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thedrifter
12-23-06, 04:41 PM
Worries over for family of a wounded Marine

By MIKE WIGGINS The Daily Sentinel


Saturday, December 23, 2006

The only Christmas tree in Theresa Manthei’s house is a foot-high trinket perched atop a corner entertainment center.

There are no lights strung along the eaves, no decorations adorning the yard. And Manthei had a heck of a time getting her relatives to tell her what they want for Christmas.

For Manthei and her family, it’s what happens when the hoopla surrounding the holidays is overshadowed by war, when you learn from a stranger in another country that your boy has been shot, when the only gift any of them really wanted walks through the doors of Walker Field Airport.

“The reason this is the best Christmas ever is neither I, nor my sons, nor his grandparents, nor any other family member, has to worry anymore,” Manthei said, sitting next to her son on a loveseat on a recent afternoon at her Fruita home. “We know that he is home, and we don’t have to worry anymore.”

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Renshaw is home, having survived a sniper’s bullet while on patrol in Iraq and now reflecting on his family, his recovery, the servicemen and women he feels guilty about leaving behind and the death of a friend and fellow Marine.

“It feels good to be home,” Renshaw said. “At the same time, it feels like I failed. I didn’t complete the deployment. I didn’t see it through to the end.”

Figuring “someone’s gotta go get ’em,” Renshaw decided he wanted to become a Marine the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He made his mother sign him up for military service when he was 17. She cried as she put her signature to the papers.

Renshaw, who attended Fruita Monument High School and graduated from R-5 High School, left for boot camp and had stints in San Diego and Hawaii before he left for Afghanistan in June 2005. He was deployed to Iraq this past September.

“The whole reason I went to Afghanistan and Iraq isn’t because I wanted to go fight somebody, and it’s not because I wanted to pay them back for what they did to us on Sept. 11. It was because I didn’t want to give them any chances to bring that to where I live,” he said.

It was on Nov. 13, while Renshaw’s unit was on patrol along the Euphrates River, that a sniper overlooking the Marines’ position fired upon them.

Renshaw felt the bullet before he heard it. It was as though someone had grabbed his lungs and squeezed. He was instantly dizzy. Lying in the street and trying to gather himself, as bullets rained down upon him and his team, Renshaw thought, “I hope they don’t shoot me again.”

Another Marine helped him up, and the two dove into a nearby cement shop to escape the gunfire. Lance Cpl. Mario Gonzales, whom Renshaw met in Hawaii and fought alongside in Afghanistan and Iraq, held Renshaw’s hand and covered his eyes to protect them from the sand as the medical evacuation helicopter touched down to whisk him away.

“‘Hey man, you’re home free,’” Renshaw said Gonzales told him.

Two days later, Gonzales was killed by an improvised explosive device.

Death is something you expect, something for which you prepare yourself mentally, Renshaw said. But that didn’t make the news about his friend any easier to handle.

“You don’t expect the good ones to return home,” Renshaw said. “You expect the good ones to die.”

The shot collapsed one of Renshaw’s lungs, sliced his liver, popped his diaphragm and cracked his ribs. He underwent surgery in Iraq, then was ferried to Germany and on to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Manthei was at work when she got the call from a major in Iraq, telling her her son had been shot. When Renshaw was deployed, he asked his mother to promise she wouldn’t worry. It was, of course, a promise she couldn’t keep.

“You wait for that call every day, praying it won’t come in,” Manthei said.

She and other family members flew to Washington, D.C., nearly a week later.

“He grinned,” Manthei said of her son’s first glimpse of his family. “He looked awful. He was gray and yellow.

“What do you want? Your son is alive. It’s the most beautiful sight.”

Renshaw’s family’s joy was tempered by his own depressed attitude. He couldn’t stop thinking about the guys he had spent every moment with for the last two years, and how he couldn’t be with them anymore. He had gone from being able to run five miles a day, being able to carry a heavy pack all day, to not being able to feed himself. He ate little.

That began to change as Renshaw penned a poem, recounting being shot and expressing gratitude for his family and friends. After trying and failing to get him to eat something, Manthei showed up late to the hospital on the morning of Nov. 27. Renshaw, showing some spunk and injecting some color into his words, asked his mother where she had been and indicated he was starving.

“I walked right out into the hall and danced a jig,” Manthei wrote in a letter to family and friends. “Everything got better after that. We had no more bad days.”

Part of the boost came from his fellow patients on Ward 5, many of whom had lost limbs or were paralyzed and yet whose interpersonal bond, stubbornness and intensity still resonates with Manthei.

“There was no ‘poor me’ or ‘why me,’ ” Manthei said. “It was always, ‘I’m glad it wasn’t the guy next to me and look what I’ll be able to do.’ ”

It has been a whirlwind since Renshaw returned home Nov. 29. He visited a third-grade class that had been writing letters to him. He helped collect toys for the Marines’ Toys for Tots drive. Former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis and his wife, Lori, stopped by Manthei’s home for a visit and gave Renshaw an American flag.

During one afternoon earlier this month, his and his mother’s cell phones constantly buzzed with how-are-yous and encouragement from well-wishers, including the mother of Renshaw’s squad leader in Iraq. On that same day, he turned 21 and was notified he had been awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal. The family celebrated at a local bar with the blessing of his doctor, who told Renshaw his damaged liver could handle a few — and only a few — drinks.

His service to the Marines complete, Renshaw allows himself to contemplate his future as he increases his lung capacity, works to walk and stand erect, replaces the gauze pads covering the entrance and exit wounds on his abdomen with Band-Aids and regains the 30 pounds he lost. He said he wants to attend college but doesn’t yet know what he wants to study.

What matters most now, though, is that Renshaw has proven to be an exception to his own rule.

One of the good ones is home.

Ellie