Browsing a book today about SpecOps units and the 75th section had a short history and it said the 75th and the 173rd jumped in together to seize the H1 airfield. This is news to me, did I miss something?
BTW Cheney awarded the 173rd with the CJW the other day.
Second, anyone have any info about the dam seizure done by the 75th?
H1 Assualt OIF
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Spartan
Charlie:
There is some great information scattered through this article, albeit, it is one person's account, as opposed to a well-written, researched and documented history.
There is some great information scattered through this article, albeit, it is one person's account, as opposed to a well-written, researched and documented history.
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Saltbitch
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RangerCharlie
- Ranger
- Posts: 6
- Joined: January 28th, 2004, 6:28 pm
Re: H1 Assualt OIF
dont know much, think it happened on april 3, 2003, 3 rangers KIA at a place called Haditha DamRangerCharlie wrote: Second, anyone have any info about the dam seizure done by the 75th?
Hussein's Captivity A Christmas Present For Feldbusch
By Gina DelFavero
BLAIRSVILLE DISPATCH
Friday, December 26, 2003
BLAIRSVILLE--At 8 a.m. Dec. 14, Jeremy Feldbusch was awakened by his mother with news that came as the best Christmas present of all: American forces in Iraq had captured Iraq's dictator in hiding, Saddam Hussein.
"I was laying in bed," he recalled, "and my mom sounded like a pinball running through the house. I said, 'No, you've got to be kidding me.' "
So he got out of bed to listen to what the news had to say. "I was dancing in the kitchen," he said. "I said, 'Thank God we got him!'"
The day became a day of celebration in the Feldbusch house, with friends stopping in periodically to revel in Hussein's capture.
"It was a very good day," Feldbusch said. "I was very, very happy."
"That was the best Christmas present," added his mother, Charlene.
Hussein's arrest came as especially good news to the 24-year-old Feldbusch, who is continuing to recover from wounds he received April 3 during America's war with Iraq, where he was serving as a member of the 375th Army Ranger unit.
A mortar gunman, Feldbusch was blinded by shrapnel while his unit was securing the Haditha Dam in Iraq.
Now, the 1997 graduate of Derry Area High School has just finished his physical and occupational therapy, but the road ahead is still long--he must guard against infection, as he undergoes up to three more surgeries on his right eye, which was completely destroyed by the shrapnel.
Feldbusch and his family could never have predicted the injuries he sustained while serving his country, but what they also didn't expect was the reception home he received. His high school alma mater has retired his football and wrestling jerseys, Blairsville staged a huge parade on Sept. 20, Jeremy Feldbusch Day, and he continues to receive mail from schoolchildren, veterans, and people from all over the country thanking him for his bravery and service to the country.
All of this stemmed from a rocky start for Feldbusch's military career. After high school, he went on to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 2001 with a biology degree and hopes of becoming a doctor.
"When I was high school, I thought about enlisting," Feldbusch acknowledged. "I had different goals then of what I wanted to do as far as a job in the military, and it was a good thing I didn't. My life would have taken a different turn. My life would have changed completely.
"If I had gone into the military then, I wouldn't have become a Ranger, I wouldn't have done the things that I'm doing now."
He added, "I'm glad I went in the direction I did," regardless of his injuries.
It was an uncle, Jess Marsh, himself 22 years retired from the Air Force, who encouraged Feldbusch to enter into a military academy.
He received a letter of nomination from Congressman John Murtha to attend the U.S. Military Academy--for the Army, not the Air Force, as was originally intended.
"I was a little bummed out at first," Feldbusch admitted, "but then I thought, it really didn't make a difference."
After he received the letter, though, his contact with the military dwindled. "It got down to where I wasn't hearing too much" from them, Feldbusch said.
By the time the mix-up was sorted out, the military academy had been filled, as was the military prep school to which he had been recommended.
"So I said, okay, I'm not going to sit around and wait for things to happen," he remarked. So he entered Pitt.
