Paul enlisted in the US Marine Corps on Dec 17, 2001. He served as a Rifleman with 2nd Battalion 5th Marines during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. On April 12th, 2003, in the Baghdad suburb of Al Tarmiyah, after being ambushed by numerically superior fedayeen Saddam fighters, Paul got separated from his squad. He and another Marine linked up with another squad to fight their way house-to-house to kill the enemy.
In the backyard of one such house, Paul and his fellow Marines had half a dozen enemies pinned down in and around a small mud hut. He had already shot two of the fighters and had to reload his rifle, when one of them (whom Paul had already shot once) got back up and maneuvered in on him. When he looked up, Paul saw the wounded enemy fighter fifteen yards away aiming his AK47 assault rifle at him. A muzzle flash was the last thing he saw, as the enemy fighter fired off a burst of bullets at Paul before he could raise up and fire his own rifle. One of the bullets struck Paul six inches below his left armpit. It blew his spleen apart, punctured his left lung, lacerated his stomach, and left kidney, and blew a portion of his vertebrae out of his lower middle back. As a result, it completely severed his spinal cord leaving him completely paralyzed from the waist down. Recovery was both physically and mentally challenging.
Paul started attending firearms training courses in 2009 and found that sharing his story with fellow students in training, which included military, law enforcement and armed citizen peers, was extremely beneficial to them and helped drive home the points that the firearms instructors were ingraining in their training courses. He also has a passion for teaching others how to defend themselves using all the knowledge he has gained over the years, both in combat and in well over one hundred multi-day training classes from top tier instructors in the industry.
Paul and numerous other combat-wounded veterans helped found Warrior Benefit in 2012, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that raises money and gives to other military charities. Paul met his lovely wife Taylor in 2013 and married in January of 2020.
On October 22, 2022, their beautiful baby boy, Bear Daniel Gardner, was born 3 months prematurely. Bear is a fighter like his dad and God blessed them with a perfectly healthy son. Their second child, a girl, Ava Lee Gardner, was born on April 17, 2025, thankfully without issue. Ava was delivered into Paul’s hands, and it was a truly magical experience that he will never forget. The Gardner family currently resides in Conroe, TX.
