Date: 8/9/2008 12:01 AM
BC-The Long Haul VII,1st Ld-Writethru/1869
Eds: Minor edits, adds detailed Multimedia note. MULTIMEDIA: An interactive, including video, battle recreation and audio slideshows, exploring personal stories from a unit of the Minnesota National Guard during their 22 months tour of duty in Iraq will be available in the _national/long_haul folder by noon Saturday, Aug. 2.
PART VII: Homecoming, struggles and new beginnings
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Homecoming at last, with troops and families reunited, though struggles remain. Conclusion of a seven-part series on the longest deployment of the Iraq war.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
The chartered plane loaded with soldiers descended slowly in the summer sky as Sgt. John Kriesel watched eagerly on the tarmac, clutching a walking cane. He had been waiting for this reunion for more than seven months.
Kriesel hadn’t seen his “guys” since he lost his legs in a roadside bombing in Iraq. Now, finally, on this bright July day at Volk Field in Wisconsin, the soldiers who served with him — several of whom he had known since high school — were home after a 22-month tour of duty, including 16 months in Iraq.
And he was there to welcome them.
Wearing shorts, sunglasses and bright yellow running shoes and standing firmly with his prosthetic legs, Kriesel beamed as a long line of soldiers formed, snaking from the plane’s steps across the tarmac.
One by one, Kriesel greeted them with hugs, hand shakes, smiles and jokes.
One soldier carried his battered M-4 weapon that survived the IED attack. “Is that my rifle?” Kriesel exclaimed, touching it again.
“You look good!” another friend said. “You look better than me.”
“No, I don’t,” Kriesel replied. “YOU look good. You got legs, bro.”
Staff Sgt. Tim Nelson, who was Kriesel’s roommate in Iraq and squad leader, jumped ahead in line and the two men embraced, holding each other tightly. Nelson was in the Humvee seat behind him when it ran over an IED.
Nelson flew with Kriesel to the military hospital in Balad, Iraq, and held his hand when Kriesel’s survival was in doubt.
“Good to see you, dude,” Kriesel said to Nelson. “I heard you yelling and I wasn’t going to let go.”
Staff Sgt. Todd Everson was also there. He was one of Kriesel’s rescuers, binding his left leg in a tourniquet.
“I’d be dead without you,” Kriesel said.
The next day, as Kriesel watched the soldiers’ formation at Fort McCoy, they surprised him by shouting, whistling, waving — and pointing to the place he had always stood.
Kriesel walked over and took his regular spot at the formation, and his battalion commander pinned the Combat Infantryman Badge and the Bronze Star on his chest.
For Kriesel and others who were part of the 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division, the summer of 2007 was a time of reunions and readjustment. Most had been gone nearly two years; their children had grown, their parents had aged, the world they left behind was different — and so were they.
When Janelle Johnson ran off the bus at Camp Ripley in Little Falls, Minn., she was amazed to see how big her two daughters looked. Emily, who’d been just 6 months old when she left, didn’t want to come to her mother or pose for a family photo and when the little girl relented, she clung to her father.
A general watching the scene put a comforting hand on Janelle’s shoulder.
“It’ll get better,” he whispered. “It’s going to be a long haul.”
And it has gotten better. Over the last year, while continuing to work for the Guard, Janelle has settled back into motherhood, reading bedtime stories to her girls and celebrating birthdays with them, not missing them anymore.
Seth and Alicia Goehring, who got married by proxy, are expanding their family. They’re expecting their second child in August, a girl they’ll name Audrey Florence.
Others have picked up where they left off.
Dr. Joe Burns went back to the emergency room of a Fargo, N.D., hospital, though he probably will return to Iraq next year.
Cassandra Houston entered a nursing program in college — something she postponed when she went to Iraq. Seeing so many needy people in Iraq inspired her. She wants to work for a humanitarian organization.
She had to adjust, too, to changes at home. During her 22-month absence, her son, Josh, turned 16, got his driver’s license and his first car. He proudly picked her up in the dented 1997 Sunfire to take her home.
Chad Malmberg came home to glory.
On Sept. 22, 2007, hundreds of friends, family and dignitaries gathered to watch him receive the Silver Star for his bravery during a January firefight.
Malmberg “deliberately and courageously exposed himself to enemy fire in order to prevent the enemy from assaulting through the kill zone and overwhelming his convoy,” the citation read. “His selfless actions prevented the enemy from turning the tide of the battle and undoubtedly saved the lives of his soldiers.”
