Unflagging devotion despite wounds
chicagotribune.com
By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
July 4, 2004
SAN ANTONIO -- Whatever skepticism or doubt you may have about the war in Iraq, you pretty much have to park it outside the door of Room 402 on the burn ward of Brooke Army Medical Center.
That's because beyond the threshold lies a young soldier whose wounds were so grievous, whose recuperation has been so agonizing yet whose devotion to his nation is so unfailing that his story might be mistaken for a patriotic 4th of July fable, were it not so painfully true.
Gabriel Garriga volunteered for the Illinois National Guard right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, because, he said, "I felt obligated to go and make a difference." He was 17 and had not yet graduated from Rochelle Township High School, 80 miles west of Chicago.
Just a few weeks after Garriga's unit was deployed to Iraq, in July 2003, his sacrifice came due: He was horribly injured in a vehicle accident as his Humvee raced to help defend a checkpoint outside Baghdad.
His doctors estimated that Garriga had a 1 percent chance of surviving his wounds, which included second- and third-degree burns over 45 percent of his body and a stomach so badly injured that surgeons had to remove his intestines and place them in a plastic bag outside his body for five weeks.
His heart stopped three times. His lung collapsed. His hands had to be pinned to boards so they could heal. His arms had to be sliced open to relieve swelling. He underwent 27 surgeries. He had to relearn how to sit up, to walk, to breathe.
But last month, Garriga celebrated his 20th birthday. And even though he remained confined to the hospital bed where he has been for most of the past year, and he couldn't eat the birthday cupcake his doctors and nurses presented him because he's still bleeding internally, and he faces more surgeries to try to close the hole where his stomach muscles used to be, Garriga's spirit was undimmed.
"I'm pretty much better now. It's no more touch-and-go if I'm going to live or not," Garriga said, shrugging off questions about his persistent pain. "I haven't really thought yet about what I want to do when I get out of here. But I figure anything I choose to do is better than not being here to do it."
Nor does the soft-spoken Garriga harbor any doubts about whether the U.S. mission in Iraq, and his personal sacrifice, has been worth the human costs: nearly 860 U.S. service members dead and nearly 5,400 injured since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003.
Those mounting casualty figures, the continuing anti-American insurgency in Iraq and the failure to find any of the weapons of mass destruction that supplied the Bush administration's original pretext for the war have combined to sour increasing numbers of Americans on the Iraq mission, public opinion polls show.
Good has happened too
"On the news, you hear so many bad things that are happening over there, but if you are actually driving through Baghdad, you see so many positive things that we have done," Garriga said.
"Most of the hospitals have opened up," he added. "They have opened new schools for kids. The Iraqis are able to live different now. They were just living in poverty. It would have been wrong not to help these people.
"I feel good that we are making a difference."
Such unblushing enthusiasm for America and its Iraq mission comes naturally to Garriga, largely because his family has been living such patriotic ideals for decades.
Garriga's father, Alfonso, was an enlisted man, serving 22 years in the Army before retiring as a sergeant first class. Garriga's oldest brother also volunteered and is an Air Force specialist serving in Japan. And Garriga's mother, Gisele, was in the National Guard as well.
"Of course, I knew something could go wrong when he left, but I am not angry, because it's something Gabe chose to do," his mother said. "For me, it was never a question of whether we were doing the right thing by being in Iraq. I understand why people are questioning it because so many of our soldiers are not coming back. But I have my son here now, and I'm grateful to the Lord every single day."
The Garrigas don't talk much about it, but Gabriel's wounds have cost the family more than his pain. They lost their house when Gisele Garriga had to quit her job on an assembly line at Crest Foods Co., a dairy products company in Ashton, Ill., to move to San Antonio so she could be with her son every day. Garriga's father has had to stay behind in Illinois, working at a Hormel Foods Corp. plant to sustain the family's income.
Both companies have quietly stepped up to help the family, the Garrigas said. Crest Foods officials are holding Gisele Garriga's job open for her, and they deposit $100 into her bank account each month, while Hormel has granted Alfonso Garriga time off to visit his son.
"The attitude that Gabe has says a lot about other people in this area: to fight for the Iraqi people knowing full well what the consequences could be," said Cherie Kemp, benefits manager at Crest Foods. "Neither Gabe nor his mother has blamed anybody for what happened. They just keep working towards getting him in better health. He is just an unbelievable young man."
Denied a Purple Heart
In spite of Garriga's suffering, however, the Army has ruled that he is not eligible to receive a Purple Heart because he was injured in an accident rather than in combat.
That decision seems wrong to some in the military who are familiar with Garriga's case.
The accident occurred when Garriga's unit was rushing to help fellow soldiers at a checkpoint where an Iraqi vehicle had just raced through without stopping, rousing immediate suspicions that the driver might be a suicide bomber. Garriga's Humvee slammed into the back of another Humvee, igniting fuel canisters and throwing Garriga from his station in the gun turret directly into the flames.
"We have some people working on that who don't agree with that" decision on the Purple Heart, said Norma Guerra, a hospital public affairs official. |