But his interest in the military did not lessen in those four years.
"I had always been interested in the military since I was a young man," he said; both of his grandfathers had served in World War II.
At Pitt, he continued to talk with recruiters, who discussed with him the areas of the military that interested him, and what he was qualified physically to do.
"I thought about it for quite a while," he said. He decided to join the infantry, and he signed a contract as an infantryman. In his contract was also included airborne schooling for the Army, and Ranger training.
He arrived in Ft. Benning, Ga. for basic and infantry training, where he also graduated from parachute training, before he entered the elite Ranger regiment.
He had to complete an intense three-week course, called the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP), which included grueling physical training tests, five-mile runs, and up to 12-mile road marches.
Two days before he was scheduled to graduate, Feldbusch fell into a bit of bad luck, tearing his ACL while playing soccer. Scared that he wouldn't graduate, he received news that because he was at the head of his class, his Ranger indoctrination would go on as planned.
Feldbusch graduated first out of the 228 members of his RIP class, on April 5, 2002, as a mortar infantryman, or "11 Charlie."
He underwent surgery on his knee in June, and was told to allow six months for healing .
"But I healed quicker," Feldbusch said. "I kicked it into high gear."
While he was recuperating, Feldbusch went to work in the arms room of his unit, and as he started to return to health, he began to train again, and eventually returned to his platoon.
At the beginning of March, as war with Iraq got under way, Feldbusch's unit was shipped to Saudi Arabia.
After a short stay, "We finally received orders to kick it into gear," Feldbusch remarked.
The only thing Feldbusch said of his unit's mission was, as a member of the Special Operations Command, Feldbusch said "there are certain special things we get to do."
At the end of March, the battalion entered Iraq with the company and mortar section, parachuting into what Feldbusch only called area "H2." There, they beefed up their supplies and prepared to ride to Haditha Dam, with the intention of securing the area.
Feldbusch said the company rode for two nights, camping under cover during the day.
They arrived at the dam with a great company of soldiers--infantry, snipers, mortarmen, and mechanics--"All the people that we needed to travel and do our job," he stated.
On the dam, explained Feldbusch, were two single roads separated by a thin land strip. As the line of humvees continued with Feldbusch's company up the one road, with three humvees in front of the one Feldbusch rode in, he heard his sergeant yell for the vehicles to stop.
Feldbusch's humvee began to back up on orders from the sergeant, who had observed a foxhole dug in between the two roads. Two Iraqis lay in the hole.
"The sergeant yelled at me to get out of the back of the humvee," recalled Feldbusch. "I was thinking, 'What are we going to do?' " He began to prepare his night vision optics, and turned on the laser on his weapon as he and the sergeant approached the foxhole.
The two Iraqi soldiers submitted to orders for them to abandon their hideout, as Feldbusch helped drag the men from their hole. Feldbusch helped hold the men while his sergeant began a prisoner of war search.
By this time, "A lot of people had gathered around," Feldbusch said.
As the two Iraqis were led away, Feldbusch jumped into the foxhole to conduct a search himself. He uncovered a loaded AK-47, with magazines--his company could easily have come under fire if the sergeant had not spotted the foxhole.
As the two prisoners were taken away, Feldbusch's company continued to ride onto the dam, which is 3-1/2 miles wide, he noted.
The soldiers began their mission--members of the first platoon began clearing out the buildings on the dam. The line of humvees stopped at a location where "we were in excellent position to set up our mortar," said Feldbusch.
He stood watching the unit set up when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small flash coming from a large building in front of the dam.
"I told the sergeant that men were firing at the boys setting up," recalled Feldbusch. Rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs) and AK-47 rounds were landing near the first platoon.
As U.S. soldiers began firing down onto the building, fire support leaders from the Air Force and Army were called in, who then began dropping bombs onto the location of enemy fire.
The Rangers, including Feldbusch, the head mortarman, moved out onto the dam, killing Iraqis along the way.
