In which Jessica keeps her promise
We've been following the incredible story of the devastating brain injury suffered by Army Staff Sgt. Jessica Clements in Iraq, and her remarkable recovery-in-progress. Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Maura Lerner has told the story in two previous installments that we linked in "A purple heart for Jessica" powerlineblog.com and in "Putting Jessica back together." powerlineblog.com Please catch up with the story if you haven't been following it, and don't miss Lerner's concluding installment today: "There's no place like home."
Last update: October 9, 2004 at 12:08 PM
There's no place like home
Story by Maura Lerner, Star Tribune
October 10, 2004 JESSVAR1010
From her hospital bed, Jessica Clements made her grandfather a promise in June.
"I will be at your birthday party," she said.
At the time, it seemed unlikely. Jessica, an Army Reserve staff sergeant from Ohio, had awakened from a coma only a few weeks before.
She could barely sit up in her bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. She had a devastating head injury and a tornup hip from a roadside bombing in Iraq in May. A long stretch of rehab lay ahead. Her grandfather's 79th birthday was only three months away.
Yet on the day before the party, Jessica clutched her cane and climbed into her fiancé's pickup for the drive back to Ohio.
Right on schedule, they pulled up to her mother's home in the Akron suburb of Coventry Township Sept. 12, and after a few quick hugs, hurried in before the other guests arrived.
Jessica Clements: Happy to be home.Jim GehrzStar TribuneJessica hid just out of sight as her grandpa, Harry Palmer, arrived. She waited until he reached the back porch. And then she stepped out in front of him, flashing her luminous smile.
That, Jessica says, is a moment she'll always remember --the look of joy on her grandfather's face.
But he wasn't surprised, he told her. After all, she had made him a promise.
Making it back
Jessica Clements was one of the casualties of war who was never expected to make it back.
But here she was, after three months in military hospitals and five weeks at the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center.
Here she was, greeting old friends, giggling with her sisters and flipping through bridal magazines at her mom's house. "Everything still seems very unreal to me," she said.
It was her first trip home since Christmas, since leaving for Iraq with her Army Reserve unit, since the roadside bomb transformed her life.
This was only a temporary reprieve -- in a month, she would return to the hospital in Washington for more therapy. But for now, it would have to do.
Her mother, Kim Wyatt, invited Jessica into the den. Now that she was home, there was something she wanted to show her.
A videotape had unexpectedly by mail.
It was an ABC News report from a few months back, about the war wounded.
As Wyatt popped the tape into the VCR, Jessica and her fiancé, Greg Ramos, settled on the couch to watch.
In one of the first scenes, an American soldier is in critical condition at a military hospital in Germany. A blur hides the soldier's face, as doctors and nurses rush frantically around the intensive care unit.
A little later, the camera zooms in on the soldier's feet. The toenails are painted hot pink.
Jessica's toes.
The footage was shot in May, while she was still in a coma at a military hospital, shortly after she was evacuated from Iraq.
Although the story was broadcast, Jessica wasn't identified by name. Until recently, no one in the family knew about it. But a producer sent the tape after reading about her recovery.
Jessica watched in stunned silence as her story unfolded onscreen.
"For this young sergeant ... the battle is on to save her life," narrates the reporter, Mike Lee. He calls her a 27-year-old woman "with a catastrophic head injury." A CAT scan shows the shrapnel in her brain. An Army doctor says if she doesn't improve soon, "it's going to be a very grim prognosis."
A few other soldiers are interviewed about their wounds. And then the report returns to "the young brain-damaged sergeant."
"In a way, her life hangs in the balance, doesn't it?" the reporter asks. "Absolutely," replies the doctor.
As the report ended, Wyatt was in tears. She has watched it countless times. The moment she saw the pink toenails, she said, "I knew that was my daughter."
For Jessica, it was like an out-of-body experience. "My mom had told me about it. But watching it and hearing them talk about this female 27-year-old soldier, it was kind of weird. ...
"I don't know," she said later, "if I was ready to watch that."
The TV cameras, of course, weren't there to capture her dramatic recovery - coming out of the coma, spending five weeks in a brain-injury program at the Minneapolis Veterans Medical Center. Undergoing surgery in August to repair her skull. Pushing herself to get stronger each day.
Jessica doesn't like to talk about how close she came to dying.
But back home, no one can forget.
"Everyone says that to me, 'I bet you're just happy to be alive,' " she said. "I don't even really think about it, that I did almost die. I've just always been focused on getting better."
The reminders, though, are all around her.
They're in the yellow ribbons up and down the block.
They're in the sign in her mother's yard that reads: "Pray for SSG Jessica Clements."
They're in the faces of friends and strangers she meets at a ceremony dedicating a garden in her honor.
And two days later, at the funeral of a young soldier.
Pvt. Devin Grella of nearby Medina, Ohio, was a member of her Army Reserve unit. Jessica had never met him. But like her, he had gone to Iraq to drive fuel trucks. Like her, he had been injured by a roadside bomb.
When Jessica learned that he had died of his wounds the week before, she told her fiancé that she wanted to go to Grella's funeral.
She wore her dress uniform, and stood on the sidelines, thinking about how young he was -- only 21 -- and how he had died. "That more than anything made me wonder," she said later. "My gosh, how come ... his life was taken, and I lived."
She watched his parents and friends. "It was very humbling for me. Here I am, I made it through a blast. And I made it through a severe injury. And they were all there to say goodbye."
Jessica returned to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington. She's been told she'll need another six months of rehabilitation. Healing, she has learned, is slow business.
Back in Ohio, the sign -- with a photo of Jessica smiling in desert camouflage -- remains in her mother's yard, as it has since May. The words still call on passersby to pray for her.
"I'm going to leave it up," says her mother, "until after Jess comes home for good."
Maura Lerner is at mlerner@startribune.com. |
