Hundreds of supporters show up to watch honor bestowed on Spc.
Dan Perry
Gilroy – Friends, family and supporters of Army Spc. Dan Perry filled the pews of St. Mary Parish Sunday to watch one veteran, already familiar with the scars of battle, bestow the symbol of sacrifice on a young soldier.
More than 200 residents watched Perry receive the Purple Heart during Sunday Mass at the Catholic church on First Street. Many of the people were not members of the church and had never heard of the 20-year-old soldier until Perry, a Gilroy native, nearly died from a bomb blast while fighting insurgents in Iraq.
The explosion caused serious long-term damage to his hearing, vision and memory.
“The Purple Heart recognizes the human cost of violent institutional conflict,” said Perry’s mother Linda, speaking before the congregation. “It is the prayer of every parent and citizen that those awarded the Purple Heart don’t make the ultimate sacrifice, but return to the communities that sent them to war.”
Retired U.S. Army Sgt. Lee Roy Pipkin, who received a Purple Heart for losing his left leg in Vietnam, placed the pin on the younger soldier’s uniform. A four-star general first awarded the medal during Perry’s initial recovery at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. Pipkin was asked to perform the honor before friends and family in Gilroy after he wrote Perry an eight-page letter in March. The letter was full of advice and guidance on a soldier’s path to recovery.
“The price of freedom is never easy to take, but it’s got to be paid,” Pipkin said after the ceremony.
The young man, dressed in his green military uniform, struggled to recall the exact contents of the letter.
“I remember it was really good,” Perry said. “It was really nice.”
He said his recovery has been going well at Palo Alto Veterans Hospital, where he is undergoing occupational, physical and psychological treatment.
“The tough part is over,” said Jason Perry, the soldier’s 28-year-old brother. “The three weeks with him at Walter Reed were the toughest.”
Perry does not remember much of his stay, where he spent a week in an induced coma during his initial recovery from a collapsed trachea and other serious injuries.
As they made their way to a reception after Mass, Jason Perry mentioned a company in Connecticut known for hiring injured veterans. Perry’s older brother settled there with his family and his parents recently moved to the state. Dan Perry also plans to move east when he completes his rehabilitation.
“They’re going to pay me millions,” Perry joked about the potential job. “It’s going to be mint.”
The brothers shared a laugh. They haven’t been able to stop saying “it’s mint” since they picked up the phrase in March at Walter Reed.
Marta Dinsmore watched Perry grow up side by side with her son.
“I felt so proud of Danny,” she said of the Purple Heart ceremony, adding that his parents “have been through so much.”
The family, in turn, said it has weathered the experience through the support of hundreds of people in Gilroy and in Connecticut.
“It means everything,” said Perry’s aunt, Lisa Bruce. “Just the unconditional support. This is just not something you want to go through by yourself. … It’s sad to hear that people during other wars didn’t support the soldiers. … Had people been negative to Danny, it would have killed us.”
Even with the community’s support, Perry has a long road to recovery. Next month, he will continue a series of surgeries – this time on his inner ear to repair more damage.
Perry’s mother Linda continues to stay by his side, though her husband Tim has returned to Connecticut to start a new job. She and her son share a boarding house room at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto. She has less privacy now, but she refused to let her son stay in a hospital for veterans with serious drug addictions and psychological problems. Once Dan finds long-term housing, likely in October, she plans to join her husband in Connecticut and return to Palo Alto one week a month.
In close quarters for the moment, Linda searches for patience as her son struggles with anger and irritability, byproducts of his brain injury.
“This is like a learning experience for me too,” she said. “I’ve had to learn not to get angry around Dan, so he can learn to accept things more calmly. … Right now, we just take it one day at a time. If we look to the future too much, it’s too hard. We set small goals.”