"We got quite a bit of action unloading mortars," noted Feldbusch.
For 36 hours, fire was exchanged between the American soldiers and the Iraqi forces.
Feldbusch explained, with artillery fire, "You can see and hear them right away." He said 120 mm mortar rounds have a 75-meter blast radius, but the Iraqis were shooting 155 mm artillery rounds, "with quite a larger blast radius. We had artillery rounds that landed 30 meters away from where we were positioned, well inside the blast radius.
"Fortunately, we did have cover," he continued, which came in the form of a wall toward the back of the dam.
It was after they took cover behind the wall that Feldbusch took the blow that almost took his life.
He said of the artillery fire, "When they're near you, it's a short whistle" you hear before it hits. "Unfortunately, I was standing, and a piece of shrapnel kicked up and went through my right eye."
After that moment, Feldbusch remembers nothing "until I woke up in the hospital a month and one week later," he said.
Feldbusch was told that he fell on his right side, dislocating his right shoulder. Soldiers from the mortar section rushed to his aid.
A specialist "was the first to come over," Feldbusch said. "He grabbed hold of me" while an EMT-qualified sergeant ran over to take care of him.
Blood was pouring from his nose, and two more EMTs came from the first platoon and helped insert a J-tube into his throat to open up his breathing, which was choked with blood.
They loaded Feldbusch into a humvee and rushed him to a physician's assistant positioned on the dam, who then prepared him for evacuation.
A chopper picked him up and took him to a field hospital in Iraq, then to another in Kuwait. From there, he traveled to Rota, Spain, then to Germany before he finally was flown to the states, landing at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, on April 9.
Charlene Feldbusch, meanwhile, was receiving very little information about what had happened to her son.
As Jeremy Feldbusch explained, a car bombing on Haditha Dam occurred on the same day he was injured, where three men were killed and two more injured.
"My parents weren't sure if I was involved with that," he said.
"I was contacted by the regiment and told that he had been injured, and that he was to be expected," added Charlene Feldbusch. "Then we got several other calls and they told us that he was in serious condition, and that he was blind, probably for life."
Charlene said she didn't recall too much after she received that first phone call with news of her son's wounds.
"I guess I just didn't believe it," she acknowledged. "I don't know how I did what I did. Once we got to Texas and were with Jeremy, I still didn't think it was real. You wonder how people do what they do when tragedy happens. God gave me the strength. That's all I can say."
She spent a lot of time in the hospital chapel with friends and relatives who had flown in to support the family.
"We were surrounded by so much love and caring, and that's really what carried us through," Charlene said.
Once Feldbusch arrived at the hospital, doctors immediately placed him in a medical coma, where he stayed for more than a month. He underwent a seven-hour brain surgery to remove the shrapnel and bone fragments that invaded and shattered through his brain. What was left of his right eye was also extracted. Surgeons also had to reconstruct the front of Feldbusch's cranium with titanium mesh, metal plates and screws.
Infection plagued him in the weeks after his surgeries, weakening his already unsteady condition.
Feldbusch stayed at Brooke Army Medical Center for two months, one month of it spent on a ventilator.
On June 7, Feldbusch finally was able to return to his Blairsville home, with much fanfare and media attention. Just two days after his return, he began both physical and occupational therapy sessions five days a week for four months, then tapered down to three days a week.
It's been two weeks now since his last therapy session, but a long road of recovery remains ahead for Feldbusch. According to his mother, he will be on anti-seizure medications for the rest of his life. He's already undergone one surgery to reattach the retina of his left eye, though his sight in that eye has not yet been regained. He will probably undergo another two or three operations to fix his right eye.
Yet the Feldbusch family is not discouraged by that. "We're staying optimistic," said Charlene Feldbusch, adding that the surgery was meant to preserve Feldbusch's remaining eyeball. "Now with any experimental surgeries in the next two to five years, it's possible for Jeremy to receive enough eyesight back to tell the difference between day and night," she said.