The medal now hangs on the wall. And the hero has gone on with life. He finished Minnesota State University at Mankato with a 3.4 average and will enter the St. Paul, Minn., police academy in September. For now, he works for the department, issuing parking tickets.
In his first few days this spring, he was cussed out a half-dozen times.
It didn’t upset him. He has been in tighter spots.
___
For Dathan Gazelka, it wasn’t easy to put aside military rigor when he returned home and went to rejoin his wife, Mandy, in the real estate business.
He hated wearing a coat and tie, wasn’t sure what to say, and didn’t like Mandy being the boss.
He likes clear rules. Yes or no. Not maybe — or, I’ll think about it overnight.
He had an unorthodox sales pitch to prospective home buyers: “Listen, we’re going to look at three houses today and you’re going to buy one of them.”
Made perfect sense to him. Mandy, of course, found herself doing damage control.
And so, when the National Guard invited him to return to his job as a recruiter, Dathan (and Mandy) quickly accepted.
And he has a second job now: being a father. Mandy gave birth to Nyah last July.
J.R. Salzman was relieved to be back in Wisconsin after nine months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
His wife, Josie, was happy to be back in her own bed, sitting on her own couch, watching her own TV. But she worried, too. When they traveled to a Minnesota veterans hospital, she noticed that her husband — who had lost his lower right arm — was the youngest patient by far. She wondered whether the government would be there helping them for the next 50 years.
Both Salzmans enrolled quickly at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
But college life wasn’t easy for J.R., who had stopped taking medicine that made him groggy. He couldn’t sleep more than three or four hours a night.
His memory failed him often. He missed classes because he couldn’t remember his schedule. He had trouble focusing. Then one day, while researching a paper he read a report about traumatic brain injury.
He reviewed the symptoms — confusion, anxiety, memory problems — and realized he had every one of them. Then he discovered from his Walter Reed records there was something he had been unaware of: He had minor traumatic brain injury. Bingo. It all made sense.
As the months passed, Salzman improved. His memory got better. And he took a big step toward returning to his old life.
It happened last summer when he and Josie visited Lumberjack Days in Stillwater, Minn. — trailed by an ESPN crew chronicling his recovery.
“You’re going to log roll,” Josie told him. “You’re done putting it off.”
She tied his tennis shoes and watched.
Wearing his prosthetic arm, he stepped onto the log. First tentatively, then more confidently, he took a few steps. He rolled for a few seconds, stopped, then rolled some more, getting into the rhythm.
He smiled broadly.
J.R. Salzman had to relearn how to tie his shoes, to write his name. But log rolling? It came back naturally.
Just like he never was away.
___
In the year since he arrived home, Col. David Elicerio has traveled to several states, advising Guard units, telling them what to expect when they are deployed to Iraq.
In May, the colonel was on hand for the unveiling of a “Fallen Heroes” memorial to Minnesota soldiers who died. A sculpture of a helmet, a rifle and combat boots stands atop a granite slab inscribed with their names.
Elicerio also carries his own personal memorial: a chain with replicas of 21 dog tags, each bearing the name of a 1st Brigade soldier who died in Iraq.
Every time a soldier in his command was lost, Elicerio wrote the family a letter, vowing to remember their sacrifice. In a small way, he feels those tags are holding up his end of the bargain.
One bears the name of Staff Sgt. Joshua Hanson.
Nearly two years have passed since his death but for his parents, Robert and Kathy, there still are days when they feel he might call or walk into the room.
Their home is filled with memories of Josh. Outside, there’s a bench a friend made, with “Remember Sanchez,” his nickname, carved in it. His old room remains the way it was when he left it. The stuffed bass he caught as a boy, the Minnesota Twins 1987 World Champion baseball pennant, the taekwondo belts.
His military medals rest on a corner table in the dining room, illuminated with a prayer candle.
On Aug. 30, the second anniversary of Josh’s death, a picnic shelter at Maplewood State Park, where Robert Hanson is a ranger, will be dedicated in Josh’s honor. Much of the work on the shelter was done by Josh’s Guard friends.
It will have a polished black granite marker inscribed with the words: “YOU WILL NOT BE FORGOTTEN.”
___
John Kriesel knows how close he came to death. He’s determined to savor every minute of life.
