I had been deferred to a later appointment time, 0915, but was instructed to return 15 minutes prior. (Ah, the “X minutes prior” rule… another topic for another time.) I jaunt home, bum around some, see the fam, and head right back. Have to be fifteen minutes early for the half-hour wait, amirite?
While I was waiting, I noticed a somewhat skinny, somewhat pale man in civilian clothes, in a wheelchair. His right lower leg had a cylindrical “halo” traction device (I’m certain that’s not the proper name) around it, and he appeared somewhat uncomfortable, sitting there, waiting for a doc.
Another incident of me overhearing a conversation… seems they trained me fairly well.
This man told the tale of a soldier. A Specialist in the Army, he had been in the gun turret of an up-armored Humvee. They were on patrol in Bagdad when they ran into an ambush… seven daisy-chained 155mm artillery shells. Activated by cell phone, the first shell blew the doors off of their vehicle. Thankfully for the rest of the patrol, the wire connecting the rest of the shells malfunctioned, blown off by the force of the initial explosion.
No one in the targeted vehicle was injured. Except for this soldier, that is.
He said he didn’t even know he was hurt, at first. Just been knocked off his feet, he thought, a little shell-shocked (literally). It wasn’t until he tried to stand up, and he could hear and feel his legs crunching under his weight…
Both legs from the knee down were shattered. They got him to medical assistance right quick, so they did salvage just about everything. But he has been traveling back and forth between the Fort and Walter Reid via commercial airliner. Half his right calf is now on the front of his right shin… multiple skin grafts were necessary after he lost most of the meat on his shins. He gets to keep his legs, and he’ll be able to walk (he’s usually on crutches now, but he’s been dizzy this week, so, the chair today) and maybe even jog. But his left leg is a bit bowed-out, and his pelvis is 15 degrees out of alignment.
Now, he did get both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. Currently, he has the Purple Heart license plate on his car (which his wife has to drive for him). He says it has already gotten her out of a few tickets when she’s been pulled over… The injury also got him an early ticket home, by about 5 months.
Mixed blessing, that, as he’s still on the rolls forward, so they can’t send him to the promotion board until they figure out who exactly is in charge of him.
I tried verifying all this through Google. Do you know how hard it is to find the names of the wounded? The dead are everywhere, to the extent that it hardens my heart, but the absence of the names of the wounded can only speak to the sheer number of them that there must be. The inability to catalog them all…
This soldier was amazingly positive about the whole thing. Not in a “I wish I was still there with my buddys” sort of way, nor in a “I’m a superhero” sort of way. But in a “I’m going to keep going with my life” way.
As disturbing as the incident may have been, his attitude was actually very reassuring.