The Picture
By: David Glenn Cox
I want you to look very closely at this picture and try and keep it in your minds eye. This was a perfectly healthy twenty two-year-old young man who in the service of his country got half of his head blown off. I think that’s important, I think that’s newsworthy. Let me tell you how newsworthy I think it is. I think that it’s more important than chocolate cake recipes .................................................
American taxpayers bill as of today $964,044,305,874
*** : Information Clearing House -* ICH
I know the discussion has strayed from the plight of the soldier concerned. There are arguments for and againt, and everything in between. Some are angry at him, some salute him.
Soldiers fight because thats what is asked of them. Internet chest thumpers, how many of these folks you really know ? The story of this soldier is an American one, but his story is routinely played out in every nation all over the world.
The name of the soldier is Sgt. Frank M. Sandoval. 27 years old and assigned to 2nd Battalion, 5th Artillery, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He sustained injuries when his unit was attacked by insurgents using small-arms fire Nov. 28, 2005, in Tikrit, Iraq.
Sandoval, of Yuma, Ariz., joined the Army after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He was on his second tour in Iraq when a bomb left him badly wounded on Nov. 28, 2005. After he was airlifted to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., his family was told he would probably not live more than 24 hours, and if he did, he would not be able to walk or see.
But he undertook months of rehabilitation, relearning to perform the simplest functions — swallowing, speaking, walking. He made much progress, and the prosthesis was designed to cover an exposed part of Sandoval’s brain, which would have allowed him to stop wearing a protective helmet, doctors said.
“All he wanted to do was serve his country and make the world better,” said Frank Sandoval’s father Ricky Sandoval, a Department of Homeland Security official who works along the California-Mexico border.
He underwent brain surgery to remove the brains exposed part.
Before the surgery, Sandoval said he wanted to be more independent and not have to rely so much on his wife Michelle, 22, and the couple’s 5-year-old daughter, Joelena.
He was also worried “that I won’t wake up,” he said the day before the operation.
He never woke up after the surgery.
Sgt. Frank M. Sandoval was declared brain dead on June 18, 2007.
His family made the decision to keep Sandoval, 27, on a ventilator till June 21, 2007, so seven of his organs can be harvested for donation.
"I really hope someone can use his heart," his wife, Michelle, said through tears. "And if another man can love a woman as much as he loved me, that would make me very happy."
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I don't know about you folks, but to me Sgt. Frank M. Sandoval is a champ all the way to end.