In December, he, Katie and the boys moved into a wheelchair-accessible house — built by a construction company for cost and paid for with two fundraisers.
Kriesel is taking broadcasting classes at a local college. He interns at a sports radio station, where he’s on the air one morning a week.
This fall, he’ll start a marketing job with the Guard, working with sports teams, the media and businesses.
In the mirror, he can still see the faint scars of war etched on his 26-year-old face. And sometimes, he has tingly phantom sensations as if his feet were still there. He realizes, of course, he’ll never have the feel of walking on freshly cut grass or a plush carpet. He does not dwell on the past or his injuries
He is a grateful man. Every night, he kisses his two sons as they go to sleep. Every morning, he hops in his wheelchair, showers and puts on his prosthetic legs.
There’s no time to waste. He’s got lots of plans. Even for next summer. That’s when he hopes to start running again.
___
NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Long Haul PART IV: For 2 soldiers, families, lives changed
Date: 8/6/2008 12:00 AM
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Roadside bomb blasts change everything for two soldiers and their families back home. Fourth of a seven-part series on the longest deployment of the Iraq war.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
In that dreadful December, every day brought bloodshed, every week hundreds of attacks on Americans and Iraqis.
Car bombings. Drive-by shootings. Kidnappings. Torture. Bullet-riddled bodies. Sectarian fighting. It was a horrible end to a horrible year in the Iraq war.
And for two young soldiers, December 2006 was the month that changed everything, forever.
The sky was clear on Dec. 2 when Sgt. John Kriesel’s armored Humvee rolled out to check a report of suspicious activity: people digging on a dirt road near Fallujah.
His Humvee was turning a corner when the left front tire ran over something. Riding shotgun in the vehicle, Kriesel heard a metallic plink — like a rock striking a 55-gallon drum.
Then: BOOOM!
The Humvee flew into the air, its doors blowing open, the gunner shooting out of the turret like a Roman candle before the vehicle crashed down on its side.
Kriesel’s helmet and glasses flew off as he was thrown to the ground. Rocks rained down in a concrete storm, and Kriesel heard the screeching of twisted metal, then moans, groans, screams.
Strangely, he was calm. He saw the underside of the Humvee; the axle was blown off.
Then he looked down.
His left leg was nearly severed, still tucked in his pants leg, hanging by a piece of skin. His left thigh was split open like a baked potato, with a bone jutting out and blood oozing.
His right leg, from about six inches below the knee, was badly mangled, as if it had gotten stuck in a wood chipper.
“I’m going to die,” he told himself. “This is how it ends.”
Sgt. Kriesel, the eternal optimist, had lost faith.
He tried to get up, but it was useless. The bones of his lower left arm were broken; the arm flapped like a door off its hinge. Kriesel, who had trained to be a paramedic, was clear-minded enough to brace his arm to his chest, hoping to avoid nerve damage.
His right biceps had burst; they were peppered with shrapnel. A bracelet in honor of a fallen soldier sliced his right wrist down to the bone.
Kriesel closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see more.
“Help me! I need help,” Kriesel cried.
“Stay still,” said Sgt. Adam Gallant, who had jumped out of the Bradley ahead of him and had run back. Gallant did a quick assessment. One soldier was dead, another trapped and likely gone. Two others were walking. Kriesel was top priority.
“Kries,” he said, “I’m not going to lie to you, man. Your legs are real bad.”
But he tried to comfort him, too.
“You’re going to be OK,” he said. “We’re going to take care of you.”
Gallant and another soldier wrapped tourniquets on Kriesel’s legs. They propped him up on stacked boxes of MREs so blood would flow to his organs. No one knew it then, but beneath his armor the force of the 200-pound bomb had ripped open his abdomen, and his intestines were exposed.
Kriesel closed his eyes. It was almost like the movies: His life really was flashing before his eyes. He thought of Little League back in Minnesota, his elementary school days…
Then he felt someone shaking his shoulder.
“Keep your eyes open,” he heard. He didn’t want to.
He thought of his wife, Katie.
His gunner sat by his side to keep him awake. But the blast had left him with a concussion, and he kept asking Kriesel the same questions:
What’s your wife’s name?
Your kids’ names?
What state do you live in?
Kriesel answered over and over, until he lost patience.
“Leave me alone!” he snapped. “Let me die.”
