Infantryman who lost legs in combat seemed to be triumphing, but invisible wounds proved fatal
UT San Diego
By Gretel C. Kovach
MARCH 28, 2014
Farrell Gilliam was buried in Fresno Jan. 21, carried to his grave by Marine pallbearers and friends.
(Courtesy Gilliam family.)
He rarely spoke of it. Not to his family or best buddies, fellow Marines or medical staff watching over him.
But Cpl. Farrell Gilliam had endured far more by the time he died this year at age 25 than most people could comprehend.
The Camp Pendleton infantryman survived three months of combat in 2010 with the “Darkhorse” 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment in Sangin, Afghanistan — one of the deadliest battlegrounds of the war.
Amid firefights and insurgents’ bombs, Gilliam saw limbs strewn across the ground. He loaded broken, bleeding bodies for medical evacuation, and grieved for the friends they could not save.
Gilliam’s tour ended early when his legs were blown off by an improvised explosive device, or IED. “Farrell’s Fight,” his struggle on the homefront that his big brother helped him chronicle online, included more than 30 surgeries and three years of rehabilitation.
It was a story of triumph over wounds that would have been fatal in earlier conflicts. A story that was coming to an end, but not how anyone who knew him expected.
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