Pfc. Danny Perry suffers head injury, burns after being hit
by rocket-propelled grenades
A Gilroy native was seriously injured on Wednesday when he was hit by rocket-propelled grenades while on foot patrol with his platoon in Iraq. Army Pfc. Danny Perry, 20, suffered a severe head injury, facial burns and shrapnel was imbedded down his right side from the explosion.
The 2004 Gilroy High School graduate had minor surgery in Iraq before being transported to a military hospital in Germany. In Germany, nurses sutured wounds in his face, nose, ear, hand and on the right side of his leg. On Friday, he was transported to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.
The last time Tim and Linda Perry, who lived in Gilroy for 22 years before moving to Somers, Conn. last March, talked to their son was Monday, when he called to tell them that one of his buddies had been shot. On Wednesday afternoon, the couple received the call.
“We were really shocked when we first heard the news, but he’s doing much better,” Tim Perry said, over the phone through obvious tears. “The word that we got today is he has woken twice but he’s able to use all of his extremities. He moved both arms and both legs and they said that’s a great sign. He has a lot of facial damage, which is not going to be easy.”
The Perrys will be in Washington with their son this weekend.
It didn’t take Danny Perry long to find his place in the world. The Gilroy native – born at the old Wheeler Hospital on Oct. 18, 1985 – knew early-on exactly what he wanted to do after high school.
“He always wanted to be a soldier,” his dad said.
Nearly every Halloween he would dress up as a soldier. He loved playing with his GI Joes and as teen could be found meticulously painting model Army men in the bedroom of his Gilroy home.
And during the summer before his junior year, he signed on with the U.S. Army.
The military wasn’t exactly the future the Perrys had planned for their youngest son. They wanted him to go to college. The couple didn’t even like to see him playing rough sports, and were even happy that he couldn’t continue a high school football season because of an injury.
“We didn’t like him playing football and now he went off to war,” Tim Perry said.
He enlisted in the military his junior year. When he received the results from the Army’s entrance exam, he learned that he could choose from eight different jobs because of his score.
But the 20-year-old wanted to be out there in the grit and dust, on the front lines, in the infantry.
He began his tour in Iraq after Thanksgiving, and not including four weeks of vacation during the summer, would have remained in the Middle East until March. While in Iraq, the message relayed back home was that the soldier was the “life of his battalion,” said his aunt, Lisa Bruce. Family members describe him as an outgoing, social guy, who makes friends easily.
“He’s a goof,” said Bruce, a Gilroy resident.
School wasn’t Danny Perry’s strong suit and the Army provided the discipline and structure her nephew needed, she said. But even though she knew that her nephew was in the line of fire, she always assumed he’d be OK.
She’s talked to her children about Danny’s injuries.
“We’re a very religious family and we’re praying with our kids and they’re good,” she said.
The Perrys are looking on the bright side. They have a strong system made up of both family members, friends and fellow parishioners at the Catholic church they now attend in Connecticut.
“They said he’s got a long road (ahead) but they think he’ll recover fine,” Tim Perry said. “The good thing is he’s alive.”
U.S. Marine Jeramy Ailes, who was killed in Fallujah in 2004, was the first Gilroy resident to die in battle since Vietnam and the sole local to die while serving in the Iraqi war.
Anyone interested in contacting the Perrys can reach them at pe*****@***oo.com The family would love to hear from any of their son’s friends.