The soldiers needed to move Kriesel so they could tip the Humvee wreckage and remove another soldier trapped beneath it.
“I ain’t going to lie to you, buddy,” Gallant said. “This is really going to suck.”
“What could suck worse?” Kriesel said. “Just go! Let’s do it.”
As they picked him up, Kriesel’s nearly detached leg flopped onto his chest. He howled in pain. No one knew then that his pelvis was shattered.
He was getting cold. Again, he felt sure he was going to die.
“Tell Katie I love her,” he implored.
“Shut up, you’re going to tell her yourself,” Gallant said.
When a young medic arrived, he administered morphine, and Kriesel was loaded onto a chopper. The drug was kicking in. But he managed to give his Social Security number.
Then he closed his eyes again.
At the hospital at the Al Taqaddum Air Base, six surgeons worked on Kriesel as a chaplain stood by in a corner. Once Kriesel was stabilized for transfer to another hospital in Iraq and then to Germany, the doctors placed him in a “hot pocket” — a heated nylon bag from which only a breathing tube was visible.
Some of those who saw him wheeled by felt sure he was dead.
A doctor tried to reassure them. His heart is still beating, he said. He’s still alive.
___
It was almost midnight in Minnesota, and Katie Kriesel was asleep when the phone rang.
“Katie, I need you to sit up,” her mother-in-law said.
John must be dead, she thought.
He wasn’t, but the news was grim: John had lost both his legs, one above the knee, the other below.
Katie Kriesel started crying. She called her mother, who lived about a mile away, but she was so choked up, her mother thought something had happened to the boys. She was getting dressed, she said; she’d be right over.
The commotion woke 4-year-old Broden, and Katie tried to calm him, stretching out in his bed, where he dozed off again but she simply watched the clock, hour by hour, waiting for morning and more news.
Over the next two days, Katie tried to maintain normal routines — even taking the boys for a breakfast with Santa — and struggled to keep her voice steady and her eyes dry.
As calmly as she could, she told her sons their dad was hurt and she had to go to Germany to help him.
What kind of hurt? they asked.
“Dad doesn’t have his legs anymore,” she said.
They looked puzzled.
Everything will be OK, she said. He’ll get a wheelchair.
Later as Katie read her sons a bedtime story, 5-year-old Elijah had a question.
“Are Dad’s legs going to grow back?” he asked.
“No, honey, they don’t grow back.”
“I just don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Elijah said.
___
That Sunday, Sgt. Travis Ostrom received a call at home.
Terrible news for the 1st Brigade Combat Team: Three casualties from an IED attack. John Kriesel was badly injured, and two other Minnesota National Guardsmen — Specs. Corey Rystad and Bryan McDonough — had been killed.
Rystad, just a few weeks shy of his 21st birthday, was an avid hunter and a natural athlete, a quiet guy who was always asking questions, always interested in learning how to be a better soldier. McDonough, 22, liked to crack jokes; everyone enjoyed being around him. But he had a serious side, too. In an online entry, he had written that he was proud to defend his country and there was “no other place I would rather be.”
Ostrom had to start coordinating the military aspects of two funerals.
It was the most unwelcome part of a job he never wanted.
Ostrom, who had served in Bosnia, Somalia and the Persian Gulf, had expected to be a platoon sergeant in Iraq, but he never got there. A knee injury at the worst possible time, during pre-deployment training in Mississippi, had sidelined him.
While his comrades fought, he was ass igned to a lonely armory in Minnesota serving those on the home front.
He felt guilty, but plunged into the crucial job helping families with bills, cutting red tape — and, as now, making preparations for final goodbyes.
That December day, Ostrom quickly called other Bravo Company soldiers on home leave. That way, they’d hear the news from him first. Also, some would be among the dozens of soldiers he’d tap for the sad necessities at hand: to carry flags in honor guards, to drive dignitaries at the two funerals, and to serve as pallbearers.
He scheduled rehearsals at the armory, bringing in a borrowed casket. The soldiers practiced folding the flag, synchronizing the 21-gun salute.
The dutiful sergeant had the same message for all of them: You have just one chance to do it right.
___
“Did everybody make it out OK?”
It was John Kriesel’s first question when he woke up more than a week later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had no memory of the nine or 10 surgeries he’d undergone, first in Iraq, then at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
The look on his wife Katie’s face gave him the answer even before she spoke. His two buddies had been killed.
