thedrifter
08-01-07, 11:40 AM
Back In U.S., Marines Overcome Wounds of War
BRENT HOPKINS
Los Angeles Daily News
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate
They bled for their country. Now, they run for each other.
These United States Marines, who went to war and left parts of themselves behind, stand united. They bear the scars of wounds earned thousands of miles away and the drive to press on, no matter what.
These are the men of Team Semper Fi.
"Marines are a unique bunch of guys," said Staff Sgt. John Szczepanowski. "We're the loudest at the party, we might be a little bit arrogant, but we're the tightest-knit family, too."
In 2004, Szczepanowski was assigned as a liaison to wounded Marines at the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, helping men who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with shattered bodies begin their lives again. A marathon runner and fitness nut, he knew the power of exercise to help bodies and minds rebuild themselves.
Working with a dozen seriously wounded comrades, he formed a team earlier this year and took the name of the Corps' famous motto. They've spent the past few months running long distances, biking hundreds of miles and pushing themselves to the limits of their physical capacity.
On Saturday, a squad of five will compete alongside dozens of able-bodied athletes in the Naval Base Ventura County Admiral's Cup triathlon. After a 400-meter swim, they'll switch prosthetic limbs and complete a nine-mile bike ride, then a three-mile run.
"These guys are living proof -- they remind me every day why I became a Marine," Szczepanowski said. "They remind me why it's good to be an American -- and it's better to be a Marine."
Sgt. Bacillio "Goo" Santellana, 23, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, Weapons Company:
Santellana sat in the commander's seat of the Humvee, scanning the Fallujah road for insurgents and roadside bombs. Just a few years before, he was working in a San Antonio warehouse, bored. Now, in fall 2004, his patrol was escorting some lumbering bulldozers and he was on edge.
The truck crept forward when the driver noticed a suspicious package to the side. Santellana eyed it and saw two 115 mm shells wired together in an L. He swore and ordered the man next to him to step on the gas. It surged forward, the shells exploded and the windows shattered. He blanked out, came to and saw the door caved in on him.
Flames licked around the truck's wrecked frame and Santellana could hear rounds crackling through the air. His gunner, wounded in the face and arm, gushed blood.
"Oh, my God, am I dead?" he thought. "I feel my body parts. ... OK, I'm not dead."
He stumbled out and fell to the ground. His driver dragged him to safety and they got the hell out of there. Back at the hospital, he saw a big hole in his right foot where his toes used to be.
Santellana spent a year learning to walk again with half a foot. He yearned to run again, to play with the kids he and his wife wanted to raise. In March 2006, he asked doctors to amputate his leg below the knee and fit him with a Re-Flex VSP prosthesis. Now, he runs three times a week, swims and can ride a stationary bike for up to two hours.
Coming up on his fifth year in the Corps, he's studying computer science and bought a house back home in San Antonio. He plans to retire in a few months to settle down. Life without his calf doesn't seem so different.
"You used to put on your shoe, now you put on your leg," he said. "It saves you money. You only gotta wear one sock. And you don't have to cut your toenails anymore."
Sgt. Jose "Joe" Gonzales, 23, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, weapons company
Gonzales had already been blown up twice by June 2005 when he saw the suspicious van hurtling toward his convoy. They were escorting some Marines in seven-ton trucks in the Hit corridor in Iraq and he was driving a Humvee. Just two weeks before, an improvised explosive device fired off next to his vehicle and seriously injured his back.
It was his first day returning to duty and the van was getting dangerously close.
"I'm gassing it, but the vehicle's not going anywhere," Gonzales said. "We're trying evasive maneuvers, trying to cut him off."
He swerved off the road, thinking the van couldn't follow. It detonated. His Humvee was on fire and smashed in. The blast ejected several guys from the vehicle and his back was killing him, but no one was seriously hurt.
"Five Marines were saved," he said. "This is why God put me in the Marine Corps."
He stayed in Iraq and finished out his tour before coming home to recover from his injury. He works a staff job at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, not far from his hometown of Uvalde. It's not easy to run 10 miles with his back aching, or to pedal 55 miles, hunched over a bike's handlebars, but it keeps his mind off the post-combat stress.
When his tour's up next June, he hopes to return to Iraq.
"You hear all the negative things on the news," he said. "You don't hear that we opened a school. You don't hear we opened a dam to provide electricity. That's why we're there."
Cpl. Dan "The Man" Lasko, retired, 24, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines:
Lasko took his oath on the morning of 9-11, left the ceremony and saw the World Trade Center explode on television. Three years later, he wound up in Afghanistan. In April, he ended up in the mountains, smoking out Taliban fighters. His unit got word an ambush was coming, but the intel was sketchy as to when.
