thedrifter
03-11-07, 02:44 PM
Back from Iraq, forever changed
By MARION CALLAHAN
phillyBurbs.com
Nick Santoro was on a night patrol when his Humvee drove over a roadside bomb, throwing him 10 feet into a ditch, where he was temporarily paralyzed in a pool of diesel fuel. His fellow Marines dragged him to safety. Two years earlier, his high school friend Jimmy Rendeiro was 10 days into the battle for Fallujah when a grenade went off, piercing his limbs with shrapnel.
Jared Baker doesn't remember the two weeks after the rocket attack that downed the helicopter he was in, killing 16 on board. But he still struggles to recover from the crash that left him with a brain injury and stitches from one ear to the other.
And Marine Patrick Kelly is recovering from the sixth surgery on his hand, which was severely injured when he and his translator stepped over a roadside bomb on the way back from a mission.
Santoro, Rendeiro, Baker and Kelly are among more than a dozen local servicemen who were roaming the halls in high school one year, then scattered on the frontlines of a war in Iraq the next. Eager to serve their country, they trained and deployed almost immediately after graduation and suffered their first combat injuries before they were legally old enough to drink a beer.
Today, nearly four years since the March 19, 2003, start of the war in Iraq, they are spread out, some still serving in the military, some gearing up for college, but all are still grappling with uncertainty about what their injuries will mean for their future, and whether they will ever really recover.
'FOREVER CHANGED'
It was the deadliest strike against U.S. forces in Iraq at the time.
Insurgents shot a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile at a Chinook helicopter flying west of Baghdad, carrying 36 soldiers on their way for leave. The crash left 16 dead and 19 injured.
Pvt. Jared Baker of Plumstead, 19 at the time, was among them.
He was critically wounded, his head torn open, his pelvic bone fractured, his spleen ruptured. He was flown to a hospital in Germany, then transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
“He was thrown from the helicopter and wasn't in it when it burst into flames,” said Beth Baker, who made contact with the doctor who treated her son at the scene. “The doctors didn't expect him to live. Those next few weeks were like a blur.”
Baker said he doesn't remember the accident or the two weeks after the crash. Most of his memories of Iraq were of the early days of the invasion, when his job was to go into cities ahead of troops, hunt down enemy holdouts and target them with artillery fire. “I spent most of my days driving around in Humvees, looking for enemies, conducting house raids and searching for weapons caches.”
He didn't expect to be hurt on his way out of the country for leave. A few months after the accident, his commander presented him with the Purple Heart.
“Of course it's an honor having it. It's showing that they are recognizing your service, but at the same time it shows someone got the best of you, that the enemy attacked you and hurt you,” he said.
Baker, now living and working in construction in Montana, was medically discharged from the Army, but not before he was nearly sent back to Iraq for a second tour — before he was fully recovered.
When his mother learned of the planned deployment, she fired off letters to local politicians and to his doctor. Baker's orders were pulled and he was sent back to Walter Reed, where he spent nearly a year recovering from his injuries.
“In a way, he wanted to go. In fact, I think he was mad I got involved,” his mother said. “But there was no way I'd let him go back in that condition.”
Eventually, doctors determined that his injuries warranted a medical discharge from the Army. Baker never got all the treatment he needed at Walter Reed — years before the medical center was mired in controversy — and today he is still seeking “cognitive therapy” for his brain injury.
“My memory is bad now. I'm jumpy and nervous at times, and we all have post-traumatic stress disorder. And these are the injuries that aren't visible,” he said.
He said he is forever changed.
“A part of me wishes I was still there. I miss the camaraderie. Plus, watching the news every day, seeing people getting injured and killed in a place where you were — it's frustrating. You think if you were there, you could be making a difference,” Baker said.
“It was close for me, and it could have ended a whole lot differently. You appreciate life a lot more. There are a lot of people who didn't come back, and their families and everyone they knew are forever changed, too.”
DESERVING RECOGNITION
Talking about the Purple Heart and how it was earned is not easy for Buckingham Marine Cpl. Nick Santoro and Quakertown Cpl. Patrick Kelly, both of whom were injured in separate incidents by hidden explosives buried beneath roads.
Santoro was on a night mission near Ramadi in April 2006 when his Humvee rolled over an improvised explosive device. He was tossed 10 feet and lay unconscious in a ditch filling slowly with diesel fuel. Though a threat of another nearby bomb was a concern, his fellow Marines dragged him to safety.
