HEROES IN THE NEWS (CONTINUED):

January 20, 2007
SC soldier injured in Iraq celebrates life, progress
WIS10 - Columbia, SC
One year ago Saturday, Crystal Davis lost part of her leg fighting in the Iraq war. This weekend, Camden was the site of a celebration of life for one of South Carolina's bravest...

January 15, 2007
K9 Gives Injured Vet New Lease On Life
CBS 4 - Boston, MA
A man's best friend is helping out soldiers who have suffered in the war in Iraq. Sgt. Raymond Hubbard, 29, lost his leg in battle, but has gained the support of a very special friend. And this is Dace a specially trained Labrador retriever. Dace is highly trained. She can turn on lights and open and hold doors. She also provides unconditional love...

January 10, 2007
The war after the war
MSNBC.com
Disabled from wounds sustained in Iraq, Cpl. B.J. Jackson and his family find life on the home front has changed, for better and worse...

January 1, 2007
Roadside bomb changed lives of the survivors, some still in Iraq
USA TODAY
This is the story of the soldiers who survived the IED that killed Ricky Salas. The blast that killed Salas left four other soldiers with wounds, physical or emotional, that may never heal. The long shrapnel scar on the face of 1st Lt. Charles Bies marks the day last March when his life changed forever. It severed the left leg of Army Spc. Jose "Jay" Morales... It smashed Army Spc. Nicholas "Nick" Helfferich pelvis and ribs, damaged a lung and his liver, and permanently crippled his spine. Sgt. Martin Duculan found himself pinned under Morales and Salas. Though the blast left no visible wounds, it is seared in his memory...

December 28, 2006
What I've Learned: Sgt. Bryan Anderson
MSN.com
I was hit on October 23. The concussion of the blast collapsed my right lung, so it was hard to breathe. I was in so much pain, my body wouldn't even let me feel pain. Before I said anything, I wiped my face because I felt blood and the flies were all over, and the first thing I saw was my finger gone. Okay, not so bad. Then I turned my hand over, and the whole thing looked like ground beef. But it still looked all right, kind of. I could see bone. Anyway, while I'm looking at this, I went to wipe my face with my left hand and there was nothing there. My hand was over on the passenger's seat, and my legs were on the floorboard. It cauterized everything instantly because it was so hot...
VIDEO

December 13, 2006
Remembering Wounded Warriors This Holiday Season
ABC News
Army Staff Sgt. Pio Paau watched helplessly from a stretcher as fellow soldiers tried to rescue his men, still trapped in a burning tank, ammunition exploding all around them like fireworks. With severe burns covering 67 percent of his body, the 33-year-old husband and father was moved from Iraq to the Brooke Army Medical Center's burn center in Texas to embark on the long road to recovery, a journey that is painful both physically and emotionally...

December 12, 2006
Home from war: Wounded Leesburg marine describes facing enemy in Iraq
Loudoun Times-Mirror - Leesburg VA
Lance Cpl. Chris Charette, 21, sat in his parents' comfortable living room in Leesburg on Friday. It was a far cry from the scene he faced seven weeks ago: on a boat, patrolling a strategic river in Iraq -- under fire from the enemy. On Oct. 26, Charette was shot twice - once in the neck and once in the left hand, which caused him to lose his thumb. He is left-handed. After three hospital stays - Iraq, Germany and Bethesda, Md. -- he is now home, recovering with the help of his family, his girlfriend and physical therapy three times a week...

December 12, 2006
Wounded Soldier To Get His Smile Back
NBC San Diego
It's hard to believe Sgt. Frank Sandoval has anything to smile about. When an IED exploded near his Humvee, Sandoval, a gunner, was critically injured. Shrapnel was embedded in Sandoval's brain and surgeons removed a third of his brain and half of his skull to save his life...

December 9, 2006
Injured Local Iraq Veteran Honored
KCRA - Sacramento, CA
Marine Cpl. Jeff Landay, 20, was badly injured in Iraq -- even falling into a coma during his recovery. In May, his humvee struck a roadside bomb in Fallujah, Iraq. He suffered injuries so serious doctors had to re-construct the left side of his skull. Landay is learning to talk again...