On April 24, one month into a seven-month tour, it hit. As he rode in a seven-ton truck, an IED blast blew off the bottom of his left foot.
"I couldn't get up, I couldn't see anything," he said. "When I looked down, I saw my toes sticking up through my boot. My adrenaline started going because I knew we were being attacked."
Navy medics cleaned out the wound back at base, then he shipped out to Landstuhl, Germany, where surgeons removed his foot. When he returned stateside to Bethesda, he got an infection and doctors reamputated, just below his knee. He was angry at first, then came to terms with his wound.
Seven surgeries, five prosthetics and a solid year of therapy later, he was running again. Back home in Easton, Pa., he's studying criminal justice and works as an adult probation officer. He works out at least three hours a day, five days a week, and doesn't really notice that a metal foot now fills his sneaker.
"I knew I wasn't going to be stuck in a bed or a wheelchair," he said. "Life has just begun, I'll tell you that."
Gunnery Sgt. Spanky Gibson, 36, 2nd Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Co.:
Gunny Gibson had been around plenty before that crazy day in Ramadi. He'd joined up at 18 years old and spent just as many in the Corps, serving in Operation Desert Storm and Somalia before he headed back to Iraq.
"Our reputation precedes us," he said. "Any time you hear Marine, especially with U.S. in front of it, people don't want to fight with you."
He was leading a four-man team in the eastern part of the city, coordinating precision strikes in support of an Iraqi unit, when a buddy went down with a sniper shot. Gibson ordered his team to form a human wall around the wounded comrade and laid down suppressing fire. He heard a shot, felt a tingle in his left knee and found himself face down on the ground, his foot bent upward, pinning his rifle to his chest.
He was furious.
"I got my weapon out and went to town," he said. "I kept shooting. A SEAL corpsman and a teammate dragged me 30 yards and I was firing the whole way."
When he lost his leg above the knee, he reasoned that he'd just have to start over and learn to move again. The amputation took away his cherished Marine Jack of All Trades tattoo on his ankle, so he had the Corps logo worked into his $70,000 prosthesis. He became the coach and competitor with Team Semper Fi to show his comrades that a serious wound didn't mean life was over.
"I'm not as quick as I used to be. Yet," he said. "I don't expect to be 100 percent. But I'm gonna be damn close."
Ellie
BRENT HOPKINS
Los Angeles Daily News
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate
They bled for their country. Now, they run for each other.
These United States Marines, who went to war and left parts of themselves behind, stand united. They bear the scars of wounds earned thousands of miles away and the drive to press on, no matter what.
These are the men of Team Semper Fi.
"Marines are a unique bunch of guys," said Staff Sgt. John Szczepanowski. "We're the loudest at the party, we might be a little bit arrogant, but we're the tightest-knit family, too."
In 2004, Szczepanowski was assigned as a liaison to wounded Marines at the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center, helping men who came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with shattered bodies begin their lives again. A marathon runner and fitness nut, he knew the power of exercise to help bodies and minds rebuild themselves.
Working with a dozen seriously wounded comrades, he formed a team earlier this year and took the name of the Corps' famous motto. They've spent the past few months running long distances, biking hundreds of miles and pushing themselves to the limits of their physical capacity.
On Saturday, a squad of five will compete alongside dozens of able-bodied athletes in the Naval Base Ventura County Admiral's Cup triathlon. After a 400-meter swim, they'll switch prosthetic limbs and complete a nine-mile bike ride, then a three-mile run.
"These guys are living proof -- they remind me every day why I became a Marine," Szczepanowski said. "They remind me why it's good to be an American -- and it's better to be a Marine."
Sgt. Bacillio "Goo" Santellana, 23, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, Weapons Company:
Santellana sat in the commander's seat of the Humvee, scanning the Fallujah road for insurgents and roadside bombs. Just a few years before, he was working in a San Antonio warehouse, bored. Now, in fall 2004, his patrol was escorting some lumbering bulldozers and he was on edge.
The truck crept forward when the driver noticed a suspicious package to the side. Santellana eyed it and saw two 115 mm shells wired together in an L. He swore and ordered the man next to him to step on the gas. It surged forward, the shells exploded and the windows shattered. He blanked out, came to and saw the door caved in on him.
Flames licked around the truck's wrecked frame and Santellana could hear rounds crackling through the air. His gunner, wounded in the face and arm, gushed blood.
"Oh, my God, am I dead?" he thought. "I feel my body parts. ... OK, I'm not dead."
He stumbled out and fell to the ground. His driver dragged him to safety and they got the hell out of there. Back at the hospital, he saw a big hole in his right foot where his toes used to be.
