- December 24th, 2006, 2:31 pm
#49743
Injured soldier deals with long road homehttp://www.newsadvance.com/servlet/Sate ... 0137&path=
By Aaron Lee
Lynchburg News & Advance
December 23, 2006
Life has come at Pfc. Robert Blanchard pretty fast since April when he and his U.S. Army squad were ambushed along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border by pro-Taliban militants. During the fight, Blanchard was able to keep most of his body concealed behind a fallen tree. All except his left leg, which got filled with shrapnel when a grenade exploded nearby.
With the attack coming from both sides the 21-year-old Lynchburg native said he can remember bleeding onto the snow-covered ground as his sergeant dragged him to a medic.
After that he can remember being lifted out by helicopter and shot up with morphine.
He said the next thing he remembers was waking up in an Army hospital in Germany having undergone two surgeries and getting ready to be shipped stateside where his family and more surgery were waiting for him at Walter-Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
It was there where Blanchard received his Purple Heart from retired Gen. Colin Powell.
Lynchburg to Fort Benning
Blanchard pitched for the baseball team, ran indoor track and was a swimmer at Heritage High School.
After graduating in 2004 he enrolled at Liberty University to study aviation.
His mother Lisa Eberhardt said it was a surprise when her “soft-hearted kid” said he’d been out shopping, met a military recruiter and was thinking about joining the Army.
“I was not happy at all,” Eberhardt said. “I just didn’t see him at war.”
She tried to talk him out of it, but by Christmas 2004 Blanchard had signed up for six years, she said.
Six months later, after finishing his freshman year, he was going through boot camp at Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga.
Blanchard said he’s not completely sure why he decided to drop out of school and join the Army.
He said it wasn’t for the money, or because life at home was bad or because he didn’t have anything else going for him.
In part he chalks up his decision to the boredom of having been in school his whole life and wanting something else.
“I’ve always said people who sign their life away are crazy,” he said. “And then I joined.”
Fort Benning to Fort Drum to Camp Blessing
Fort Drum was Blanchard’s last stop before Afghanistan. It’s also where he met Pfc. Alex Oceguera out of San Bernadino, Calif.
It was there the two trained with the 10th Mountain Division Light Infantry and spent their off time playing video games and watching movies in nearby Watertown.
In a matter of months the two became close friends - close friends who, in February 2006, were sent to Camp Blessing in Afghanistan.
Blanchard describes Afghanistan as “beautiful country,” full of rocky terrain spotted by lush oasis.
It’s also a place he said the Army is trying to balance battling militants with doing a lot of good - like fixing sanitation problems in villages. Stuff that doesn’t make the front pages enough, he said.
In a way he misses being over there with the friends he fought alongside, he said. In another way he’s glad to leave the MREs (meals ready to eat) behind.
Camp Blessing to Walter Reed
Lisa Eberhardt said worrying about her first-born son almost completely consumed her while he was overseas.
When the call came that Blanchard was injured it validated her fears, she said.
“I just didn’t want to hear it,” she said.
Blanchard’s 15-year-old brother Matthew remembers the day the call came that everyone was crying and that as much as he wanted to stay strong for his mom, he couldn’t help but cry.
“I tried not to, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it,” he said.
Getting back to kinda normal
Because of his injury Blanchard will likely never be back with the infantry, he said. Although he still has four more years that he’s signed up to serve. Four more years that could end with a medical discharge or could continue with an Army desk job, he said. Either way is fine with him right now, he said. He said the experience has not made him bitter.
“It’s just a matter of coming to grips with the fact that there are hundreds of millions of ways to die,” he said. “To sit and do nothing your whole life just because you might get hurt is no way to live life.”
Since being back he’s gotten engaged to a young woman he met over the summer. The couple hopes to get married in August 2007. Blanchard said he would like to possibly settle in Lynchburg, perhaps go back to school and study aviation again.
He said he doesn’t like to make plans because so many things are uncertain even if it’s planned out.
For now he’s celebrating the holidays away from life at the hospital and conflict in Afghanistan.
Although the reality of where he was eight months ago resurfaced in November when he learned a roadside bomb exploded on Oct. 31 and killed his friend, 19-year-old Alex Oceguera.
- By Purple Haize
- By ECC29