Though Kriesel couldn’t recall some things, he knew he had lost his legs.
In fact, he had come close to dying: His back was broken, his stomach, arms and face were pocked with shrapnel. His left arm was broken and part of his colon had to be removed. His pelvis and spine had to be fused with screws and pins.
He’d hardly had a day without surgery.
But already, Kriesel looked better than when Katie had arrived in Germany. She had fallen to her knees when she first saw his swollen face and blood seeping from his wounds. She decided immediately to sleep by his side every night, convinced if he knew, he’d fight harder to survive.
Kriesel wanted to see their sons, and in time he was well enough. Katie already had conferred with a child psychologist about how to prepare them and to describe what they’d see. Elijah and Broden had never visited a hospital or been around anyone disabled.
Put one hand under your knee and one hand above the other knee, Katie told the boys. Now pretend there isn’t anything below that anymore. That, she said, is what Dad is like.
When the boys arrived in the lobby, they weren’t interested in hearing explanations about bandages, machines or wounds. Dad. Dad. Dad. They just want to see Dad.
As Elijah entered his father’s room, Kriesel covered his amputated legs with a blanket.
“You don’t have to cover up your ovals, Dad,” said the boy, describing the shape of his wounds. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”
___
That bitter December was winding down when Sgt. J.R. Salzman, just back from home leave, heard about Kriesel. His convoy commander happened to be Kriesel’s cousin.
On Dec. 19, Salzman was in the scout truck leading three other Humvees and a 20-vehicle fuel tanker convoy through northwest Baghdad to Tallil Air Base. He was talking with his driver, when there was an enormous blast.
He lost consciousness, then woke to the sound of his gunner screaming obscenities; hot shrapnel had spattered over his legs.
Salzman smelled something sickening, like burning wires, mixing with the smell of burning flesh.
Bleeding and trapped in the still-idling Humvee, he thought of his wife, Josie, whom he’d married just nine months before. He muttered her name.
He tried to grab the right door lever to get out. But he couldn’t.
He felt terrible burning and when he looked down, he realized why: His right hand and wrist were gone. About six inches above his wrist, he saw two bones sticking out from chewed-up flesh.
Salzman’s Humvee had been hit by an armor-piercing bomb called an EFP — an explosively formed penetrator — that was hidden in a pile of rocks on the right side of the road.
Despite excruciating pain, he kept his cool, checking quickly to see if his left hand was there. It was. But it was swelling in his glove, and he couldn’t move two fingers.
He continued the inventory of his body. He rotated his shoulders. He felt below his waist. Everything was there.
He shuffled his feet — and at that moment, he had an incongruous thought that carried him far away, if only for a split second: He could still log roll, something he’d loved since he was 5, something that had made him a champion.
Then his mind snapped back: He needed a tourniquet. He carried two but there was no way he could put one on. He tried to call for help, pressing a radio button with his left thumb, but the blast had fried the electronic equipment.
“Get the medic up here,” he ordered his driver and gunner, “… if I don’t get a tourniquet on, I’m going to bleed out.”
Salzman wondered if this was the end, then pushed that thought away.
“No. No. NO WAY am I dying here,” he said to himself. “Not here. Not now. Not today. Not in this country, I’m not dying.”
___
TO BE CONTINUED …
___
NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By SHARON COHEN
EDITOR’S NOTE — Roadside bomb blasts change everything for two soldiers and their families back home. Fourth of a seven-part series on the longest deployment of the Iraq war.
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
In that dreadful December, every day brought bloodshed, every week hundreds of attacks on Americans and Iraqis.
Car bombings. Drive-by shootings. Kidnappings. Torture. Bullet-riddled bodies. Sectarian fighting. It was a horrible end to a horrible year in the Iraq war.
And for two young soldiers, December 2006 was the month that changed everything, forever.
The sky was clear on Dec. 2 when Sgt. John Kriesel’s armored Humvee rolled out to check a report of suspicious activity: people digging on a dirt road near Fallujah.
His Humvee was turning a corner when the left front tire ran over something. Riding shotgun in the vehicle, Kriesel heard a metallic plink — like a rock striking a 55-gallon drum.
Then: BOOOM!
The Humvee flew into the air, its doors blowing open, the gunner shooting out of the turret like a Roman candle before the vehicle crashed down on its side.