“When I first woke up, I thought my bottom half was gone,” Santoro said. “I couldn't move. Later on, my doctor told me to stand up and I realized I still had my legs. ... I asked to go out that night and that next day, but they wouldn't let me. I wanted to be out with the others in case something happened. It's just something you feel you have to do.”
Attacks like this were an “everyday occurrence,” Santoro said.
“This was part of the mission, part of patrolling the city,” he said. “Every day something happened. If something didn't happen, you thought something was wrong.”
Today, Santoro is at Camp Lejeune, N.C. His back is still not the same and other injuries, which are much less visible, persist.
“Just dealing with the fact of being back is hard,” said Santoro, 21, who served two tours in Iraq. “Healing takes time. And post-traumatic stress is something we all are going through, whether we like to admit it or not.”
Getting recognized for his injuries, however, wasn't automatic.
“Unless you lose a leg or get shot, you are not sure you are going to get it,” said Santoro, referring to the Purple Heart, awarded to those injured in combat. “At the time, I didn't care or think I deserved it. There was so much going on, so many more people getting hurt, it wasn't the first thing on my list. It was an honor just being alive.”
Joe and Penny Santoro, though, knew what their son had done for his country and wanted him recognized for it. They sent letters up the chain of command, “all the way up to [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld,” Penny Santoro said. They sent Marine commanders photos of their son's Humvee that was blasted and torn apart in the attack and copies of medical records, detailing the many injuries he suffered.
“These boys were wounded in combat,” Joe Santoro said. “It's insulting to the guys out in the field to have to fight for it. They stuck their necks on the line for our country, they got hurt, and they deserved to be recognized.”
Santoro got his Purple Heart, but his high school friend Jimmy Rendeiro — who was struck by shrapnel from a grenade thrown by a fellow Marine in Fallujah — is still fighting for his. At first, Rendeiro ignored the wounds, coming to the aid of his friend whose face was left bloodied. But his body gave up before his will. Rendeiro passed out and awoke in a makeshift field hospital. His injuries led to a medical discharge.
Though Patrick Kelly was awarded the Purple Heart, just knowing he was hurt in combat is still hard to handle. Kelly, a 2005 Quakertown High graduate, served in the Marines for only two months before he was injured.
His main mission was to patrol a dangerous stretch of road the military called Route Michigan. It is frequently the place to find roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices. Between patrols, they were also directed to go on house raids. It was after one of those raids that they came under fire and began to run. Kelly and his translator walked right over a roadside bomb. Kelly was blasted forward; his translator was killed instantly.
Kelly had shrapnel in his arm and leg and underwent two surgeries in Iraq before being flown to Germany. He couldn't feel his hand. Six surgeries later, he is still recovering and preparing for another operation. He is now in the Wounded War Clinic with about 60 other Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
“It's hard to get over the fact you got injured at war,” said Kelly, 19. “It's good we're around each other now. We went through the same stuff — and a lot of guys are more injured than me.”
SEARCHING FOR MEANING
Larry Babitts visits Purple Heart recipients and injured soldiers at Walter Reed every month. The vice commander of the Pennsylvania Order of Purple Hearts said many service members are still longing for closure, searching for meaning out of the trauma they've endured.
The injuries suffered in the Iraq war, he said, are dramatically different than those in previous wars.
“There's also a lot more brain injuries and a huge amount of amputees,” said Babitts, adding that more than 25,000 service members have been injured. More than 3,100 U.S. troops have died.
Two years ago, while sitting in the lobby of the hotel adjacent to the hospital, he met a soldier in a wheelchair. The soldier had lost an arm, a leg and an eye.
“We had a real nice conversation over cookies in the lobby,” Babitts said. “We both wore our Purple Hearts. Then he turned to me and said, "Tell me something: What happened, what I did — will it ever be worth it?' There is no answer.”
Rendeiro, though, doesn't question the importance of the mission he served. Whether he gets the Purple Heart or not, the 22-year-old knows his injuries weren't in vain.
“The mission we did in Fallujah ... there was no doubt in my mind we were fighting the enemy,” he said. “We went in young and eager to prove ourselves, and I know the reason why we went in may not have been the reason we were still fighting. But this is a fight against terrorism, and I'd rather take the enemy head-on in Iraq than have them running loose in America.”
Marion Callahan can be reached at 215-345-3166 or mcallahan@phillyBurbs.com.
