Wounded Marine struggles to recover

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer

CAMP PENDLETON ---- Marine Staff Sgt. Paul McQuigg has an acrylic skull sitting on a bookstand in the living room of his modest Camp Pendleton home. Attached to the jaw is a metal brace full of screws, the same brace McQuigg wore to hold his lower jaw in place for months on end.

The macabre display is a reminder of the molten shrapnel that tore through McQuigg's face in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq on Feb. 26, 2006, nearly taking the life of the Marine, who to this day says he wants only to return to duty and to "his Marines."

His vehicle was the second in a convoy of nine that day. As they crossed a bridge, a bomb exploded right next to his Humvee, detonated by remote control, McQuigg said.

"Someone was watching us as we crossed the bridge," he said.

Thanks to the efforts of Navy corpsmen and doctors, the 30-year-old McQuigg survived the blast. But his injuries included a shattered jaw and severe bone loss, a serious concussion, lacerations to the tongue, neck and face, as well as a collapsed lung. After losing a lot of blood on the battlefield, he was stabilized by two Navy corpsmen and put on a helicopter to a nearby air base.

Doctors performed a tracheotomy so that he could breathe ---- inserting a tube that he used until a few days ago. Because of the damage to his mouth and tongue, he cannot chew and must have food injected into his stomach through a tube.

Despite his wounds and the changes they have brought, McQuigg remains focused on his recovery and on helping to take care of his 3-year-old son, Sebastian, his mother Jacqueline McQuigg said.

While the number of U.S. military dead in Iraq stood at 3,210 as of March 15, the number of seriously wounded continues to be nearly 10 times as great. The Web site icasualties.org tracks military deaths and wounded in Iraq. And as of Feb. 3, the Web site reported that more than 32,000 U.S. troops required medical air transport, generally an indication of serious wounds.

Jacqueline McQuigg, who lives in Indiana, said she has been staying with her son on the base since early May 2006, shortly after his release from the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. She said she came to help him through his recovery, which will take time. Several more surgeries are scheduled for sometime next year.

She said she has watched him struggle through the pain and the exhausting physical therapy for his tongue, jaw and mouth three times a week.

"It's been a blessing to be here taking care of him," the mother said. "I never thought that at my age I would be caring for a warrior and a baby at the same time."

Very seldom do parents of adult children have the opportunity to spend as much time with their offspring as she has, she said.

"He is courageous and compassionate ---- I am very proud of him," she said.

McQuigg said he is thankful that his mother is with him in his hour of need.

"If I didn't have my mom here, I don't know where I'd be," he said.

She also is helping care for Sebastian, said McQuigg, who is a single dad.

He devotes as much time as he can to his son, he said, but fatigue from his wounds often prevents him from doing as much as he would like.

"Sometimes I'm discouraged, but I don't let Sebastian see that," McQuigg said, his speech somewhat garbled from the wounds to his tongue, mouth and jaw. "He doesn't understand that daddy is hurt and can't always do things with him. But I cherish the time I get to spend with him."

Dressed in camouflage fatigues, McQuigg leaned forward as he spoke about how things have changed and how he feels about what has happened to him.

"When it's your time, it's your time ---- but it wasn't," said McQuigg as he stared down at his combat boots and the dog tag that hung on one shoestring. Marines in combat often wear their dog tags on their boots, because a serious head wound can destroy dog tags, thus preventing identification of remains.

"I thank God every day for bringing me back from Iraq," he said.

McQuigg, who serves in the 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion Bravo Company, said he has no regrets.

"I would rather something like this happened to me than one of my Marines," the 10-year veteran said.

Before he left for Iraq with his Marines, McQuigg said, he told his men he would bring them back in one piece.

"If this had happened to them, I would have felt I let my Marines down," he said.

As McQuigg spoke, Sebastian periodically jumped up into his father's lap to show him books.

"Thomas, Daddy, Thomas," Sebastian said, as he showed him one of his Thomas the Tank Engine books.

McQuigg said the hurt comes and goes, but "pain isn't forever."

He added that he has always been a patient man but that his plight has made him even more so.

"It's tough to sit in bed and not be active," McQuigg said.

Perhaps the hardest part of his recovery is not being able to join his fellow Bravo Company Marines when they return to Iraq next month.

"I want to be there with them," he said. "When they leave, a piece of me is going to go with them."

Growing up in a Chicago suburb, McQuigg was a sports fanatic, he said, playing football, lacrosse and soccer and wrestling. But he was always fascinated by the military.

"I thought they were the best thing since sliced bread, the tough guys being heroes," he said.

He decided to join the Marines because he wanted to be with "the best," and because of all the time and attention the Marine recruiters devoted to him, he said.

McQuigg said he only hopes that despite his wounds there will be a place for him to continue his career in the Marines.

"I believe it's highly likely I will be able to stay," he said.

As bad as her son's injuries have been, there have been blessings that have come out of his ordeal, Jacqueline said.

"This has brought our family a lot closer together," she said. "Paul and his younger brother were estranged, but his injury healed those old wounds."

Jacqueline said that several nonprofit organizations have come to the family's aid, enabling her to take care of her son and grandson over the last year without having to work.

She said she was thankful for the support shown to her family by organizations such as Operation Homefront, Operation First Response, United We Serve and Injured Marines Semper Fi Fund.

McQuigg said he is focused on recovering as quickly as possible so that he can return to full-time work with the Corps. Now, he goes to work on the base one day a week, he said. Well, sort of. He doesn't really have a fixed job yet. Mainly, he said: "I talk to my buddies, tell them I'm still alive. It helps them and it helps me."

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760)740-5426, or wbennett@nctimes.com.

Ellie