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thedrifter
07-24-09, 08:09 AM
Injured Marine honored
Friday, July 24, 2009
By SANDRA E. CONSTANTINE
sconstantine@repub.com

GRANBY - Marine Sgt. Joshua J. Bouchard, severely injured in Afghanistan earlier this month, was this week awarded the Purple Heart by the Marine Corps.

Bouchard, wounded July 7 while in the lead Humvee in a convoy in southeastern Afghanistan, received the honor on Wednesday, according to his father. James J. Bouchard said his son was honored by the commandant of the Marine Corps during a ceremony conducted at his bedside at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

"His spirits are right up there. He is fighting this all the way," the elder Bouchard said by telephone from the hospital on Thursday.

Joshua Bouchard lost most of his left leg as well as suffering spinal injuries so severe he is not yet a candidate for a prosthesis, his father said. The Marine also fractured his right arm.

Joshua Bouchard has been a mechanic with the Marines' 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. He was drafted into service as gunner because his unit was shorthanded, according to his father. As a gunner he was in the open part of the vehicle.

"He was open to the blast," his father said.

Initially, it was thought the blast was from an improvised explosive device, but it is now believed it may have come from an anti-tank mine, his father said.

The 26-year-old sergeant had already served two tours of duty in Iraq. He was traveling in the Humvee with four of his buddies, two of whom were killed and two of whom were injured. The injured Marines are in the same polytrauma unit with Bouchard, according to the sergeant's father.

James Bouchard said it will be some time before his son will be able to return home and right now he is being considered for further medical attention at a veterans' hospital in Richmond, Va.

He underwent initial treatment at Landstuhl Medical Center near Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany, where American service people wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq are taken for treatment from the battlefields.

The wounded Marine is a 2002 graduate of Amherst Regional High School. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2004 and recently signed up for another four years of service.

The elder Bouchard served in the military in Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Charles L. Coleman, commander of the Northampton chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, said his organization donated money to help Bouchard's family with travel expenses. Joshua's father as well as his stepmother, Suzann C. Bouchard, and mother, Mary Hafford, of Harwinton, Conn., have been at his side starting with when he was taken to Germany.

"The boy is going to be in the hospital at long time," Coleman said.

Ellie