Kriesel’s helmet and glasses flew off as he was thrown to the ground. Rocks rained down in a concrete storm, and Kriesel heard the screeching of twisted metal, then moans, groans, screams.
Strangely, he was calm. He saw the underside of the Humvee; the axle was blown off.
Then he looked down.
His left leg was nearly severed, still tucked in his pants leg, hanging by a piece of skin. His left thigh was split open like a baked potato, with a bone jutting out and blood oozing.
His right leg, from about six inches below the knee, was badly mangled, as if it had gotten stuck in a wood chipper.
“I’m going to die,” he told himself. “This is how it ends.”
Sgt. Kriesel, the eternal optimist, had lost faith.
He tried to get up, but it was useless. The bones of his lower left arm were broken; the arm flapped like a door off its hinge. Kriesel, who had trained to be a paramedic, was clear-minded enough to brace his arm to his chest, hoping to avoid nerve damage.
His right biceps had burst; they were peppered with shrapnel. A bracelet in honor of a fallen soldier sliced his right wrist down to the bone.
Kriesel closed his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see more.
“Help me! I need help,” Kriesel cried.
“Stay still,” said Sgt. Adam Gallant, who had jumped out of the Bradley ahead of him and had run back. Gallant did a quick assessment. One soldier was dead, another trapped and likely gone. Two others were walking. Kriesel was top priority.
“Kries,” he said, “I’m not going to lie to you, man. Your legs are real bad.”
But he tried to comfort him, too.
“You’re going to be OK,” he said. “We’re going to take care of you.”
Gallant and another soldier wrapped tourniquets on Kriesel’s legs. They propped him up on stacked boxes of MREs so blood would flow to his organs. No one knew it then, but beneath his armor the force of the 200-pound bomb had ripped open his abdomen, and his intestines were exposed.
Kriesel closed his eyes. It was almost like the movies: His life really was flashing before his eyes. He thought of Little League back in Minnesota, his elementary school days…
Then he felt someone shaking his shoulder.
“Keep your eyes open,” he heard. He didn’t want to.
He thought of his wife, Katie.
His gunner sat by his side to keep him awake. But the blast had left him with a concussion, and he kept asking Kriesel the same questions:
What’s your wife’s name?
Your kids’ names?
What state do you live in?
Kriesel answered over and over, until he lost patience.
“Leave me alone!” he snapped. “Let me die.”
The soldiers needed to move Kriesel so they could tip the Humvee wreckage and remove another soldier trapped beneath it.
“I ain’t going to lie to you, buddy,” Gallant said. “This is really going to suck.”
“What could suck worse?” Kriesel said. “Just go! Let’s do it.”
As they picked him up, Kriesel’s nearly detached leg flopped onto his chest. He howled in pain. No one knew then that his pelvis was shattered.
He was getting cold. Again, he felt sure he was going to die.
“Tell Katie I love her,” he implored.
“Shut up, you’re going to tell her yourself,” Gallant said.
When a young medic arrived, he administered morphine, and Kriesel was loaded onto a chopper. The drug was kicking in. But he managed to give his Social Security number.
Then he closed his eyes again.
At the hospital at the Al Taqaddum Air Base, six surgeons worked on Kriesel as a chaplain stood by in a corner. Once Kriesel was stabilized for transfer to another hospital in Iraq and then to Germany, the doctors placed him in a “hot pocket” — a heated nylon bag from which only a breathing tube was visible.
Some of those who saw him wheeled by felt sure he was dead.
A doctor tried to reassure them. His heart is still beating, he said. He’s still alive.
___
It was almost midnight in Minnesota, and Katie Kriesel was asleep when the phone rang.
“Katie, I need you to sit up,” her mother-in-law said.
John must be dead, she thought.
He wasn’t, but the news was grim: John had lost both his legs, one above the knee, the other below.
Katie Kriesel started crying. She called her mother, who lived about a mile away, but she was so choked up, her mother thought something had happened to the boys. She was getting dressed, she said; she’d be right over.
The commotion woke 4-year-old Broden, and Katie tried to calm him, stretching out in his bed, where he dozed off again but she simply watched the clock, hour by hour, waiting for morning and more news.
Over the next two days, Katie tried to maintain normal routines — even taking the boys for a breakfast with Santa — and struggled to keep her voice steady and her eyes dry.
As calmly as she could, she told her sons their dad was hurt and she had to go to Germany to help him.
