Ramp eases Iraq war vet into home life : Anderson Valley Post

Since injured Iraq war veteran David Mayer received a hero’s welcome at the Redding Municipal Airport Aug. 8, he has been spending time with his father, Glenn Mayer, and consorting with a variety of news agencies.

“I didn’t realize how much work it would be, between hauling him upstairs before we got the ramp and working as his press secretary,” Glenn Mayer said, grinning at his son.

David Mayer’s stay was sweetened last week when retired carpenters Roger and Johnny Graves built a ramp for him to use with his wheelchair over the stairs to his father’s home in Anderson.

Roger Graves, a Patriot Guard Rider and member of the Missing in America Project, built the ramp so that it could be broken down into sections for easy removal when Mayer leaves in September for continued surgery and rehabilitation.

Mayer will undergo a variety of operations over the coming months. Two bones in his index finger are separated and would be fused. His left leg, amputated below the thigh, has developed “spontaneous bone growth,” a condition Mayer said has puzzled doctors since the onset of the Iraq war.

The bone near his injury has grown erratically, like lace. It’s jagged and aggravates nearby muscle tissue. Mayer said the contact is painful and inconvenient.

Mayer was injured serving his second tour of duty in Iraq when a mine exploded through the wheel-well of his ASV (Armored Service Vehicle). The explosive device, he said, was a pipe bomb with a copper top “that goes through just about everything we have, even a tank.”

The copper melted upon denotation, firing upwards through armor at a high rate. The molten projectile turned to shrapnel, as well as turning to shrapnel everything it touched, Mayer said.

“Including my leg,” he said, adding that some of his bone ended up wounding another soldier in the vehicle.

Three of the crewmen lost limbs.

“We were all screaming,” Mayer said. “I can’t say enough about our medic, she was out of the vehicle with her kit before we came to a stop. She saved three of our lives.”

His medic, Pfc. Samantha Flory, was an example of how the U.S. military has evolved its care of soldiers since Vietnam. One out of every five soldiers has a combat medic, Mayer said, compared to his father’s experience during the Vietnam War of one medic per platoon. Mayer added that every soldier is equipped with basic first aid gear, called a Combat Life Saver kit, including a tourniquet and bandages.

“They learned a lot from the Vietman War,” Mayer said, adding that the survival rate from injury in battle has improved from 35 percent during the Vietnam War to 92 percent during the Iraq War.

What protective equipment was supplied to his father during the Vietnam War?

“An M-16 . . . and a canteen,” Glenn Mayer said, adding that stateside care has also improved greatly. “In Vietnam, they put a Band-Aid on you and sent you home. Now they keep you in the hospital until you’re fixed. It’s great.”

David Mayer has maintained a very positive outlook during his ordeal. So much so, that nurses at Walter Reed Army Medical Center referred depressed patients to talk to him.

“It hurt. It sucked, but it could have been worse,” he said. “There are guys at Walter Reed who are so negative, when you talk to them, it does no good. We’d gang up on these people with four or five positive guys and make sure someone was always around him. Once he comes around, we use him to work on someone else.”

“A lot of people don’t want to talk about it, that’s why it helps to have people together who have been through the same thing,” Glenn Mayer said.