Army Spc. Dan Perry continues the path to recovery after
explosive in Iraq nearly took his life
Palo Alto – The dizziness sets in on the trampoline, just before Army Spc. Dan Perry weaves through a series of foam pillars and heads for a “wobble” board. He brings all his concentration to bear as he rocks back and forth for the last seconds of the drill, knowing he won’t regain his bearings for at least 10 minutes.
Perry’s days are far different than a few months ago, when he was stationed on the front lines in Iraq.
There, he spent most of his time guarding the outskirts of Ramadi, a Sunni Arab suburb of Baghdad, and weightlifting or watching DVDs. All that ended Feb. 22, when an improvised explosive device blew up a few feet from the soldier. His doctors and parents say it’s a miracle Perry is alive.
The 20-year-old soldier is now recovering at a veterans hospital in Palo Alto, after undergoing surgeries and treatment in Germany and then Washington.
Perry has lost all the peripheral vision in his left eye and 30 percent of the hearing in his left ear. The injury to his inner ear is also the source of his dizziness, which doctors are helping him overcome through repetitive exercise during morning physical therapy.
The most visible sign of Perry’s injuries are the cast on his right arm and the shrapnel embedded in his body. The left side of his face is peppered with dark spots. The body will naturally expel the pieces closest to the skin, but doctors will leave thousands more inside Perry’s body for fear that an operation could do more harm than good. Many of the pieces lie near vital nerves and arteries.
But the most serious challenge Perry faces comes from a large piece of shrapnel in his brain.
Soon after doctors revived him from a drug-induced coma at the end of February, Perry began exhibiting a tendency to get easily irritated. He also showed signs of short- and long-term memory loss.
“Six weeks ago I couldn’t even remember going to Iraq,” Perry said recently, as he walked on a treadmill.
His injuries require a five day schedule of rehabilitation, starting with speech, physical and occupational therapy in the morning, followed by psychological treatment in the afternoon. He also participates in a new program for veterans with brain injuries.
The speech therapy is the most difficult part of the day, said Perry, who suffers from confabulation. The memory disorder, which involves the spontaneous creation of false memories, causes Perry to insert random words into sentences and tell stories that never happened.
With a hint of frustration he tried to explain: “It’s like I’m lying, but I’m not.”
A battle in Ramadi
Perry enlisted in the Army the summer before his last year at Gilroy High School, shipping out for his first round of training a few months after graduation in June 2004.
He ultimately landed in the “First of the 506” Brigade in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, lionized for its success in World War II in a book and television series called “Band of Brothers.”
After a year of training in Georgia and Kentucky, Perry arrived in Iraq last Thanksgiving.
Three months into a tour of duty involving numerous gunfights, Perry found himself trading shots with insurgents as he guarded a railway passage.
While trying to pull back from a bunker under fire from the north, a second group of insurgents sent a railway cart loaded with three explosive devices past their position. The explosion took place a few feet from Perry, who was rescued by soldiers from a nearby bunker. Medics revived him after he stopped breathing on the flight to the hospital.
Out of 215 possible jobs in the Army, Perry had his choice of 207. He scored the highest of any GHS graduate on the army entrance exam, but he chose infantry – a job that would place him on the front lines in Iraq.
His reasoning at the time?
“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought it would be cool.”
At the VA
Perry has been at the veterans hospital since early April and is already showing signs of improvement, especially in terms of balance and memory.
“Before, he couldn’t jump on the trampoline so this is a huge improvement,” therapist Se Lowe said, pointing out that his dizziness levels have diminished.
Doctors said Perry faces two more years of therapy in a special program designed for patients with brain injury.
On any given day, Perry hangs out with his mom and dad between sessions. The couple moved to Connecticut in March 2005 after 22 years in Gilroy, but they now live at the Fisher House, a residence on the hospital campus for relatives of injured military personnel.
The couple is determined to stay by their son through the course of the treatment. They are not working, but have managed to keep their home in Connecticut through support from family, friends and parishioners at St. Mary Parish, as well as members of their new congregation on the East Coast.
Linda Perry gets countless questions about her son, and more than 125 people have signed up for a daily e-mail she sends out detailing his progress.
“A lot of them we didn’t even know,” she said. “People would write and ask how Dan is doing.”
She chokes up when she remembers a message from the parents of Jeramy Ailes, a Marine who died in Nov. 2004 while fighting in Iraq. The death of the young man – the only Gilroyan to die in combat since Vietnam – drew an outpouring of support from thousands of people across the country.
Dan Perry counts himself lucky.
He knows it’s a miracle he survived the blast, which collapsed his trachea and forced doctors to put him in a drug-induced coma for a week.
Following physical therapy on a recent Wednesday morning, Linda Perry and her son chat outside the hospital. Perry takes a drag of a Marlboro Menthol and asks if they can have McDonald’s for lunch. His appetite is back and he’s gradually regaining some of the 60 pounds he lost since the injury.
Perry eventually hopes to study criminal justice at San Jose State University and work as a police officer.
Linda Perry does not argue.
“I want him to be whatever he wants,” she said, denying she would prefer a less dangerous line of work.
“The last job I had didn’t work out too well,” Perry joked, getting his mom to laugh.
Tim and Linda Perry say their son shares the unbreakable spirit of the soldier. They witnessed that spirit first hand during his initial recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a hospital in Washington that treats some of the most badly injured military personnel. Despite the loss of limbs and other debilitating injuries, Tim Perry said all of the patients faced the world with courage.
“It blew my mind,” he said, guessing that many of the wounded keep silent about their emotional struggles. He knows his son has fared better than many others.
“Dan’s been very lucky,” he said. “But he’s got a long road ahead.”