December 8, 2006
Paralyzed Marine seeks new life
NorthJersey.com - Hackensack, NJ
Marine Cpl. Visnu Gonzalez was manning a machine gun in battle-torn Fallujah, Iraq, three years ago when a sniper shot him in the neck, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down...

December 4, 2006
Wounded Marine gets a boost
The Bristol Press - Bristol, CT
Jason Mikolacjik is a 20-year-old lance corporal in the Marine Corps Reserves. He hopes to make the military his career, but doesn't know if he can. In early October, Mikolacjik was injured by a suicide bomber at a checkpoint in Fallujah, Iraq. Currently, he is home on leave, before returning to Texas on Dec. 12 for a year of treatment and observation in an Army burn ward...

December 3, 2006
An injured war vet and her dog start over - together
Centre Daily Times - State College, PA
Jamie Dana nearly died in a bombing in Iraq - her lungs collapsed, her spine was fractured, her pelvis was shattered - but when she watches news of the war, she thinks she still should be there. Dana, a former Air Force security forces dog handler, was severely injured just three weeks after arriving in Iraq last year. A bomb exploded beneath the Humvee she was riding in with Rex, her bomb-sniffing German shepherd, as they were returning from a mission. Dana and Rex had been inseparable for three years before Iraq. The war and a near-death experience threatened to change that...

December 1, 2006
Mount Zion Marine wounded
The Herald & Review - Decatur, IL
Lance Cpl. Chad Watson, 23, had his right leg amputated above the knee Wednesday after the Humvee he was riding in on patrol in Fallujah was blasted by a bomb, apparently detonated as the vehicle passed over it. During the attack, Watson also broke his left ankle and suffered shrapnel wounds to his face, including his eyelid and his right arm. After being treated in Fallujah, Watson was flown to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany. He will remain there until next week, when he is expected to be transferred to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland...

November 30, 2006
Jefferson Co. Marine severely wounded in Iraq
WATE - Knoxville, TN
Cpl. Bradley Walker, a veteran reserve Marine, was driving a Humvee in Haditha, Iraq Monday when it hit an improvised explosive device. Both of his legs had to be amputated at the knees. Bradley is on a ventilator in a hospital in Germany but could listen to his dad's voice in their first phone call after the attack...

November 23, 2006
SC's Bravest return injured, but thankful
WIS - Columbia, SC
Some of South Carolina's bravest are now home this Thanksgiving from serving in the war in Iraq. When they came back, their bodies were broken and bruised - but not their spirits. Crystal Davis went there. She came home without a leg. Stephen Diaz went there. He returned with one eye. Raymond Lee went there twice. This last time, he almost lost his memory...

November 13, 2006
Wounded Soldier Makes Gains
The Ellsworth American - Ellsworth, ME
Sgt. Harold Gray, the local soldier wounded in Iraq, has begun showing signs of improvement, his father said. Gray, 35, is a member of the Maine Army National Guard’s 133rd Engineer Battalion. He suffered serious shrapnel injuries after a roadside bomb hit a convoy he had been riding in Dec. 26, 2004, in Mosul. Gray has been at Togus VA Medical Center since July 2005 after spending six months at hospitals in Florida and Washington, D.C....

November 13, 2006
VFW, Pilots Club honor local soldier seriously wounded in Iraq
Leesville Daily Leader - Leesville, LA
Local veteran, Staff Sgt. James Jeane, was recently honored by the Pilots Club of Leesville and the VFW Old Stage Post 3106. On Feb. 26, 2006 his stryker was hit with a Suicide Vehicle Born Improvised Explosive Device where he sustained very serious injuries...

November 11, 2006
A Soldier's Struggle to recover (photo essay)
Washington Post
Two years after his injury, Marine Sgt. Nicholas Bennett is one of the nearly 20,000 veterans wounded in Iraq who struggle to move on...

November 6, 2006
Wounded Nellis Airman Returns From Iraq
KLASTV - Las Vegas, NV
Anxious friends and family gathered Monday to welcome home their hero. They were awaiting the arrival of Airman 1st Class Brandon Byers who was wounded in Iraq after a terrifying experience that nearly cost him his life...

