The Long Road Home: One Soldier's Story...

• The Long Road Home Senator John McCain's Foreword to The Long Road Home
• The Long Road Home: One Soldier's Story

First Person Essay by Sgt. Jason Pepper

Featured in Doonesbury, Sgt. Jason Pepper was blinded in Iraq, sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and lived at Fisher House

I was injured at 8:30 a.m. on May 7, 2004 while on a mission in Karbala, Iraq. We were sent out as a presence patrol, and upon reaching downtown Karbala an RPG hit the lead tank and an ambush began. While bounding out of the sector another M1 Tank pulled up on my left side and took away my field of fire. I turned to the right as an RPG was fired at us from behind, so I jumped to the other side of the vehicle and pushed two soldiers out of the way. Leaving my upper body exposed, I moved to the vehicle's troop hatch and I returned fire as another RPG went over us. At that time an explosive in a nearby tree was command-detonated and hit my vehicle. The blast threw me onto the vehicle's floor and I immediately found myself in darkness, totally blind. All I heard was gunfire and a ringing, piercing noise. I thought, Oh my God. This is it. What about my wife and our daughter?

My fellow soldiers thought I was dead. I couldn't move or speak. The only way they knew I was still alive was the blood bubbles coming out of my nose. I was taken back to base camp to be flown to a hospital in Baghdad. While waiting for the bird (a Black Hawk Helicopter) I regained my ability to speak and I asked for morphine. A medic told me I would be okay, and the next thing I knew I felt the rotor wash from the helicopter and my body went into severe shock and I totally passed out.

Sometime later when I regained consciousness the surgeon told me I was blind because I'd lost both eyes — shrapnel had shredded them and there was nothing left for the surgeons to work with or salvage. Shortly after this, a chaplain came to me and asked if I wanted to call my wife. He held the phone to my ear and I reassured my wife Heather that I was okay. We spoke for about 20 minutes and I just joked around and listened to our daughter in the background. After that I guess the medication kicked in because everything is a blur until we were reunited in Landstuhl, Germany on May 9, 2004. My first words to her were "Happy Mother's Day."

Later that day I was taken in for surgery and informed of my other injuries. My right arm was shattered and my left hand was severely mangled. Both were in external fixators to keep them together. A few days later I was transported to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where I have been ever since. At WRAMC my left index finger was amputated and I found out I also had a subdermal hematoma, a left side skull fracture, a bruised brain and a silver-dollar-sized piece of shrapnel embedded in my skull behind my right eye socket. I've lost all sense of smell, part of my sense of taste and nerve damage has diminished my sense of touch. But my hearing is more acute. I've undergone about 20 surgeries, and right now I'm learning how to use a walking cane and read Braille. I have one prosthetic eye and I'm waiting for another. In the next few weeks I'll go to the VA School for the Blind to learn how to live everyday life as a blind man. After that Heather and I will spend four weeks learning how to use guide dogs.

Mentally, this has always been a back and forth battle. I've lived in darkness for almost a year and it's a very lonely place. It's difficult to know that I'll never see my beautiful wife or my daughter, the cutest little girl in the world, ever again. I'll be with my daughter as she grows up, but I won't see her grow up. Heather and I would like to have more children, and it takes a toll on me to know that I won't see her through the pregnancy or see those children either. I would give both legs and my left arm to be able to see again. But after learning that I'll never see again I didn't go into depression or self-pity. Right away I started making jokes about my injuries and about being blind. When people visited me they left feeling good because I've had a positive attitude about this since Day One. They'd say they came to lift my spirits but instead it was me who uplifted them.

I have a great wife who keeps me going. My in-laws also have played a very important role in my recovery. Fisher House has been a blessing to us. Without it my wife and I would have been financially unable to be together during this first year of my recovery. We pay nothing to stay at Fisher House, and since Heather quit her job to be with me, we couldn't have afforded a hotel for this long. If Fisher House hadn't been available, I don't know what would have happened to us or if I would have come this far in my recovery. I'm touched to know that proceeds from Garry Trudeau's The Long Road Home will benefit Fisher House.

I met Garry when he visited WRAMC to research the B.D. storyline and visit soldiers on Ward 57, where amputees are treated. My wife and I were waiting to go to occupational therapy when he asked for my name and chuckled at the "Sgt. Pepper" thing. He asked how and where I was injured, and we talked for 10 minutes and I felt comfortable telling him my story. When I had to go he asked if he could do something special for me. I said, "Sure that's not a problem," but I had no idea what he had in mind. A few weeks later my doctors told me I was in Doonesbury by name. My wife found the strip online and we had a great laugh. It was so cool. My mother-in-law cut it out and showed it to her co-workers. My fellow soldiers who were still in Iraq saw another soldier reading the strip in the Stars & Stripes newspaper and told him, "'Sgt. Pepper' is a real soldier and he's one of ours." It gave them a great morale boost. They said, "It takes a real soldier to make Doonesbury."

—U.S. Army Sgt. Jason Pepper, recipient of The Purple Heart and The Bronze Star with Valor

Contact: Kathy Hilliard, (800) 851-8923, khilliard@amuniversal.com

The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time

Author: G.B. Trudeau
ISBN: 0-7407-5385-1
Format: Paperback: 6 x 8 1/4, 96 pages
Price: $9.95 ($14.95 Canada)