What kind of hurt? they asked.
“Dad doesn’t have his legs anymore,” she said.
They looked puzzled.
Everything will be OK, she said. He’ll get a wheelchair.
Later as Katie read her sons a bedtime story, 5-year-old Elijah had a question.
“Are Dad’s legs going to grow back?” he asked.
“No, honey, they don’t grow back.”
“I just don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Elijah said.
___
That Sunday, Sgt. Travis Ostrom received a call at home.
Terrible news for the 1st Brigade Combat Team: Three casualties from an IED attack. John Kriesel was badly injured, and two other Minnesota National Guardsmen — Specs. Corey Rystad and Bryan McDonough — had been killed.
Rystad, just a few weeks shy of his 21st birthday, was an avid hunter and a natural athlete, a quiet guy who was always asking questions, always interested in learning how to be a better soldier. McDonough, 22, liked to crack jokes; everyone enjoyed being around him. But he had a serious side, too. In an online entry, he had written that he was proud to defend his country and there was “no other place I would rather be.”
Ostrom had to start coordinating the military aspects of two funerals.
It was the most unwelcome part of a job he never wanted.
Ostrom, who had served in Bosnia, Somalia and the Persian Gulf, had expected to be a platoon sergeant in Iraq, but he never got there. A knee injury at the worst possible time, during pre-deployment training in Mississippi, had sidelined him.
While his comrades fought, he was ass igned to a lonely armory in Minnesota serving those on the home front.
He felt guilty, but plunged into the crucial job helping families with bills, cutting red tape — and, as now, making preparations for final goodbyes.
That December day, Ostrom quickly called other Bravo Company soldiers on home leave. That way, they’d hear the news from him first. Also, some would be among the dozens of soldiers he’d tap for the sad necessities at hand: to carry flags in honor guards, to drive dignitaries at the two funerals, and to serve as pallbearers.
He scheduled rehearsals at the armory, bringing in a borrowed casket. The soldiers practiced folding the flag, synchronizing the 21-gun salute.
The dutiful sergeant had the same message for all of them: You have just one chance to do it right.
___
“Did everybody make it out OK?”
It was John Kriesel’s first question when he woke up more than a week later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He had no memory of the nine or 10 surgeries he’d undergone, first in Iraq, then at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
The look on his wife Katie’s face gave him the answer even before she spoke. His two buddies had been killed.
Though Kriesel couldn’t recall some things, he knew he had lost his legs.
In fact, he had come close to dying: His back was broken, his stomach, arms and face were pocked with shrapnel. His left arm was broken and part of his colon had to be removed. His pelvis and spine had to be fused with screws and pins.
He’d hardly had a day without surgery.
But already, Kriesel looked better than when Katie had arrived in Germany. She had fallen to her knees when she first saw his swollen face and blood seeping from his wounds. She decided immediately to sleep by his side every night, convinced if he knew, he’d fight harder to survive.
Kriesel wanted to see their sons, and in time he was well enough. Katie already had conferred with a child psychologist about how to prepare them and to describe what they’d see. Elijah and Broden had never visited a hospital or been around anyone disabled.
Put one hand under your knee and one hand above the other knee, Katie told the boys. Now pretend there isn’t anything below that anymore. That, she said, is what Dad is like.
When the boys arrived in the lobby, they weren’t interested in hearing explanations about bandages, machines or wounds. Dad. Dad. Dad. They just want to see Dad.
As Elijah entered his father’s room, Kriesel covered his amputated legs with a blanket.
“You don’t have to cover up your ovals, Dad,” said the boy, describing the shape of his wounds. “I’m just glad you’re alive.”
___
That bitter December was winding down when Sgt. J.R. Salzman, just back from home leave, heard about Kriesel. His convoy commander happened to be Kriesel’s cousin.
On Dec. 19, Salzman was in the scout truck leading three other Humvees and a 20-vehicle fuel tanker convoy through northwest Baghdad to Tallil Air Base. He was talking with his driver, when there was an enormous blast.
He lost consciousness, then woke to the sound of his gunner screaming obscenities; hot shrapnel had spattered over his legs.
Salzman smelled something sickening, like burning wires, mixing with the smell of burning flesh.
Bleeding and trapped in the still-idling Humvee, he thought of his wife, Josie, whom he’d married just nine months before. He muttered her name.
