thedrifter
11-11-08, 12:53 PM
Easton Marine eager to rejoin unit
By Vicki-Ann Downing
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
Posted Nov 11, 2008 @ 02:24 AM
Last update Nov 11, 2008 @ 02:44 AM
EASTON —
There are only four fingers now and a long scar on Ryan Walsh’s left hand, and the 22-year-old Marine is still limping a bit, weeks after surgery to insert a metal plate in his shattered right leg.
“Definitely, it’s good to be home,” said Walsh. “I missed my bed.”
A 2005 graduate of Oliver Ames High School, Walsh was injured in an ambush this summer while serving with 1st Marine Division, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, in southern Afghanistan.
After six surgeries in Afghanistan, Germany and the United States, and after receiving the Purple Heart at Bethesda Naval Hospital with his parents looking on, Walsh is back in Easton, undergoing physical therapy at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Braintree.
He is working to regain full use of his left hand, where the middle finger was amputated. He is also coping with pain in his legs, where nerves damaged in surgery and in battle have begun to regenerate.
Walsh’s goal is to rejoin his Marine company at Twentynine Palms, Calif., in mid-January. He surprised them two weeks ago, driving to Bangor International Airport with his brother-in-law, Wayne Casey, to welcome them home from a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan.
Walsh hadn’t seen his company since dusk on July 8, when he was the point man leading two platoons on patrol along the hot and dusty outskirts of a desert city in Helmand Province.
The Marines were moving along a dirt road with 10- to 12-foot walls on each side when they were ambushed from the front. A blast from a machine gun hit Walsh’s hand, but he kept moving, returning fire.
“Yes, I was still going, it was fine,” said Walsh. “Then I got hit in the shoulder. It knocked me down and knocked my breath out. I got up and was going forward when a grenade went off 15 feet away. The shrapnel from it broke both my legs. It was dark with dust then and we couldn’t see.”
Four of the 12 Marines were wounded in the ambush. Walsh remained conscious throughout, with the presence of mind to remember the camera he carried in the pocket of his pants when the pants were being cut off for surgery.
Walsh asked his British doctor if he would get the camera and photograph his wounds.
“He looked at me like I was crazy, but he did it,” said Walsh. “They’re pretty graphic.”
Later, carried on a stretcher to a helicopter for transport to another hospital, Walsh, lying on his back, filmed the chopper blades whirling over his head.
Walsh said the attack came from the Taliban, the extremist group responsible for the resurgence of violence in Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately, it’s not like they wear uniforms or anything,” Walsh said.
“Our original mission was to help train Afghan police,” said Walsh. “But there wasn’t enough police for all of us to train, so we were conducting security patrols.”
The youngest of James and Cathleen Walsh’s six children, Ryan was the only one not to attend college right away. He enlisted in the Marines out of high school.
“It’s something that, growing up, I always wanted to do,” said Walsh. “Going to college was not for me, at that moment ... It was hard, but I’m glad I did it.”
Walsh spent the summers of 2006 and 2007, and the time in between, as a member of the Ceremonial Guard, stationed at Marine headquarters at 8th and I streets in Washington, D.C. He participated in the summer parade seasons and at funerals at Arlington National Cemetery.
But that quiet work “got tedious,” and Walsh was ready to leave for California a year ago and prepare for deployment in April.
Of President-elect Barack Obama, Walsh said, “I think it’ll be good. He said he would send more troops to Afghanistan and focus on that. We definitely need more troops over there. ”
Vicki-Ann Downing can be reached at vdowning@enterprisenews.com
Ellie
By Vicki-Ann Downing
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
Posted Nov 11, 2008 @ 02:24 AM
Last update Nov 11, 2008 @ 02:44 AM
EASTON —
There are only four fingers now and a long scar on Ryan Walsh’s left hand, and the 22-year-old Marine is still limping a bit, weeks after surgery to insert a metal plate in his shattered right leg.
“Definitely, it’s good to be home,” said Walsh. “I missed my bed.”
A 2005 graduate of Oliver Ames High School, Walsh was injured in an ambush this summer while serving with 1st Marine Division, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, in southern Afghanistan.
After six surgeries in Afghanistan, Germany and the United States, and after receiving the Purple Heart at Bethesda Naval Hospital with his parents looking on, Walsh is back in Easton, undergoing physical therapy at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Braintree.
He is working to regain full use of his left hand, where the middle finger was amputated. He is also coping with pain in his legs, where nerves damaged in surgery and in battle have begun to regenerate.
Walsh’s goal is to rejoin his Marine company at Twentynine Palms, Calif., in mid-January. He surprised them two weeks ago, driving to Bangor International Airport with his brother-in-law, Wayne Casey, to welcome them home from a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan.
Walsh hadn’t seen his company since dusk on July 8, when he was the point man leading two platoons on patrol along the hot and dusty outskirts of a desert city in Helmand Province.
The Marines were moving along a dirt road with 10- to 12-foot walls on each side when they were ambushed from the front. A blast from a machine gun hit Walsh’s hand, but he kept moving, returning fire.
“Yes, I was still going, it was fine,” said Walsh. “Then I got hit in the shoulder. It knocked me down and knocked my breath out. I got up and was going forward when a grenade went off 15 feet away. The shrapnel from it broke both my legs. It was dark with dust then and we couldn’t see.”
Four of the 12 Marines were wounded in the ambush. Walsh remained conscious throughout, with the presence of mind to remember the camera he carried in the pocket of his pants when the pants were being cut off for surgery.
Walsh asked his British doctor if he would get the camera and photograph his wounds.
“He looked at me like I was crazy, but he did it,” said Walsh. “They’re pretty graphic.”
Later, carried on a stretcher to a helicopter for transport to another hospital, Walsh, lying on his back, filmed the chopper blades whirling over his head.
Walsh said the attack came from the Taliban, the extremist group responsible for the resurgence of violence in Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately, it’s not like they wear uniforms or anything,” Walsh said.
“Our original mission was to help train Afghan police,” said Walsh. “But there wasn’t enough police for all of us to train, so we were conducting security patrols.”
The youngest of James and Cathleen Walsh’s six children, Ryan was the only one not to attend college right away. He enlisted in the Marines out of high school.
“It’s something that, growing up, I always wanted to do,” said Walsh. “Going to college was not for me, at that moment ... It was hard, but I’m glad I did it.”
Walsh spent the summers of 2006 and 2007, and the time in between, as a member of the Ceremonial Guard, stationed at Marine headquarters at 8th and I streets in Washington, D.C. He participated in the summer parade seasons and at funerals at Arlington National Cemetery.
But that quiet work “got tedious,” and Walsh was ready to leave for California a year ago and prepare for deployment in April.
Of President-elect Barack Obama, Walsh said, “I think it’ll be good. He said he would send more troops to Afghanistan and focus on that. We definitely need more troops over there. ”
Vicki-Ann Downing can be reached at vdowning@enterprisenews.com
Ellie