March 11, 2007 6:12 AM
Ellie
By MARION CALLAHAN
phillyBurbs.com
Nick Santoro was on a night patrol when his Humvee drove over a roadside bomb, throwing him 10 feet into a ditch, where he was temporarily paralyzed in a pool of diesel fuel. His fellow Marines dragged him to safety. Two years earlier, his high school friend Jimmy Rendeiro was 10 days into the battle for Fallujah when a grenade went off, piercing his limbs with shrapnel.
Jared Baker doesn't remember the two weeks after the rocket attack that downed the helicopter he was in, killing 16 on board. But he still struggles to recover from the crash that left him with a brain injury and stitches from one ear to the other.
And Marine Patrick Kelly is recovering from the sixth surgery on his hand, which was severely injured when he and his translator stepped over a roadside bomb on the way back from a mission.
Santoro, Rendeiro, Baker and Kelly are among more than a dozen local servicemen who were roaming the halls in high school one year, then scattered on the frontlines of a war in Iraq the next. Eager to serve their country, they trained and deployed almost immediately after graduation and suffered their first combat injuries before they were legally old enough to drink a beer.
Today, nearly four years since the March 19, 2003, start of the war in Iraq, they are spread out, some still serving in the military, some gearing up for college, but all are still grappling with uncertainty about what their injuries will mean for their future, and whether they will ever really recover.
'FOREVER CHANGED'
It was the deadliest strike against U.S. forces in Iraq at the time.
Insurgents shot a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile at a Chinook helicopter flying west of Baghdad, carrying 36 soldiers on their way for leave. The crash left 16 dead and 19 injured.
Pvt. Jared Baker of Plumstead, 19 at the time, was among them.
He was critically wounded, his head torn open, his pelvic bone fractured, his spleen ruptured. He was flown to a hospital in Germany, then transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
“He was thrown from the helicopter and wasn't in it when it burst into flames,” said Beth Baker, who made contact with the doctor who treated her son at the scene. “The doctors didn't expect him to live. Those next few weeks were like a blur.”
Baker said he doesn't remember the accident or the two weeks after the crash. Most of his memories of Iraq were of the early days of the invasion, when his job was to go into cities ahead of troops, hunt down enemy holdouts and target them with artillery fire. “I spent most of my days driving around in Humvees, looking for enemies, conducting house raids and searching for weapons caches.”
He didn't expect to be hurt on his way out of the country for leave. A few months after the accident, his commander presented him with the Purple Heart.
“Of course it's an honor having it. It's showing that they are recognizing your service, but at the same time it shows someone got the best of you, that the enemy attacked you and hurt you,” he said.
Baker, now living and working in construction in Montana, was medically discharged from the Army, but not before he was nearly sent back to Iraq for a second tour — before he was fully recovered.
When his mother learned of the planned deployment, she fired off letters to local politicians and to his doctor. Baker's orders were pulled and he was sent back to Walter Reed, where he spent nearly a year recovering from his injuries.
“In a way, he wanted to go. In fact, I think he was mad I got involved,” his mother said. “But there was no way I'd let him go back in that condition.”
Eventually, doctors determined that his injuries warranted a medical discharge from the Army. Baker never got all the treatment he needed at Walter Reed — years before the medical center was mired in controversy — and today he is still seeking “cognitive therapy” for his brain injury.
“My memory is bad now. I'm jumpy and nervous at times, and we all have post-traumatic stress disorder. And these are the injuries that aren't visible,” he said.
He said he is forever changed.
“A part of me wishes I was still there. I miss the camaraderie. Plus, watching the news every day, seeing people getting injured and killed in a place where you were — it's frustrating. You think if you were there, you could be making a difference,” Baker said.
“It was close for me, and it could have ended a whole lot differently. You appreciate life a lot more. There are a lot of people who didn't come back, and their families and everyone they knew are forever changed, too.”
DESERVING RECOGNITION
Talking about the Purple Heart and how it was earned is not easy for Buckingham Marine Cpl. Nick Santoro and Quakertown Cpl. Patrick Kelly, both of whom were injured in separate incidents by hidden explosives buried beneath roads.
Santoro was on a night mission near Ramadi in April 2006 when his Humvee rolled over an improvised explosive device. He was tossed 10 feet and lay unconscious in a ditch filling slowly with diesel fuel. Though a threat of another nearby bomb was a concern, his fellow Marines dragged him to safety.
