HEROES IN THE NEWS (CONTINUED):

April 9, 2007
Benefit planned in New Rochelle for wounded Marine sniper
THE JOURNAL NEWS - White Plains, NY
Support for Marine Sgt. Eddie Ryan, whose plight after being shot in Iraq has captured hearts in Rockland County, is growing in Westchester with a benefit planned at the Greentree Country Club. Ryan was shot in the head and jaw on a rooftop in Iraq in 2005 and spent nearly a year at the Helen Hayes Hospital in West Haverstraw recovering from severe brain damage before he was sent home to Ellenville in August 2006...

March 29, 2007
Wounded El Paso Soldier Tells Story
KFOX TV - El Paso, TX
Army Pvt. Adrian Garcia is recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. At the age of 19, he's been to Iraq, severely injured and is alive to tell his story. "I remember being dragged out of the humvee. I had all my clothes stripped off me. I remember I looked down, and that's when I realized I had no legs," said Garcia...

March 28, 2007
Iraq brain injury leaves soldier, mom struggling
The Olympian - Olympia, WA
Army Spc. Evan Mettie, 23, survived the New Year's Day explosion in 2006, but was left dependent on a veterans' health care system that has transferred him to several hospitals and could soon send him home. Now, with a recent CT scan showing a fluid buildup in his brain, Evan Mettie faces transfer from a "coma stimulation" program in California to a nursing home near his house in Yakima County. From there, he is likely to be sent home to continue his rehab. Denise Mettie, who quit her job at U.S. Bank to help care for Evan, worries about his treatment and struggles with bills totaling thousands of dollars for motels, food and other expenses...

March 26, 2007
Soldier wounded in Iraq recovering in Hawaii
The Evening Tribune - Hornell, NY
Army Sergeant William G. “Billy” Price was injured on Feb. 28, when the Humvee he was riding in was blasted by an IED (improvised explosive device) in Iraq. Price broke three bones in the top of his foot, broke his heel, had a hurt knee and wrist, bruised ribs, swollen neck from the helmet and a large scrape on his neck from the strap. “When I woke up, I really couldn't see ... I couldn't see my legs, I could just see the Humvee,” Price said. “It was about 20 or 30 feet away from me and half the front end of the vehicle was gone. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, but I knew I wasn't ready to give up yet."...

March 24, 2007
Wounded in Iraq: One Marine's story
Hampton Roads - Norfolk, VA
Staff Sgt. Daniel Gilyeat was sitting in the armored humvee's front seat when the tank mine detonated. ''I knew the leg was damaged because my pant leg was really shredded,'' he remembers. "I didn't know how bad it was." Then he looked, as his fellow Marines gathered around, and he watched as two of his friends removed his leg from the truck. Then someone else removed his foot...

March 20, 2007
Wounded vet struggles with deeper injuries
Scientific American
After eight surgeries -- including one to put a metal plate in his head -- and countless hours of rehabilitation, Ken Sargent, 38-year-old Marine master sergeant's chest and arms are buffed from workouts with weights. He's again walking, speaking and cracking jokes, but is dogged by fatigue, unable to work full-time and depends on his family for help with daily tasks. "My injuries can't be fixed. I can't get inches of my brain back. I can't get my hearing back. Doctors told me that the damage to my eyes can't be fixed," said Sargent, who joined the Marines at 18 and wants nothing more than to do another 20...

March 19, 2007
WOUNDED IN IRAQ -- Back from Iraq, three Marines recover
Centre Daily Times - State College, PA
Three wounded Marines sat with a new private, sharing their stories of lives forever altered by war. Each of their lives was changed on the battlefield of Iraq, and each will struggle to find his own way back. Pvt. Adam Ricci, 20, of Chicago, Sgt. Chad Carter, 27, of Williamsberg, Iowa, Lance Cpl. Curtis Terry, 23, of Tulsa, Okla. One man struggles to find the right words, his brain injured by a roadside bomb. Another fights to recover after his body was broken by bombs. The third relearns how to walk, to run, after being injured in a fire-fight...

March 17, 2007
Wounded Marine struggles to recover
North County Times - San Diego, CA
Marine Staff Sgt. Paul McQuigg has an acrylic skull sitting on a bookstand in the living room of his modest Camp Pendleton home. Attached to the jaw is a metal brace full of screws, the same brace McQuigg wore to hold his lower jaw in place for months on end. Despite his wounds and the changes they have brought, McQuigg remains focused on his recovery and on helping to take care of his 3-year-old son, Sebastian, his mother Jacqueline McQuigg said...