Santellana spent a year learning to walk again with half a foot. He yearned to run again, to play with the kids he and his wife wanted to raise. In March 2006, he asked doctors to amputate his leg below the knee and fit him with a Re-Flex VSP prosthesis. Now, he runs three times a week, swims and can ride a stationary bike for up to two hours.
Coming up on his fifth year in the Corps, he's studying computer science and bought a house back home in San Antonio. He plans to retire in a few months to settle down. Life without his calf doesn't seem so different.
"You used to put on your shoe, now you put on your leg," he said. "It saves you money. You only gotta wear one sock. And you don't have to cut your toenails anymore."
Sgt. Jose "Joe" Gonzales, 23, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, weapons company
Gonzales had already been blown up twice by June 2005 when he saw the suspicious van hurtling toward his convoy. They were escorting some Marines in seven-ton trucks in the Hit corridor in Iraq and he was driving a Humvee. Just two weeks before, an improvised explosive device fired off next to his vehicle and seriously injured his back.
It was his first day returning to duty and the van was getting dangerously close.
"I'm gassing it, but the vehicle's not going anywhere," Gonzales said. "We're trying evasive maneuvers, trying to cut him off."
He swerved off the road, thinking the van couldn't follow. It detonated. His Humvee was on fire and smashed in. The blast ejected several guys from the vehicle and his back was killing him, but no one was seriously hurt.
"Five Marines were saved," he said. "This is why God put me in the Marine Corps."
He stayed in Iraq and finished out his tour before coming home to recover from his injury. He works a staff job at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, not far from his hometown of Uvalde. It's not easy to run 10 miles with his back aching, or to pedal 55 miles, hunched over a bike's handlebars, but it keeps his mind off the post-combat stress.
When his tour's up next June, he hopes to return to Iraq.
"You hear all the negative things on the news," he said. "You don't hear that we opened a school. You don't hear we opened a dam to provide electricity. That's why we're there."
Cpl. Dan "The Man" Lasko, retired, 24, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines:
Lasko took his oath on the morning of 9-11, left the ceremony and saw the World Trade Center explode on television. Three years later, he wound up in Afghanistan. In April, he ended up in the mountains, smoking out Taliban fighters. His unit got word an ambush was coming, but the intel was sketchy as to when.
On April 24, one month into a seven-month tour, it hit. As he rode in a seven-ton truck, an IED blast blew off the bottom of his left foot.
"I couldn't get up, I couldn't see anything," he said. "When I looked down, I saw my toes sticking up through my boot. My adrenaline started going because I knew we were being attacked."
Navy medics cleaned out the wound back at base, then he shipped out to Landstuhl, Germany, where surgeons removed his foot. When he returned stateside to Bethesda, he got an infection and doctors reamputated, just below his knee. He was angry at first, then came to terms with his wound.
Seven surgeries, five prosthetics and a solid year of therapy later, he was running again. Back home in Easton, Pa., he's studying criminal justice and works as an adult probation officer. He works out at least three hours a day, five days a week, and doesn't really notice that a metal foot now fills his sneaker.
"I knew I wasn't going to be stuck in a bed or a wheelchair," he said. "Life has just begun, I'll tell you that."
Gunnery Sgt. Spanky Gibson, 36, 2nd Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Co.:
Gunny Gibson had been around plenty before that crazy day in Ramadi. He'd joined up at 18 years old and spent just as many in the Corps, serving in Operation Desert Storm and Somalia before he headed back to Iraq.
"Our reputation precedes us," he said. "Any time you hear Marine, especially with U.S. in front of it, people don't want to fight with you."
He was leading a four-man team in the eastern part of the city, coordinating precision strikes in support of an Iraqi unit, when a buddy went down with a sniper shot. Gibson ordered his team to form a human wall around the wounded comrade and laid down suppressing fire. He heard a shot, felt a tingle in his left knee and found himself face down on the ground, his foot bent upward, pinning his rifle to his chest.
He was furious.
"I got my weapon out and went to town," he said. "I kept shooting. A SEAL corpsman and a teammate dragged me 30 yards and I was firing the whole way."
When he lost his leg above the knee, he reasoned that he'd just have to start over and learn to move again. The amputation took away his cherished Marine Jack of All Trades tattoo on his ankle, so he had the Corps logo worked into his $70,000 prosthesis. He became the coach and competitor with Team Semper Fi to show his comrades that a serious wound didn't mean life was over.
"I'm not as quick as I used to be. Yet," he said. "I don't expect to be 100 percent. But I'm gonna be damn close."
Ellie