"Our entire family remains optimistic because we do believe in miracles. Jeremy sees--he sees things through his heart, and he's always been that way."
Because of his susceptibility to infection, Feldbusch has to keep his level of activity in check, and his medications make him drowsy, but he nevertheless keeps busy.
Lately, he's been visiting the area schools, talking with children about the war and the role he played in it.
When asked how he addresses young students about the potentially touchy subject of war, Feldbusch answered, "Sixth graders keep up on the news. This is my hometown just as much as theirs, and I tell them, 'Hey, this isn't my day. I came here to answer questions.' "
And that's what he does. The more popular inquiries Feldbusch fields include questions about the weather in Iraq, how heavy his gear is, what training he's had, and what he missed most overseas: "Normal things you'd want to know about a soldier who whent overseas to fight for their country," Feldbusch said.
So what exactly is in store for Feldbusch?
"I don't know yet," he remarked. "There's not much I can say now. I have too much to take care of before I can think about the future."
He has considered going back to school, though, "I've got to learn how to be a blind guy first," he added. He's been living with his blindness for just over six months now, and he plans to train to learn how to walk with a cane.
Charlene Feldbusch said that in the spring, she hopes to bring an instructor into their home to teach Feldbusch how to use a cane to "see" around the house, which will provide the basis to obtain a seeing eye dog.
Once the threat of infection is diminished for Feldbusch, he then will attend a school for the blind. Right now, school would be too taxing for him--it's an eight-week course with seven or eight 45-minute classes a day.
School has to wait, Charlene said, "until we're over the point of watching him for any brain infection," which may take up to a year and a half.
Until that point, she added, she and Feldbusch will continue to visit schools and talk with children, and after the New Year, they are planning a trip back to Brooke Army Medical Center, then on to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where Feldbusch hopes to lift the spirits of other wounded soldiers.
"Jeremy wants to encourage these soldiers to go on, and he wants the soldiers and the families to know that the people aren't going to forget them. Because unfortunately, that happens quite often.
"When Jeremy was out in Texas, we were told he would be a very high-profile patient, and he was." Visitors included Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Army Secretary Thomas White, and members of the Marines, Navy and Rangers "who didn't even know Jeremy," said Charlene.
But not all soldiers receive that kind of attention. "Yet they all put a uniform on, they all took the oath, and no one should be forgotten. If he can go on, they can go on," Charlene remarked.
Feldbusch was planning to spend a quiet Christmas at home--a luxury he did not have last year as he readied for war.
In August, Feldbusch was promoted from Ranger specialist to sergeant, and he's received both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for his actions in the war.
Though he will soon be medically retired from the service, Feldbusch keeps abreast of the news from Iraq. The capture of Saddam Hussein, so far, has been the pinnacle of the armed forces' actions--Feldbusch said his reaction was typical of that of every American, but as a soldier, the news hit closer to home.
"I feel just the same as any other American," he said. "Not just because of the terrorism that was brought here (to America), but because of all the things he's done to his own people."
And though the capture is a huge step, Feldbusch stressed that this is not the end. "The war with Iraq has been over for quite a while now," he stated, yet terrorists continue to kill American soldiers. "The capture is going to hopefully die things down...but it's not going to stop...the terrorism.
"Our jobs are not done. We fought the war...but we have to continue setting up a new independent Iraq. And they're doing quite a job, despite the terrorists. Yet we still have terrorists in other places in the world."
Feldbusch, unlike many Americans who have lost faith in war, and the lives lost to terrorism in Iraq, remains steadfast in his support of President Bush and the effort to free the Iraqi people. "I believe (in the war) 100 percent," he stated. "We're in the center of the Middle East. We're setting up freedom. I hope that it spreads over there. That would be a great thing."
