Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Fayetteville (NC) Observer
May 23, 2007 By Laura Arenschield, Staff writer
The skin on Spc. Marco Illanes-Castro’s right leg melted away when a bomb blew up a truck in which he was scouting near Fallujah, Iraq.
The explosion shattered bones in his right arm and leg, fractured his left wrist and burned his face.
On Tuesday, more than a month after the blast, Illanes-Castro, who is 29, sat up in a hospital bed on the second floor of Womack Army Medical Center on Fort Bragg, surrounded by his family, his unit and a gaggle of cameras — with a smile half-proud, half-sheepish — as the acting secretary of the Army pinned a Purple Heart to his T-shirt.
Illanes-Castro was one of five soldiers Geren visited Tuesday during a tour of the hospital.
After Geren’s tour, Illanes-Castro talked — a little groggily — about the morning his truck hit the bomb.
He remembers a flash of a light and the bang that ripped the night sky in half. When he opened his eyes, he said, his first thought was that he had died. When he realized he was alive, he checked to be sure his legs were still attached to his body. He checked his arms, then saw that his shoulder was on fire and put out those flames.
Then he started calling for the others in his truck.
The explosion killed two of Illanes-Castro’s comrades and injured another.
Another soldier from his unit, the 600th Quartermaster Company of the 507th Corps Support Group, helped him out of the truck, he said. When his feet hit the ground, he collapsed.
“That’s when I knew my legs were broken,” he said.
It was the early morning of April14.
On Tuesday, his father, Antonio Illanes, who traveled to North Carolina from Northern Virginia, stood next to his bed. The Army flew his mother, Norah Castro, and his sister, Mariela Castro, to the United States from Bolivia a few weeks ago, when Illanes-Castro first got to a hospital in Chapel Hill. It was the first time he had seen his mother and sister since 1998.
During his visit, Geren shook the wounded soldier’s hand.
“Are they taking good care of you?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Illanes-Castro replied. “The doctors are doing a great job. The nurses, too.”
It was a question Geren would repeat throughout his visit to Womack Army Medical Center on Tuesday morning. Geren, who has been acting secretary of the Army for about three months, visited five wounded soldiers and talked with staff throughout the hospital to see whether the needs of the wounded were being met.
Geren is scheduled to stay at Fort Bragg through today, and he said he plans to meet with soldiers and their families while he is here.
He wants to thank them for their service, he said, but he also wants to hear what the Army can do to make their lives easier.
“We are asking more and more of our soldiers,” Geren said in a news conference outside the hospital after his tour. “As we as more of the soldiers, we are asking more of their families.”
When the secretary had left his room, Illanes-Castro talked about the visit.
“It makes you think that people in Washington, they care about you,” he said.
Illanes-Castro said he expects his body will heal in a few months and that rehabilitation will take between eight months and a year.
The time to rebuild his body is frustrating to Illanes-Castro, who enlisted planning to stay in the Army for four years, but re-enlisted when that time was up because he loved it so much.
“I just want to go and do my job and help my unit,” he said. People ask him whether his injuries make him want out of the service, he said, but he always replies: “It’s bad. But it’s not reason enough to quit.”
May 23, 2007 By Laura Arenschield, Staff writer
The skin on Spc. Marco Illanes-Castro’s right leg melted away when a bomb blew up a truck in which he was scouting near Fallujah, Iraq.
The explosion shattered bones in his right arm and leg, fractured his left wrist and burned his face.
On Tuesday, more than a month after the blast, Illanes-Castro, who is 29, sat up in a hospital bed on the second floor of Womack Army Medical Center on Fort Bragg, surrounded by his family, his unit and a gaggle of cameras — with a smile half-proud, half-sheepish — as the acting secretary of the Army pinned a Purple Heart to his T-shirt.
Illanes-Castro was one of five soldiers Geren visited Tuesday during a tour of the hospital.
After Geren’s tour, Illanes-Castro talked — a little groggily — about the morning his truck hit the bomb.
He remembers a flash of a light and the bang that ripped the night sky in half. When he opened his eyes, he said, his first thought was that he had died. When he realized he was alive, he checked to be sure his legs were still attached to his body. He checked his arms, then saw that his shoulder was on fire and put out those flames.
Then he started calling for the others in his truck.
The explosion killed two of Illanes-Castro’s comrades and injured another.
Another soldier from his unit, the 600th Quartermaster Company of the 507th Corps Support Group, helped him out of the truck, he said. When his feet hit the ground, he collapsed.
“That’s when I knew my legs were broken,” he said.
It was the early morning of April14.
On Tuesday, his father, Antonio Illanes, who traveled to North Carolina from Northern Virginia, stood next to his bed. The Army flew his mother, Norah Castro, and his sister, Mariela Castro, to the United States from Bolivia a few weeks ago, when Illanes-Castro first got to a hospital in Chapel Hill. It was the first time he had seen his mother and sister since 1998.
During his visit, Geren shook the wounded soldier’s hand.
“Are they taking good care of you?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Illanes-Castro replied. “The doctors are doing a great job. The nurses, too.”
It was a question Geren would repeat throughout his visit to Womack Army Medical Center on Tuesday morning. Geren, who has been acting secretary of the Army for about three months, visited five wounded soldiers and talked with staff throughout the hospital to see whether the needs of the wounded were being met.
Geren is scheduled to stay at Fort Bragg through today, and he said he plans to meet with soldiers and their families while he is here.
He wants to thank them for their service, he said, but he also wants to hear what the Army can do to make their lives easier.
“We are asking more and more of our soldiers,” Geren said in a news conference outside the hospital after his tour. “As we as more of the soldiers, we are asking more of their families.”
When the secretary had left his room, Illanes-Castro talked about the visit.
“It makes you think that people in Washington, they care about you,” he said.
Illanes-Castro said he expects his body will heal in a few months and that rehabilitation will take between eight months and a year.
The time to rebuild his body is frustrating to Illanes-Castro, who enlisted planning to stay in the Army for four years, but re-enlisted when that time was up because he loved it so much.
“I just want to go and do my job and help my unit,” he said. People ask him whether his injuries make him want out of the service, he said, but he always replies: “It’s bad. But it’s not reason enough to quit.”