He tried to grab the right door lever to get out. But he couldn’t.
He felt terrible burning and when he looked down, he realized why: His right hand and wrist were gone. About six inches above his wrist, he saw two bones sticking out from chewed-up flesh.
Salzman’s Humvee had been hit by an armor-piercing bomb called an EFP — an explosively formed penetrator — that was hidden in a pile of rocks on the right side of the road.
Despite excruciating pain, he kept his cool, checking quickly to see if his left hand was there. It was. But it was swelling in his glove, and he couldn’t move two fingers.
He continued the inventory of his body. He rotated his shoulders. He felt below his waist. Everything was there.
He shuffled his feet — and at that moment, he had an incongruous thought that carried him far away, if only for a split second: He could still log roll, something he’d loved since he was 5, something that had made him a champion.
Then his mind snapped back: He needed a tourniquet. He carried two but there was no way he could put one on. He tried to call for help, pressing a radio button with his left thumb, but the blast had fried the electronic equipment.
“Get the medic up here,” he ordered his driver and gunner, “… if I don’t get a tourniquet on, I’m going to bleed out.”
Salzman wondered if this was the end, then pushed that thought away.
“No. No. NO WAY am I dying here,” he said to himself. “Not here. Not now. Not today. Not in this country, I’m not dying.”
___
TO BE CONTINUED …
___
NOTE: The story of 1st Brigade Combat Team/34th Infantry Division of the Minnesota National Guard and its tour in Iraq was reconstructed from scores of interviews with more than 20 soldiers and members of their families. Most quotations are as remembered by the speakers. In addition, the series draws upon numerous official documents, including after-action reports; videos of news conferences; correspondence provided by the families (including e-mails and letters); television coverage of the unit’s return; personal journals and blog postings.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
TBI Survivor Uses Internet to Assist with Brain Injury Disability – Part II
Yesterday, a former client of mine, began this two part series on how to use the internet to help connect with those who were willing to assist her in accommodating her disability. Today, she addresses the question she ended yesterday’s blog with:
What do I do so that my friends and neighbors don’t begin to dread getting emails from me? What can I do to make them fun, interesting and maybe even enjoyable?One of the strengths that Cindy has maintained, is an immense creative capacity and the ability to express herself on the challenges she faces in daily life. And she spells a lot better than I do.
A thought came to me the day before a neighbor came over to help me clean up one of my flowerbeds. This particular flowerbed had been overrun with mint. I love mint, but the flowerbed is too far away for me to easily access it. Last year, I started a container garden to attract hummingbirds and butterflies. This year, I decided to expand by adding herbs and vegetables in some containers.
Since I was going to plant some of this mint in containers, I thought maybe some of my friends and neighbors might like to do the same. As we pulled up the mint, I cut them into individual plants which could be planted. My neighbor helped me take pictures of the process showing how to plant mint into a container.
Now I had something I could offer to my friends and neighbors. In addition to my “How to Plant Mint in a Container,” I also put together a few mint recipes. I sent out an email providing information, recipes, and the offer of mint plants to either plant or use in recipes. Last year, I took pictures of my container garden, including the caterpillar nursery filled with parsley, dill, and yes, even little caterpillars.
Hopefully, by doing things like this, I’m hoping that people want to spend time with me because I’m still interesting, not because they pity me. It’s been a fascinating challenge, and so far, this seems to be working. Some tell me they enjoy seeing my pictures and hearing about my experiments.
When I told one of my friends that I wanted to try growing pole beans on bamboo poles lashed together in a teepee fashion, she told me to let her know when I wanted to do it. Her 2 sons who are boy scouts learned how to lash things together and would be happy to practice how well they can use their skills in a practical application. In fact, she told me they have a saying with regards to the art of lashing: “If your frap is crap, your lash will be trash.” (Now I have something else interesting to learn….what the heck is a frap??? I’m not even sure I’ve spelled it correctly.)
My psychiatrist thinks I have come upon a great idea that may benefit not only people with handicaps, but also the elderly and others who need assistance and feel socially isolated. I know I am lucky to have retained many strengths from which to build upon. I know others might not feel as capable. But perhaps there are family members or friends who can initiate or facilitate these kinds of ideas, so that their loved one and the caretaker both have a larger support system. These are services which are greatly needed, but seldom provided. So, for now, we have to learn to think out of the box.
Cindy from Cinci