March 13, 2007
Donor Gives Thousands For Injured Soldier's Home
KDKA-TV - Pittsburgh PA
While serving our country in Iraq he paid a horrible price, but now some local residents are trying to pay him back. Back in November of 2003, Army Specialist James Fair, 25, of Coraopolis, was completely blinded after a bomb detonation. He also lost both his hands and was left with shrapnel throughout his body causing injuries to his right leg and a traumatic brain injury...

March 7, 2007
Coping With Invisible Casualties of War
ABC News
Iraq Veteran Warren Hardy Suffers From an Undiagnosed Traumatic Brain Injury. Gina Hardy never had much of a chance to enjoy her husband's homecoming from Iraq. "You see pictures of soldiers coming home, reuniting with the families and … everything is great," said Gina. "We didn't have that kind of reunion. When I saw him for the first time, I was disappointed. He was just different, and I couldn't understand why."...

March 1, 2007
Soldier comes out of coma
Concord Monitor - Concord NH
It's been a year since Lisbon soldier Jose Pequeno was critically injured by a bomb in Iraq, and his family says he's made a lot of progress. Pequeno, the police chief in Sugar Hill, has come out of his coma, and his wife says he's much more alert and vocal these days, although not yet talking. Jose Pequeno has spent the last year recovering from a traumatic brain injury, first at Walter Reed Hospital and then in Florida...

February 28 , 2007
A Marine's Progress
By BOB WOODRUFF - ABC News
One of the soldiers featured in the documentary "To Iraq and Back" is Cpl. Jeff Landay, who suffered a devastating brain injury during a roadside attack in Iraq. He was injured in May when the explosion from a powerful improvised explosive device (IED) damaged his liver, kidney and spleen. It broke his jaw and crushed his skull, and the shattered bone penetrated the left side of his brain...

February 28 , 2007
Wounded Marine Returns Home Early
WNEP - Moosic, PA
"I lost half my body weight, I'm missing a leg, got big chunk out of my arm, and scars all over. I can't walk or do things normal," explained Marine Lance Corporal Derrick Sharpe. Sharpe said doctors told him he would not make it. He spent more than a month in a coma and even suffered a heart attack and a leg amputation...

February 28 , 2007
An Unforeseen Cost of War
ABC News
Thousands of Veterans Are Returning From War With Traumatic Brain Injuries. Jarod Behee was shot in the head in Iraq. He survived, but is still suffering from the aftereffects of a traumatic brain injury, or TBI...

February 27 , 2007
Marine locked in fight for life
Centre Daily Times - State College, PA
A U.S. Marine from Bellefonte who was seriously wounded in Iraq is "still fighting" for life at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where his family and fellow Marines are keeping vigil, his father said. Marine Cpl. David Emery Jr.'s, legs and left arm were shattered on Feb. 7 in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq's Anbar province. Emery suffered a severe abdominal wound, including a severed artery that caused his kidneys to shut down, his family said. He is on a ventilator and is also suffering from pneumonia...

February 26 , 2007
Soldier Receives Help at Home
WOAI - San Antonio, TX
Sgt. Chris Edwards is now wheelchair-bound after a bomb exploded by his military vehicle in Iraq in 2004. Close to 80% of Edwards’ body was burned in the attack nearly two years ago. Volunteers were painting walls, moving boxes and making other adjustments to his home. It is all an effort to allow Chris to be more mobile inside of it...

February 16 , 2007
Marine Travis Dodson wounded in Iraqi attack
Las Cruces Sun News - Las Cruces, NM
While many woke up to embrace loved ones the morning of Valentine's Day, one of Deming's own was attacked and seriously injured in Iraq, while exercising his love for his country as a Marine. Lance Cpl. Travis Dodson, 21, and his team were attacked Wednesday in the city of Haqlaniyah, Iraq. "He has lost both legs and suffered massive blood loss,"...

February 13 , 2007
Local soldier recounts the day he almost died
The Record Herald - Wayneboro, PA
Cpl. Corey O'Connor, 20, of Waynesboro remembers being hit in the throat by shrapnel when a roadside bomb exploded in Hawijah, Iraq. “I was bleeding pretty heavily, and I remember them putting a lot of pressure on my throat to stop the bleeding,” he said...