As a reporter packed up to leave, Feldbusch added a thought that seems typical of a young man with great quiet strength: he wanted to wish the community that supported him through his journey, and all the soldiers and their families, a Merry Christmas.
By Gina DelFavero
BLAIRSVILLE DISPATCH
Friday, December 26, 2003
BLAIRSVILLE--At 8 a.m. Dec. 14, Jeremy Feldbusch was awakened by his mother with news that came as the best Christmas present of all: American forces in Iraq had captured Iraq's dictator in hiding, Saddam Hussein.
"I was laying in bed," he recalled, "and my mom sounded like a pinball running through the house. I said, 'No, you've got to be kidding me.' "
So he got out of bed to listen to what the news had to say. "I was dancing in the kitchen," he said. "I said, 'Thank God we got him!'"
The day became a day of celebration in the Feldbusch house, with friends stopping in periodically to revel in Hussein's capture.
"It was a very good day," Feldbusch said. "I was very, very happy."
"That was the best Christmas present," added his mother, Charlene.
Hussein's arrest came as especially good news to the 24-year-old Feldbusch, who is continuing to recover from wounds he received April 3 during America's war with Iraq, where he was serving as a member of the 375th Army Ranger unit.
A mortar gunman, Feldbusch was blinded by shrapnel while his unit was securing the Haditha Dam in Iraq.
Now, the 1997 graduate of Derry Area High School has just finished his physical and occupational therapy, but the road ahead is still long--he must guard against infection, as he undergoes up to three more surgeries on his right eye, which was completely destroyed by the shrapnel.
Feldbusch and his family could never have predicted the injuries he sustained while serving his country, but what they also didn't expect was the reception home he received. His high school alma mater has retired his football and wrestling jerseys, Blairsville staged a huge parade on Sept. 20, Jeremy Feldbusch Day, and he continues to receive mail from schoolchildren, veterans, and people from all over the country thanking him for his bravery and service to the country.
All of this stemmed from a rocky start for Feldbusch's military career. After high school, he went on to the University of Pittsburgh, graduating in 2001 with a biology degree and hopes of becoming a doctor.
"When I was high school, I thought about enlisting," Feldbusch acknowledged. "I had different goals then of what I wanted to do as far as a job in the military, and it was a good thing I didn't. My life would have taken a different turn. My life would have changed completely.
"If I had gone into the military then, I wouldn't have become a Ranger, I wouldn't have done the things that I'm doing now."
He added, "I'm glad I went in the direction I did," regardless of his injuries.
It was an uncle, Jess Marsh, himself 22 years retired from the Air Force, who encouraged Feldbusch to enter into a military academy.
He received a letter of nomination from Congressman John Murtha to attend the U.S. Military Academy--for the Army, not the Air Force, as was originally intended.
"I was a little bummed out at first," Feldbusch admitted, "but then I thought, it really didn't make a difference."
After he received the letter, though, his contact with the military dwindled. "It got down to where I wasn't hearing too much" from them, Feldbusch said.
By the time the mix-up was sorted out, the military academy had been filled, as was the military prep school to which he had been recommended.
"So I said, okay, I'm not going to sit around and wait for things to happen," he remarked. So he entered Pitt.
But his interest in the military did not lessen in those four years.
"I had always been interested in the military since I was a young man," he said; both of his grandfathers had served in World War II.
At Pitt, he continued to talk with recruiters, who discussed with him the areas of the military that interested him, and what he was qualified physically to do.
"I thought about it for quite a while," he said. He decided to join the infantry, and he signed a contract as an infantryman. In his contract was also included airborne schooling for the Army, and Ranger training.
He arrived in Ft. Benning, Ga. for basic and infantry training, where he also graduated from parachute training, before he entered the elite Ranger regiment.
He had to complete an intense three-week course, called the Ranger Indoctrination Program (RIP), which included grueling physical training tests, five-mile runs, and up to 12-mile road marches.
