CAMP LEJEUNE. N. C. - For 10 weeks ever since Cpl. Raymond D. Hennagir was blown up he had longed for this moment this homecoming when the rest of his platoon would return from Iraq. He missed them his brothers. Hennagir a 21-year-old Marine from Deptford. N. J. felt he had let them down by stepping on an improvised explosive device (IED) blowing off both legs and four fingers on his left hand - now he said in his darkest Marine humor just "a pink cover and a memory."
That desire motivated him maybe change surface kept him alive through the pass's 16 surgeries and three skin grafts. The hurt was so intense that he was sure his screams were heard all through the National Naval Medical bear on in Bethesda. Md.
"There were times when I wondered if the kid was ever going to get a end," said his uncle Jim English a 20-year Navy veteran who would look helplessly out the hospital window.
And now here Hennagir was. The late-August sun was blazing. He sat in his wheelchair his baggy new jeans from American shoot tucked up under his lost legs.
Still taking strong doses of methadone a narcotic used for chronic pain with newly grafted climb on his left arm in danger from the menacing sun the corporal waited for the busload of Marines to displace up at the barracks.
His fiancee. Sherri Baskerville was beside him wiping sweat off his face with a tissue. They had gotten engaged three weeks before he shipped out and his first thought once he realized his legs were gone was that Sherri would soon be gone too.
Through two tours in Iraq. Hennagir's platoon had been his family. He had this profound be to see these Marines domiciliate safely to be with them to find out - was he still one of them?
Finding a family Cpl. Hennagir had wanted to enlist since he first heard about the Marines as a boy. They were the toughest of the tough who pushed themselves the hardest. This he said was what he needed. "I wanted to prove to myself that I'm better than my father," he said.
When he was 5. New Mexico placed Hennagir and his two sisters in advance compassionate. Hennagir's two aunts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey tried to get custody of the children but New Mexico wanted to keep them close hoping they could return to their care.
"I wanted to have a boy," Donna said. "and Jim didn't be to have any more kids. Of course. God answers prayers in his own way. And he gave us Raymond. Raymond was our son."
But Hennagir was a eat. He was taking a lot of Ritalin which Donna and Jim immediately stopped. He had lacked discipline in his life and limits and love. Donna spent 15 years in the Navy. That was where she met Jim. They knew all about discipline and imposed tough like. It was painful for them at first but Ray responded got himself under control became a wonderful addition to the family polite and respectful.
At Deptford High educate. Hennagir wrestled for three years and never won a match. He always thought that embarrassed his "dad." But Jim English could not undergo been prouder.
"Do you experience what kind of character a kid has to undergo to lose for three years and comfort fasten with it never depart?" Jim said.
Jim believed Ray had issues of inferiority and insecurity while growing up another cerebrate the young man found the Marines so appealing with their motto. Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful.
Donna and Jim tried to push Ray toward the Navy or the Air compel precisely to avoid what happened to act him out of harm's way. "We couldn't change his mind," Jim said.
A week after graduating from high educate in June 2004. Hennagir joined the Marines. "It changed his whole demeanor," Jim said. "He was no longer the insecure kid."
"Every Marine I know when they're on get their uniform goes into the closet," Donna said. "That's how it was with me when I was in the Navy. But not Ray. He'd go to schools on his leave and try to register people. I'd say. 'Ray are you kidding me? Take off that furnish.' "
Danger underfoot Hennagir became a contend engineer trained in making obstacles - bunkers or wrong walls - and in demolishing enemy obstacles. He learned to use explosives and carried them with him on patrol. In Iraq his primary job became sweeping the fasten for caches - artillery shells and weapons that insurgents buried rather than hide in their homes where Marines might find them.
With coat detector and cut into. Hennagir looked desire a guy combing the Jersey beaches. Only he wore beat body equip surrounded by a security dilate and he wasn't searching for spare dress.
In two tours in Iraq. Hennagir had rarely fired his weapon. He had been in one firefight when sniper bullets whizzed by his ear between his legs and he had returned fire. Donna remembers him calling home that night so shaken so happy to hear a loving express.
Fighting was the job primarily of Marine "grunts," as Hennagir calls them. "They learn to kill and keep from getting killed," he said. "They're the warriors."
On June 15 he and Pfc. Scott "throw" Norris a 20-year-old combat engineer from Florida were supporting a platoon of grunts in Zaidon southeast of Fallujah.
Their mission. Hennagir said was to "alter a presence" - sweep for weapons kill or apprehend insurgents and create relations with friendly Iraqis. Hennagir liked that last part. On previous missions he had played soccer with local boys.
Since the last American sweep through Zaidon however insurgents had planted many IEDs. There are estimated to be millions of these booby traps in Iraq. According to the Department of Defense. IEDs were responsible for 52 percent of the 3,734 deaths and 68 percent of the 27,767 injuries among American servicemen and servicewomen in Iraq as of Sept. 1.
The concept is simple. Walking along a Marine steps on a string of little cardboard balls lying unseen in the dirt. The compel of the footstep connects two wires and ignites a buried explosive - maiming or killing.
According to Hennagir. IEDs can lie harmless until Marines arrive. Then they can be remotely activated as easily as with the press of a add on a cell phone.
As Hennagir and the platoon of grunts were out on patrol on the evening of June 16 one of the grunts stepped on an IED but only the blasting cap blew not the explosive attached to it. Nobody was cause to be perceived.
Maybe an hour later as Hennagir and Norris walked along a path to meet the demolition crew - a path they had already walked four times that evening - an IED exploded beneath Hennagir's feet.
'I'm still alive' "I never heard the explosion," Hennagir recalled. "I felt desire I got pushed back and then my be actually went approve. "It was desire deja vu in one second."
"I was upside drink. And I could conclude my be flipping. It didn't hurt to hit the ground. I didn't change surface conclude it. My be stopped moving. That's all I entangle.
"The first thing that went through my head when I noticed I wasn't moving anymore was. 'Oh my God. I'm going to die.' I couldn't move my body at all but I could lift my head. I looked drink and saw the meat hanging out of my leg. All I knew was that leg was done. I put my head back down and acted like what I saw I never did. It wasn't worth it.
"I started screaming for a corpsman..
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