan in a wheelchair, her tiny arms straining with effort to move the two-hundred-pound Marine. They were also young. Like, not even out of their teens. And yet Mikey’s life—such as it was—was over in any conventional way. His right leg below the thigh was missing. His left arm was gone completely. And the skin covering his face, neck, and hands glistened like translucent plastic—a result, I assumed, of reconstructive surgery. A roadside bomb had inflicted this terrible damage. Mikey was the only member of his unit to survive, if survive was the right word: His injuries had left him with brain damage so severe, he’d never talk again. Indeed, he had lost control of nearly every muscle. But he could still understand spoken words. And after months of therapy, he was slowly learning to communicate using a system of coded blinks.
Mikey had proposed to Bonnie a week before the explosion. And when he finally got home after the first stage of his recovery on a German military base, Bonnie insisted they go through with their wedding plans—against the advice of both families, who said that at her age, she should feel no obligation to spend the rest of her life as a full-time caregiver. Her response? She loved her Mikey. She wanted to be with him—forever, no matter what. And now Bonnie, as blonde and tan and hard-bodied as only a military wife can be, had entered Project Icon to help raise awareness for veterans’ charities. “I’m no Aretha Franklin,” she told the panel. “But I like to sing, and it’s for a cause I believe in. Besides, nothin’ can happen to me up here that’s worse than what my Mikey’s been through.”
By the second line of “I’ll Stand By You,” most of the room was unashamedly weeping. And by the last chorus, even Teddy’s bodyguard, Mr. Tiddles—all four hundred pounds of him—was sobbing in thick, gulpy barks, like the cry of a mortally wounded elephant seal. It wasn’t that Bonnie was a great singer. She had a narrow range and limited power. But she was on key, and what she lacked in talent, she made up for with sincerity. It was a truly devastating performance. So devastating, in fact, that for the first time since I’d taken my job on the show, I stopped feeling ashamed of it. So what if Project Icon was mass entertainment? If we could find and help people like Bonnie, then maybe it all had a greater purpose, maybe we were actually doing some good in the world.
When Bonnie was finished singing, however, I immediately began to worry about the judges. How would they react? Did any of them have the depth or composure required to honor Mikey, this national hero—not to mention his incredible, selfless wife—in a way that could do any justice at all to what we had just seen and heard?
The answer was no, if the expression on Bibi’s face was any indication. She was immobilized. It was as though she knew she was expected to do something—something real—but didn’t have the first idea what that might be. As for JD: “Booya-ka-ka” wasn’t exactly an appropriate response. So he just sat there, saying nothing.
And then… oh, Lord, there was Joey.
But Joey didn’t hesitate.
When “I’ll Stand By You” was over, he got up from his chair, walked around the judges’ table to the podium, and threw open his arms for Bonnie. They wept as they hugged. They hugged as they wept. It was tender, fatherly… beautiful. And then Joey pulled back, moved over to Staff Sergeant Mike Donovan, and knelt down beside his wheelchair. He took hold of the wounded soldier’s only remaining arm. He looked him right in the eye. And then he swung around his other arm to lock him in a muscular embrace. “You’re a hero, buddy,” rasped Joey. “We all know what you did for us. Don’t ever think that we don’t. Every one of us here, everyone in this room, and all the people out there in America”—he motioned to the cameras—“we know you went through this for the sake of our freedom. And look”—he reached out for