Two days before he was scheduled to graduate, Feldbusch fell into a bit of bad luck, tearing his ACL while playing soccer. Scared that he wouldn't graduate, he received news that because he was at the head of his class, his Ranger indoctrination would go on as planned.
Feldbusch graduated first out of the 228 members of his RIP class, on April 5, 2002, as a mortar infantryman, or "11 Charlie."
He underwent surgery on his knee in June, and was told to allow six months for healing .
"But I healed quicker," Feldbusch said. "I kicked it into high gear."
While he was recuperating, Feldbusch went to work in the arms room of his unit, and as he started to return to health, he began to train again, and eventually returned to his platoon.
At the beginning of March, as war with Iraq got under way, Feldbusch's unit was shipped to Saudi Arabia.
After a short stay, "We finally received orders to kick it into gear," Feldbusch remarked.
The only thing Feldbusch said of his unit's mission was, as a member of the Special Operations Command, Feldbusch said "there are certain special things we get to do."
At the end of March, the battalion entered Iraq with the company and mortar section, parachuting into what Feldbusch only called area "H2." There, they beefed up their supplies and prepared to ride to Haditha Dam, with the intention of securing the area.
Feldbusch said the company rode for two nights, camping under cover during the day.
They arrived at the dam with a great company of soldiers--infantry, snipers, mortarmen, and mechanics--"All the people that we needed to travel and do our job," he stated.
On the dam, explained Feldbusch, were two single roads separated by a thin land strip. As the line of humvees continued with Feldbusch's company up the one road, with three humvees in front of the one Feldbusch rode in, he heard his sergeant yell for the vehicles to stop.
Feldbusch's humvee began to back up on orders from the sergeant, who had observed a foxhole dug in between the two roads. Two Iraqis lay in the hole.
"The sergeant yelled at me to get out of the back of the humvee," recalled Feldbusch. "I was thinking, 'What are we going to do?' " He began to prepare his night vision optics, and turned on the laser on his weapon as he and the sergeant approached the foxhole.
The two Iraqi soldiers submitted to orders for them to abandon their hideout, as Feldbusch helped drag the men from their hole. Feldbusch helped hold the men while his sergeant began a prisoner of war search.
By this time, "A lot of people had gathered around," Feldbusch said.
As the two Iraqis were led away, Feldbusch jumped into the foxhole to conduct a search himself. He uncovered a loaded AK-47, with magazines--his company could easily have come under fire if the sergeant had not spotted the foxhole.
As the two prisoners were taken away, Feldbusch's company continued to ride onto the dam, which is 3-1/2 miles wide, he noted.
The soldiers began their mission--members of the first platoon began clearing out the buildings on the dam. The line of humvees stopped at a location where "we were in excellent position to set up our mortar," said Feldbusch.
He stood watching the unit set up when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small flash coming from a large building in front of the dam.
"I told the sergeant that men were firing at the boys setting up," recalled Feldbusch. Rocket-propelled grenade launchers (RPGs) and AK-47 rounds were landing near the first platoon.
As U.S. soldiers began firing down onto the building, fire support leaders from the Air Force and Army were called in, who then began dropping bombs onto the location of enemy fire.
The Rangers, including Feldbusch, the head mortarman, moved out onto the dam, killing Iraqis along the way.
"We got quite a bit of action unloading mortars," noted Feldbusch.
For 36 hours, fire was exchanged between the American soldiers and the Iraqi forces.
Feldbusch explained, with artillery fire, "You can see and hear them right away." He said 120 mm mortar rounds have a 75-meter blast radius, but the Iraqis were shooting 155 mm artillery rounds, "with quite a larger blast radius. We had artillery rounds that landed 30 meters away from where we were positioned, well inside the blast radius.
"Fortunately, we did have cover," he continued, which came in the form of a wall toward the back of the dam.
It was after they took cover behind the wall that Feldbusch took the blow that almost took his life.
