GI's Oakdale mom fights Army for her son

WASHINGTON The grenade that sheared Staff Sgt. Eric Wynn's nose and lodged unexploded in his gunner's torso eventually detonated something unexpected in the mind of an Oakdale retiree.

A disfiguring wound in March came with the territory for Wynn, a 30-year-old career infantryman serving his second tour in Afghanistan.

But what happened next showed what a mother's drive, and some congressional pull, can do, as the Army retreated from its original plans to keep Wynn serving in combat.

"I said, 'I'm putting my foot down,'" Danita Wynn said.

On Thursday, Danita's son received his Purple Heart at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. His new nose will take a little longer.

"I hate it," Eric Wynn said of his current appearance. "I get tired of looking at it."

In time, Army plastic surgeons will resume his facial reconstruction. They will take surplus skin from someplace it won't be missed, and mold it in the form of a new left nostril. He'll be able, more or less, to behold himself and not immediately be reminded of what happened the morning of March 16.

Wynn serves with the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division. The Army runs in his blood. His father, John, served in the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division in Vietnam, and later in the 82nd Airborne Division. John Wynn is retired; 100 percent disabled, he said, from post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

Eric enlisted after high school 11 years ago. He amazed his mom recently by re-enlisting two weeks following his injury.

"That really blew me away," Danita said.

In February, Wynn and his unit arrived back in eastern Afghanistan.

From their quarters at Forward Operating Base Tillman named for the former football player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman, who was accidentally shot and killed by his own men the 10th Mountain Division men patrol the wild and wooly region near the Pakistan border.

About 10:30 a.m. on March 16, Wynn was sitting in the right front seat of a Humvee that was bringing up the rear of a convoy. Bullets began kicking up dust and pinging against the armor. Ambush.

Wynn shouted to his driver to flee the kill zone. Then the 4-pound rocket-propelled grenade one of three slammed through the front, bulletproof window at about 965 feet per second and sliced off the tip of Wynn's nose as it passed.

"It felt," Wynn said, "like I got hit by 2-by-4s swung by 10 huge men."

The grenade tore further into the Humvee, lodging inside Pvt. Channing Moss, a married, 23-year-old Georgia native who had been firing away with his own Mark 19 grenade launcher. The good news: the grenade didn't explode.

Moss survived, following his own astonishing journey; he's walking, but has a long recovery ahead of him. Wynn was evacuated to the hospital at Bagram Air Base, where doctors replaced part of his lost nostril with skin taken from behind his left ear. It was only then that he saw himself in a mirror.

"It was nasty," Wynn said, "and I was, like, 'You've got to fix this.'"

But with more than 700 U.S. and allied soldiers wounded in Afghanistan since 2001 and more than 18,000 wounded in Iraq the military doesn't automatically give up its grip on the injured. An Army medical colonel cleared Wynn to return to combat duty.

That's when his mother having finally seen a photograph of her wounded son mobilized.

"Eric," Danita said, "is macho, and his attitude was, 'This is the 10th Mountain Division and this is the way it is.' I thought, 'This is crazy.'"

Residents of Stanislaus County for the past three years, the Wynns contacted the office of Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa. Their son wasn't going to refuse the directive to return to combat, but he was feeling increasingly stressed. He could see other soldiers' reactions when they saw his face, while his parents worried that the wound would become infected in the dusty mountains.

"I said, 'You guys have got to do something,'" Danita said.

As it happens, congressional offices in wartime hear regularly from family members concerned about their loved ones. Radano-vich's office collected information from the Wynns and fired off correspondence to the Army. Apparently, it was well-timed. Wynn said his commanders were starting to appear willing to send him back to Fort Drum in upstate New York. The congressional intervention even if only filed in the form of questions came through loud as a drill sergeant's bark.

"If Congress wants to know something," Wynn said, "the Army doesn't mess around."

For the time being, Wynn will remain at Ford Drum, handling rear detachment duties for his division. It's very possible he will be back in foreign mountains some day. He expects to serve for another decade.

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