November 4, 2006
Local Marine injured in Iraq explosion
Index-Journal - Greenwood, S.C.
Marine 2nd Lt. Andrew Kinard, 23, was on patrol along with three other Marines in western Iraq when he either stepped on or was struck in the lower body with an improvised explosive device, or IED, family members told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. In the explosion, Kinard lost all of his right leg and most of his left. Surgeons began assessing the internal and external damage to his body late in the night, and hope to save the remaining part of his left leg, the Rev. Don Wilton, senior pastor at First Baptist, told the Herald-Journal. The blast took it off above the knee...

November 4, 2006
Shindig benefits injured GI's family
The Telegraph - Nashua, NH
Army First Lt. Scott Quilty, 26, a college scholar who’d gone to Iraq just six weeks before, had been seriously injured when a roadside booby trap blew up his platoon. Lt. Scott Quilty’s right arm had to be amputated below the elbow, and his right leg below the knee. Thus began the long, winding road back to health for the 26-year-old soldier. Recovery chances were very good, the Quiltys were told, but still, Scott would need to spend several months rehabbing at Walter Reed. The Army is pretty good with providing for soldiers and families in such situations as the Quiltys’, but the assistance isn’t open-ended – which presented a new problem for the soldier’s parents: funding their many trips and stays to be with Scott in Washington...

October 31, 2006
Local Marine Critically Wounded In Iraq
New Channel 5 - Cleveland, OH
Colin Smith is a 2005 graduate of Avon Lake High School. According to his father, the young Marine is brain-dead and is on life support in Germany...

October 26, 2006
Rogers Marine 'Very Seriously Injured' in Iraq
The Morning News - Arkansas
Lance Cpl. Chris Traxson, 26, a Marine reservist with the 1st Battalion based in Detroit, suffered second-degree and third-degree burns on 55 percent of his body after his military vehicle was attacked in Iraq, said Ryan James, communication director for 3rd District Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers. Traxson was evacuated by helicopter and taken to a hospital in Fallujah and then transferred to a hospital in Balad, James said. The Marine Corps has classified Traxson as "very seriously injured," he said...

October 26, 2006
Marine Injured In Iraq Hopes More Will Participate In Operation Hero Miles
KSDK 5 - St. Louis, MO
When the Tigers play the Cardinals on Wednesday in Game Four of the World Series, a very special couple will be in the stands. Ziegel was critically injured in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq in December of 2004. The day after he arrived at Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio, his family flew to be at his bedside. They were able to make the trip at no charge thanks to Operation Hero Miles which uses donated frequent flyer miles to get the family members of troops wounded in combat to their bedside with minimal cost. Ziegel spent 22 months in the hospital, undergoing 30 surgeries. His family used 40 round trip tickets to support him in his recovering...

October 24, 2006
North Tahoe graduate injured in Iraq
Sierra Sun - Truckee, CA
Staff Sgt. Mike Thornton was scheduled to end his Army service by spring. And while he is still due out by March or April, it will be after nearly six months in recovery from second and third-degree burns to his knees, face and hands...

October 19, 2006
Marine from Greenfield critically wounded in Iraq
WTHR 13 - Indianapolis, IN
Only two weeks in Iraq and 29-year-old Marine Joshua Bleill's life has tragically and permanently changed. Lance Corporal Bleill was injured, like so many U.S. servicemen in Iraq, by a roadside bomb. He was one of three Marines in a Humvee near Bagdad when one exploded. The blast killed the other two and took Joshua Bleill's legs. Advances in military medicine and body armor have saved service members like Lance Corporal Bleil, who, nonetheless, returns home facing a myriad of physical challenges...

October 18, 2006
Pasco grad injured in Iraq to fly to Tri-Cities
Tri-City Herald - Tri-Cities, WA
Capt. Mario Tovar, a 1994 graduate of Pasco High School, was injured when a roadside bomb exploded Sept. 23. Tovar, 30, had a leg broken in two places and was bruised over his left side, said his father, Tom Tovar of Pasco. But his son was shielded from the worst of the attack by Dominguez...

October 18, 2006
Local soldier injured in Iraq returns
AzCentral.com
Andrew Stitzinger's Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb Saturday outside of Baghdad. The 21-year-old, Mountain Pointe High School graduate suffered cuts to his head and lower body. He lost a finger and sustained a bad calf wound. After being treated initially in the field, he was transferred to a U.S. military hospital in Germany. From there he was flown to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio for further treatment...

 

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