February 12 , 2007
Wounded vet struggles to recover in Yuma
Tucson Citizen - Tucson, AZ
There are times when Sgt. Frank Sandoval feels frustrated, such as when he tries to get dressed or stand up from a chair without help. He was injured by a roadside bomb in November 2005 while manning a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on the roof of a Humvee while in Baghdad. The explosion caused a projectile to become lodged in his right temple. Today, a portion of his skull is missing...

February 11 , 2007
Wounded Ft. Lewis soldier comes home to a financial battle
KOMO TV - Seattle, WA
Sgt. Chess Johnson is one of tens of thousands facing a future scarred by war. Johnson still vividly remembers the gunfire when his Fort Lewis Stryker unit came under attack in Mosul on December 3rd. "One went into my eye, one went right above my eye," he said. Johnson ended up losing his right eye. Now, Johnson is struggling with a different battle - a financial fight with mounting bills to pay...

February 11 , 2007
Soldier goes home to heal
Morning Sentinel - Waterville, ME
It's been an emotional roller coaster for Laurie Gray since the wounding of her husband -- Staff Sgt. Harold Gray -- by a roadside bomb in Iraq the day after Christmas 2005. There was shock when she learned of his serious head and back injuries, and the fear and anxiety she's suffered during his long recovery in veterans hospitals...

February 8 , 2007
Local Marine Seriously Injured In Iraq
KSDK - St. Louis, MO
A local marine is headed to a German hospital after being seriously injured in Iraq. Sgt. Casey Helms is from Bismarck, MO. Diane Helms found out Thursday morning her son's platoon was targeted by a roadside bomber. Shrapnel pierced Casey's face including an eye, his arms and legs and he suffered a punctured lung...

February 3 , 2007
Traverse City Central grad wounded by bomb in Iraq
Record-Eagle - Traverse City, MI
Evan Cole fractured his pelvis, broke his right arm and leg in multiple places, suffered a laceration to his liver and superficial shrapnel wounds when his armored vehicle rolled over an improvised explosive device. Cole was flown to Baghdad where he twice underwent surgery. He was later hospitalized at Landstuhl...

January 31, 2007
With Gratitude In Every Stitch
Washington Post
The instructions read simply: "Please give this to a soldier." Chaplain John L. Kallerson, an Army major, gently opens each one and places the contents around his windowless office. Then he lays his big hands on the piles and says a blessing. More than 7,900 "comfort quilts," each carefully stitched with love and gratitude, have been sent through the Quilts of Valor Foundation to the wounded soldiers at Walt er Reed and 70 other U.S. military medical centers...

January 30, 2007
House of Healing
MSNBC.com
In a show of support for the troops, thousands of Americans pitch in to fund a dazzling new rehabilitation center for severely injured servicemen and women. Today is a celebration of life, heroism, duty, honor and commitment," said Bill White, president of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which spearheaded the 16-month fund-raiser...

January 28, 2007
Marine honored for valor in Iraq
The Capital - Annapolis, MD
A Marine's Marine. Marine 1st Sgt. Donnie Brazeal said his reason for risking life and limb during the April 11, 2005, battle was simple: "Those are my sons," he said pointing to a group of sergeants and corporals who attended the ceremony. "I was bringing young Marines home...

January 27, 2007
Wounded Iraq vet resists desk job
AZcentral.com
Air Force Staff Sgt. Aime Gaona's job was to find out how roadside bombs were set and how troops could avoid them. After-the-fact stuff. But sometimes the fireworks started while she was working. Two Purple Hearts later, she's back in the Valley, recuperating from a gunshot wound...

January 24, 2007
Local soldier wounded in Iraq
Daily Press - Escanaba, MI
National Guardsman Derek Gagne was on a mission in Baghdad when a mine exploded under his Humvee. According to reports, Gagne suffered the loss of a leg, all of his toes on the other leg and some facial injuries. Gagne is currently receiving treatment for his injuries in Germany...

January 22, 2007
Wounded vet returns to warm welcome
MSNBC.com
After a year and a half of medical treatment, Dan McKinney is back on his feet and very lucky to be alive. While training Iraqi police officers, he took a lunch break just as a suicide bomber struck. McKinney suffered a severe abdominal wound...

 

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