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'I'm not ready to get out yet'

By Estes Thompson
The Associated Press
George Perez still feels the sweat between his toes when he exercises. He's still plagued with nagging cramps in his calf muscle. And sometimes, when he gets out of bed at night without thinking, he topples over.
Perez, 21, lost his leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq more than a year ago, but despite the phantom pains that haunt him, he says he is determined to prove to the Army that he is no less a man -- and no less a soldier.
"I'm not ready to get out yet," he said. "I'm not going to let this little injury stop me from what I want to do."
Perez is one of at least four amputees from the elite 82nd Airborne Division to re-enlist. With a new black carbon-fiber prosthetic leg, Perez intends to show a medical board that he can run an eight-minute mile, jump out of airplanes and pass all the other paratrooper tests that will allow him to accompany the rest of his regiment to Afghanistan next year.
On Sept. 14, 2003, Perez, of Carteret, N.J., and seven other members of his squad were rumbling down a road outside Fallujah when a bomb blast rocked their Humvee. Perez recalls flying through the air and hitting the ground hard.
The blast killed one of Perez's comrades. Perez felt surprisingly little pain, but he couldn't get up. He saw that his left foot was folded backward onto his knee. His size 12 1/2 combat boot stood in the dusty road a few feet away, still laced.
A photograph of Perez's lonely boot transmitted around the world and spread across two pages of Time magazine became a stark reminder that the war in Iraq was far from over.
Doctors initially tried to save part of Perez's foot. But an infection crept up his leg, and Perez agreed to amputation below the knee.
"I was going to stay in no matter what," he recalled telling the surgeons. "Do whatever would get me back fastest."
Perez was left with a rounded stump that fits into the suction cup of the prosthetic leg.
When he arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for his rehabilitation, Perez asked two generals who visited his bedside if he could stay in the Army.
"They told me, 'It's all up to you, how much you want it,' " he said. "If I could do everything like a regular soldier, I could stay in."
He wasted little time getting started. A visitor found him doing push-ups in bed. He trained himself to walk normally, then run, with his new leg.
Perez has to rise at least an hour earlier than his fellow soldiers to allow swelling from the previous day's training to subside enough for his stump to fit into the prosthetic.
But Perez takes comfort knowing he's not alone.
In the past two years, at least three other paratroopers in the 82nd have lost limbs in combat and re-enlisted. Staff Sgt. Daniel Metzdorf, for example, lost his right leg above the knee in a Jan. 27 blast. He appealed three times before the fitness board allowed him to stay on.
"I think it's a testimony to today's professional Army," said the division commander, Maj. Gen. Bill Caldwell. "I also think, deep down, it is a love for their other paratroopers."
Today, Perez looks every bit the paratrooper -- tall, serious and in ripped-ab shape. His uniform is sharply creased, his maroon beret sits at an exact angle above one eye, and the black leather boot on his good leg gleams with a mirror shine. The only thing that sets him apart at a glance is the white running shoe on his prosthetic leg.

Six area Iraq war veterans honored at veterans post

By Patrick Mcgee
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
ARLINGTON - Six combat veterans from the Iraq war -- three of them brothers from Centerville -- were honored at a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post Saturday night. Most of them served in the Second Battalion, 4th Marines, Echo Company, the U.S. military unit that has suffered the most deaths in Iraq.
"I remember my lost brothers," said Marcus Waechter, 22, a Marine and 2001 graduate of McKinney High School. "They died for a reason. They died for us to be able to live the good life."
Waechter sat at a table with Toby and Matt Winn, 22-year-old twin brothers from Centerville who enlisted in the Marines in 2001. Their older brother, Jayson Winn, 25, was with them shortly after they finished basic training. It was the 9-11 terrorist attacks that prompted him to enlist in the Army. He fought in a field artillery unit in Iraq last year before returning to civilian life. On Saturday night, he spoke to honor his brothers.
"What they have done is offer hope, freedom and the gift of choice to 25 million people," Jayson Winn said of his brothers and their fellow Marines. He spoke before an audience of about 50 relatives and friends who gave the young veterans a standing ovation.
About two dozen restaurants, food stores and other companies donated food for the celebration at VFW Post 6111 in south Arlington.
"It means a lot because I heard a lot of the people don't agree with what we're doing over there, and to see something like this means there are people who appreciate it," Waechter said. He said that half his squad was killed by insurgents.
Matt Winn said he and other Marines plan this month to visit the family of a Marine killed in Iraq. He doesn't know what he will say to them.
"I just want them to know that I have been thinking about them," he said.
The Marines said they were involved in more battles than they can count, but they didn't dramatize their experiences when talking about them.
Cory Maxwell, 21, of Arlington would not say what he thinks of the war -- other than to say he's considering volunteering to fight again.
"It's still going on. I still have time in the service. I want to be there," he said.
He and the other Marines said they appreciate their freedom and security more and have an experience that only other combat veterans can understand.
"My grandfather was in Vietnam. I talked to him for hours on end," said Marine Ben Musser, 21, of Missouri. "You don't have to deal with trying to kill people to stay alive on a regular basis. Well, we do."

