thedrifter
02-21-07, 07:48 AM
Heroes of yesteryear honor two tested under fire in Iraq
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | February 21, 2007
Terrence "Shane" Burke had no idea how badly injured he was when an explosive device shattered his Humvee in Fallujah one night last September.
The Boston police patrolman and Marine sergeant kept trying to get up off the stretcher, where James O'Brien, a Navy medic and a lieutenant in the Boston Fire Department, was trying to treat his extensive burns and stanch the flow of blood from his left leg. There was a firefight going on, and Burke wanted to grab his pistol and join in.
O'Brien tried yelling at Burke, but he wouldn't listen.
So he got tougher.
"Jimmy O'Brien told me to sit down a few times," Burke recalled in an interview yesterday, chuckling. "He punched me in the face. I was finally able to lie down."
Burke's left leg was eventually amputated above his knee. Dense roadmaps of raised red scars climb his arms. Burns pucker the skin on his body. He is in rehabilitation at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. O'Brien, 44, has returned to work at the firehouse.
Both men were honored at a State House service yesterday, each given the Semper Fidelis Award by Marine veterans who said they exemplified the honor, courage, and commitment for which the Corps stands.
"If it wasn't for Jimmy, I wouldn't be here right now," Burke, 29, of Dorchester, told several hundred veterans and state officials at the ceremony in the grand, marbled Hall of Flags.
The event marked the 62d anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, and 16 men who fought in that bloody World War II episode sat in the front rows yesterday. Burke and O'Brien both said it was an honor to be in their presence.
For most of the ceremony, which lasted almost two hours, Burke, who now has a prosthetic leg, stood up straight at the front of the hall. Gleaming medals, including a Purple Heart, crowded the left side of his Dress Blues. Occasionally, he pulled his silver cane off a nearby railing to support himself, but only for a few minutes at a time.
The two reservists, who met in Iraq a few weeks before the explosion, have stayed in touch since then, Burke said.
His recovery has been slow and sometimes frustrating, Burke said.
"Physically, mentally, spiritually, it has been difficult," he said after the ceremony as well-wishers came up to shake his hand. He gave them "Thank you, sir ," and "Semper Fi " in return.
"Definitely I get angry," he went on. "Not at what happened to me, but as far as rehabilitation. I get frustrated, I get aggravated when I have to use crutches to go to the bathroom at night or when I bang into something with my wheelchair."
Burke, assigned to a police station in South Boston before he was shipped to Iraq, intends to return to the police force, he said. However, he said, he will not be able to assume all of his old duties, and his career path might lead him in a different direction than he had once hoped.
"Unfortunately, my old dreams are pretty much down the toilet for now," he said. But he would like to get involved in community policing, he said.
Superintendent in Chief Albert Goslin of the Boston police said at yesterday's ceremony that he can hardly wait to welcome Burke back to the force.
When Burke returned home for a visit in September, his fellow officers gave him a hero's welcome, stopping traffic in South Boston. He was greeted at the station house on West Broadway by 150 police officers, 50 Marines, and a crowd of local residents.
It was "surreal," Burke recalled yesterday.
He said he wished that every man and woman who went to war had had a welcome home like the one he enjoyed. "Unfortunately they didn't," he said, "and it's a blemish on our history."
Ellie
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | February 21, 2007
Terrence "Shane" Burke had no idea how badly injured he was when an explosive device shattered his Humvee in Fallujah one night last September.
The Boston police patrolman and Marine sergeant kept trying to get up off the stretcher, where James O'Brien, a Navy medic and a lieutenant in the Boston Fire Department, was trying to treat his extensive burns and stanch the flow of blood from his left leg. There was a firefight going on, and Burke wanted to grab his pistol and join in.
O'Brien tried yelling at Burke, but he wouldn't listen.
So he got tougher.
"Jimmy O'Brien told me to sit down a few times," Burke recalled in an interview yesterday, chuckling. "He punched me in the face. I was finally able to lie down."
Burke's left leg was eventually amputated above his knee. Dense roadmaps of raised red scars climb his arms. Burns pucker the skin on his body. He is in rehabilitation at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. O'Brien, 44, has returned to work at the firehouse.
Both men were honored at a State House service yesterday, each given the Semper Fidelis Award by Marine veterans who said they exemplified the honor, courage, and commitment for which the Corps stands.
"If it wasn't for Jimmy, I wouldn't be here right now," Burke, 29, of Dorchester, told several hundred veterans and state officials at the ceremony in the grand, marbled Hall of Flags.
The event marked the 62d anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, and 16 men who fought in that bloody World War II episode sat in the front rows yesterday. Burke and O'Brien both said it was an honor to be in their presence.
For most of the ceremony, which lasted almost two hours, Burke, who now has a prosthetic leg, stood up straight at the front of the hall. Gleaming medals, including a Purple Heart, crowded the left side of his Dress Blues. Occasionally, he pulled his silver cane off a nearby railing to support himself, but only for a few minutes at a time.
The two reservists, who met in Iraq a few weeks before the explosion, have stayed in touch since then, Burke said.
His recovery has been slow and sometimes frustrating, Burke said.
"Physically, mentally, spiritually, it has been difficult," he said after the ceremony as well-wishers came up to shake his hand. He gave them "Thank you, sir ," and "Semper Fi " in return.
"Definitely I get angry," he went on. "Not at what happened to me, but as far as rehabilitation. I get frustrated, I get aggravated when I have to use crutches to go to the bathroom at night or when I bang into something with my wheelchair."
Burke, assigned to a police station in South Boston before he was shipped to Iraq, intends to return to the police force, he said. However, he said, he will not be able to assume all of his old duties, and his career path might lead him in a different direction than he had once hoped.
"Unfortunately, my old dreams are pretty much down the toilet for now," he said. But he would like to get involved in community policing, he said.
Superintendent in Chief Albert Goslin of the Boston police said at yesterday's ceremony that he can hardly wait to welcome Burke back to the force.
When Burke returned home for a visit in September, his fellow officers gave him a hero's welcome, stopping traffic in South Boston. He was greeted at the station house on West Broadway by 150 police officers, 50 Marines, and a crowd of local residents.
It was "surreal," Burke recalled yesterday.
He said he wished that every man and woman who went to war had had a welcome home like the one he enjoyed. "Unfortunately they didn't," he said, "and it's a blemish on our history."
Ellie