He said of the artillery fire, "When they're near you, it's a short whistle" you hear before it hits. "Unfortunately, I was standing, and a piece of shrapnel kicked up and went through my right eye."
After that moment, Feldbusch remembers nothing "until I woke up in the hospital a month and one week later," he said.
Feldbusch was told that he fell on his right side, dislocating his right shoulder. Soldiers from the mortar section rushed to his aid.
A specialist "was the first to come over," Feldbusch said. "He grabbed hold of me" while an EMT-qualified sergeant ran over to take care of him.
Blood was pouring from his nose, and two more EMTs came from the first platoon and helped insert a J-tube into his throat to open up his breathing, which was choked with blood.
They loaded Feldbusch into a humvee and rushed him to a physician's assistant positioned on the dam, who then prepared him for evacuation.
A chopper picked him up and took him to a field hospital in Iraq, then to another in Kuwait. From there, he traveled to Rota, Spain, then to Germany before he finally was flown to the states, landing at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, on April 9.
Charlene Feldbusch, meanwhile, was receiving very little information about what had happened to her son.
As Jeremy Feldbusch explained, a car bombing on Haditha Dam occurred on the same day he was injured, where three men were killed and two more injured.
"My parents weren't sure if I was involved with that," he said.
"I was contacted by the regiment and told that he had been injured, and that he was to be expected," added Charlene Feldbusch. "Then we got several other calls and they told us that he was in serious condition, and that he was blind, probably for life."
Charlene said she didn't recall too much after she received that first phone call with news of her son's wounds.
"I guess I just didn't believe it," she acknowledged. "I don't know how I did what I did. Once we got to Texas and were with Jeremy, I still didn't think it was real. You wonder how people do what they do when tragedy happens. God gave me the strength. That's all I can say."
She spent a lot of time in the hospital chapel with friends and relatives who had flown in to support the family.
"We were surrounded by so much love and caring, and that's really what carried us through," Charlene said.
Once Feldbusch arrived at the hospital, doctors immediately placed him in a medical coma, where he stayed for more than a month. He underwent a seven-hour brain surgery to remove the shrapnel and bone fragments that invaded and shattered through his brain. What was left of his right eye was also extracted. Surgeons also had to reconstruct the front of Feldbusch's cranium with titanium mesh, metal plates and screws.
Infection plagued him in the weeks after his surgeries, weakening his already unsteady condition.
Feldbusch stayed at Brooke Army Medical Center for two months, one month of it spent on a ventilator.
On June 7, Feldbusch finally was able to return to his Blairsville home, with much fanfare and media attention. Just two days after his return, he began both physical and occupational therapy sessions five days a week for four months, then tapered down to three days a week.
It's been two weeks now since his last therapy session, but a long road of recovery remains ahead for Feldbusch. According to his mother, he will be on anti-seizure medications for the rest of his life. He's already undergone one surgery to reattach the retina of his left eye, though his sight in that eye has not yet been regained. He will probably undergo another two or three operations to fix his right eye.
Yet the Feldbusch family is not discouraged by that. "We're staying optimistic," said Charlene Feldbusch, adding that the surgery was meant to preserve Feldbusch's remaining eyeball. "Now with any experimental surgeries in the next two to five years, it's possible for Jeremy to receive enough eyesight back to tell the difference between day and night," she said.
"Our entire family remains optimistic because we do believe in miracles. Jeremy sees--he sees things through his heart, and he's always been that way."
Because of his susceptibility to infection, Feldbusch has to keep his level of activity in check, and his medications make him drowsy, but he nevertheless keeps busy.
Lately, he's been visiting the area schools, talking with children about the war and the role he played in it.
When asked how he addresses young students about the potentially touchy subject of war, Feldbusch answered, "Sixth graders keep up on the news. This is my hometown just as much as theirs, and I tell them, 'Hey, this isn't my day. I came here to answer questions.' "
And that's what he does. The more popular inquiries Feldbusch fields include questions about the weather in Iraq, how heavy his gear is, what training he's had, and what he missed most overseas: "Normal things you'd want to know about a soldier who whent overseas to fight for their country," Feldbusch said.