“When I first woke up, I thought my bottom half was gone,” Santoro said. “I couldn't move. Later on, my doctor told me to stand up and I realized I still had my legs. ... I asked to go out that night and that next day, but they wouldn't let me. I wanted to be out with the others in case something happened. It's just something you feel you have to do.”
Attacks like this were an “everyday occurrence,” Santoro said.
“This was part of the mission, part of patrolling the city,” he said. “Every day something happened. If something didn't happen, you thought something was wrong.”
Today, Santoro is at Camp Lejeune, N.C. His back is still not the same and other injuries, which are much less visible, persist.
“Just dealing with the fact of being back is hard,” said Santoro, 21, who served two tours in Iraq. “Healing takes time. And post-traumatic stress is something we all are going through, whether we like to admit it or not.”
Getting recognized for his injuries, however, wasn't automatic.
“Unless you lose a leg or get shot, you are not sure you are going to get it,” said Santoro, referring to the Purple Heart, awarded to those injured in combat. “At the time, I didn't care or think I deserved it. There was so much going on, so many more people getting hurt, it wasn't the first thing on my list. It was an honor just being alive.”
Joe and Penny Santoro, though, knew what their son had done for his country and wanted him recognized for it. They sent letters up the chain of command, “all the way up to [former Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld,” Penny Santoro said. They sent Marine commanders photos of their son's Humvee that was blasted and torn apart in the attack and copies of medical records, detailing the many injuries he suffered.
“These boys were wounded in combat,” Joe Santoro said. “It's insulting to the guys out in the field to have to fight for it. They stuck their necks on the line for our country, they got hurt, and they deserved to be recognized.”
Santoro got his Purple Heart, but his high school friend Jimmy Rendeiro — who was struck by shrapnel from a grenade thrown by a fellow Marine in Fallujah — is still fighting for his. At first, Rendeiro ignored the wounds, coming to the aid of his friend whose face was left bloodied. But his body gave up before his will. Rendeiro passed out and awoke in a makeshift field hospital. His injuries led to a medical discharge.
Though Patrick Kelly was awarded the Purple Heart, just knowing he was hurt in combat is still hard to handle. Kelly, a 2005 Quakertown High graduate, served in the Marines for only two months before he was injured.
His main mission was to patrol a dangerous stretch of road the military called Route Michigan. It is frequently the place to find roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices. Between patrols, they were also directed to go on house raids. It was after one of those raids that they came under fire and began to run. Kelly and his translator walked right over a roadside bomb. Kelly was blasted forward; his translator was killed instantly.
Kelly had shrapnel in his arm and leg and underwent two surgeries in Iraq before being flown to Germany. He couldn't feel his hand. Six surgeries later, he is still recovering and preparing for another operation. He is now in the Wounded War Clinic with about 60 other Marines at Camp Lejeune, N.C.
“It's hard to get over the fact you got injured at war,” said Kelly, 19. “It's good we're around each other now. We went through the same stuff — and a lot of guys are more injured than me.”
SEARCHING FOR MEANING
Larry Babitts visits Purple Heart recipients and injured soldiers at Walter Reed every month. The vice commander of the Pennsylvania Order of Purple Hearts said many service members are still longing for closure, searching for meaning out of the trauma they've endured.
The injuries suffered in the Iraq war, he said, are dramatically different than those in previous wars.
“There's also a lot more brain injuries and a huge amount of amputees,” said Babitts, adding that more than 25,000 service members have been injured. More than 3,100 U.S. troops have died.
Two years ago, while sitting in the lobby of the hotel adjacent to the hospital, he met a soldier in a wheelchair. The soldier had lost an arm, a leg and an eye.
“We had a real nice conversation over cookies in the lobby,” Babitts said. “We both wore our Purple Hearts. Then he turned to me and said, "Tell me something: What happened, what I did — will it ever be worth it?' There is no answer.”
Rendeiro, though, doesn't question the importance of the mission he served. Whether he gets the Purple Heart or not, the 22-year-old knows his injuries weren't in vain.
“The mission we did in Fallujah ... there was no doubt in my mind we were fighting the enemy,” he said. “We went in young and eager to prove ourselves, and I know the reason why we went in may not have been the reason we were still fighting. But this is a fight against terrorism, and I'd rather take the enemy head-on in Iraq than have them running loose in America.”
Marion Callahan can be reached at 215-345-3166 or mcallahan@phillyBurbs.com.
March 11, 2007 6:12 AM
Ellie