By Joshua Coffman - The News-Enterprise via AP
Posted : Monday Jul 14, 2008 11:32:22 EDT
FORT KNOX, Ky. — Injured in Iraq nearly 14 months ago, Spc. Joshua Gracia’s military career has been a roller-coaster ride. Now he is ready to get back on track.
A step away from being medically discharged from the Army, he is preparing to return to duty as a combat engineer.
Gracia shipped out with the 19th Engineer Company from Fort Knox in August 2006 and worked alongside the 82nd Airborne Division building fortified patrol houses so infantry soldiers could leave their forward operating bases and communicate with Iraqis in neighborhoods.
While traveling in a piece of heavy construction equipment on May 30, 2007, a roadside bomb exploded directly beneath the 22-year-old from Archbold, Ohio. It marked the second IED attack Gracia had met with in a week and one of several explosions he endured during nearly 10 months in combat.
The blast disabled the 70,000-pound excavator and left him unconscious.
He was evacuated to a military hospital in Balad, Iraq, and, 10 hours after the explosion, his appendix ruptured. Gracia then was flown to a hospital in Germany where soon after he would be diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury.
He was left with memory loss and slurred speech.
The medical determination left Gracia, the first on his father’s side of the family to serve in the military, down and out as his fellow combat engineers continued their tour of duty.
Gracia will be assigned to the 911th Engineer Company, a unit activated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to perform rescue and recovery missions in stateside government buildings.
The unit does not deploy and a limitation on Gracia’s medical evaluation currently prohibits him from serving in overseas combat.
He is set to link up with his new unit in October, but Gracia wants that day to come sooner.
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