So what exactly is in store for Feldbusch?
"I don't know yet," he remarked. "There's not much I can say now. I have too much to take care of before I can think about the future."
He has considered going back to school, though, "I've got to learn how to be a blind guy first," he added. He's been living with his blindness for just over six months now, and he plans to train to learn how to walk with a cane.
Charlene Feldbusch said that in the spring, she hopes to bring an instructor into their home to teach Feldbusch how to use a cane to "see" around the house, which will provide the basis to obtain a seeing eye dog.
Once the threat of infection is diminished for Feldbusch, he then will attend a school for the blind. Right now, school would be too taxing for him--it's an eight-week course with seven or eight 45-minute classes a day.
School has to wait, Charlene said, "until we're over the point of watching him for any brain infection," which may take up to a year and a half.
Until that point, she added, she and Feldbusch will continue to visit schools and talk with children, and after the New Year, they are planning a trip back to Brooke Army Medical Center, then on to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where Feldbusch hopes to lift the spirits of other wounded soldiers.
"Jeremy wants to encourage these soldiers to go on, and he wants the soldiers and the families to know that the people aren't going to forget them. Because unfortunately, that happens quite often.
"When Jeremy was out in Texas, we were told he would be a very high-profile patient, and he was." Visitors included Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Army Secretary Thomas White, and members of the Marines, Navy and Rangers "who didn't even know Jeremy," said Charlene.
But not all soldiers receive that kind of attention. "Yet they all put a uniform on, they all took the oath, and no one should be forgotten. If he can go on, they can go on," Charlene remarked.
Feldbusch was planning to spend a quiet Christmas at home--a luxury he did not have last year as he readied for war.
In August, Feldbusch was promoted from Ranger specialist to sergeant, and he's received both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for his actions in the war.
Though he will soon be medically retired from the service, Feldbusch keeps abreast of the news from Iraq. The capture of Saddam Hussein, so far, has been the pinnacle of the armed forces' actions--Feldbusch said his reaction was typical of that of every American, but as a soldier, the news hit closer to home.
"I feel just the same as any other American," he said. "Not just because of the terrorism that was brought here (to America), but because of all the things he's done to his own people."
And though the capture is a huge step, Feldbusch stressed that this is not the end. "The war with Iraq has been over for quite a while now," he stated, yet terrorists continue to kill American soldiers. "The capture is going to hopefully die things down...but it's not going to stop...the terrorism.
"Our jobs are not done. We fought the war...but we have to continue setting up a new independent Iraq. And they're doing quite a job, despite the terrorists. Yet we still have terrorists in other places in the world."
Feldbusch, unlike many Americans who have lost faith in war, and the lives lost to terrorism in Iraq, remains steadfast in his support of President Bush and the effort to free the Iraqi people. "I believe (in the war) 100 percent," he stated. "We're in the center of the Middle East. We're setting up freedom. I hope that it spreads over there. That would be a great thing."
As a reporter packed up to leave, Feldbusch added a thought that seems typical of a young man with great quiet strength: he wanted to wish the community that supported him through his journey, and all the soldiers and their families, a Merry Christmas.
Ranger Charlie-
I took part in the operations that your asking about. For now, you're going to have to wait for the publications to find out the details (who knows when those will come out). I can tell you for sure that there was no joint operations with the 173rd. I can also tell you that we tore some sh!t up out there. Ordinary men doing amazing things.........
I took part in the operations that your asking about. For now, you're going to have to wait for the publications to find out the details (who knows when those will come out). I can tell you for sure that there was no joint operations with the 173rd. I can also tell you that we tore some sh!t up out there. Ordinary men doing amazing things.........
HHC 3/75 BN Commo 01-04
RGR Class 03-03
RGR Class 03-03