Car bombers kill 12 in Baghdad, Mosul
Fallujah talks remain suspended
By Robert H. Reid
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi announced plans Monday to extend a cash-for-weapons program for Shiite fighters in Baghdad's Sadr City to cities nationwide in an attempt to disarm the country.

The announcement came as fresh violence erupted in Baghdad and Mosul. Multiple car bombs over a two-day period claimed at least 12 lives, and a militant group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, claimed to have beheaded two Macedonian hostages.

U.S. forces also reported fresh attacks against alleged terrorist strongholds in Fallujah.

The government launched the cash-for-guns program in Sadr City as part of a deal to end weeks of fighting in the Shiite district of Baghdad and has twice extended the deadline for fighters to hand in their weapons.

On Monday, Allawi told the National Council, a government oversight body, that the program is going so well he wants to extend it to the rest of Iraq.

"The government is determined to disarm cities and neighborhoods because our forces are now ready to fight terrorists and there's no justification for people to keep weapons at home," Allawi said.

Iraqi officials hope that Sunni Muslim leaders in the insurgent-torn city of Fallujah can be persuaded to negotiate a similar weapons buyback deal.

But Fallujah, the focal point of the Sunni rebellion, presents a tougher challenge.

The U.S. military announced late Monday that it had destroyed several safehouses and weapons storage sites linked to terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The statement did not specify whether the attacks were airstrikes, although such attacks have been launched frequently against the insurgent stronghold in recent weeks.

Iraqi officials insist they are seeking a peaceful solution to the standoff in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. But hopes that peace talks could resume there quickly were dashed when the city's chief negotiator, Sheik Khaled al-Jumeili, ruled out any quick resumption of talks despite his release Monday from U.S. custody.

"I'm negotiating on behalf of Fallujah people _ civilians, kids, women _ who have no power except by being represented by somebody," al-Jumeili told Al-Arabiya television. "Since the situation has gotten to this, each can go wherever they want and we don't need to talk about negotiations."

Al-Jumeili was detained Friday a day after talks broke down over the government's demand that the city hand over al-Zarqawi, who Fallujah's clerics claim isn't there.

Fallujah, considered a major militant stronghold, has been under a wave of aerial and ground attacks by U.S. forces in a bid to root out al-Zarqawi and his group, Tawhid and Jihad.

Tawhid and Jihad has claimed responsibility for numerous beheadings and suicide bombings, including two attacks on Baghdad's Green Zone last week that killed six, including four U.S. civilians.

During his appearance before the National Council, Allawi said his government was still extending an "olive branch" to Fallujah but added that "we shall not be lenient in regard to the question of maintaining security and granting security to every Iraqi."

If negotiations fail to restore government control to Fallujah, U.S. and Iraqi military leaders are expected to launch an all-out assault on the city. Fallujah fell under insurgent control after the Marines lifted their siege of the city in April.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons that his government was considering a request by Washington to redeploy some British troops from southern Iraq to free American soldiers for "further operations elsewhere in Iraq."

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded late Sunday near a police patrol in the Jadiriyah district, killing six people, including three police officers, and wounding 26 others. The blast hit a cafe near the Australian Embassy, although there were no Australian casualties.

In Mosul, a car bomb detonated Sunday morning on a bridge, killing five Iraqis and wounding 15 others, the U.S. military said Monday. Another car bomber Monday hit a civilian convoy, killing one and wounding four others.