War wound creates uncertainty for area soldier and family

Hurt in combat ... What now?
War wound creates uncertainty for area soldier and family

BY LESLIE WILBER - LWILBER@VICAD.COM
October 20, 2008 - 11:03 p.m.
Victoria Advocate - Victoria,TX,USA

He raises the volume of his voice and television, so he can hear. His gait betrays his constant pain, which gets worse if he tries to stand for long.

Angel Ramirez is 22.

He had a plan – stay in the Army until his wife, Emma, became a nurse. When she found a good job, he’d go to school, learn a trade.

They had a home. An apartment in El Paso they could afford to keep as long as he was enlisted. Their furniture, their dishes, their space, it was all their own.

That life, those plans, blew apart when a rocket propelled grenade exploded a few feet from Ramirez on April 10, 2007. The Army specialist was wounded less than a minute into a 12-hour fight in Baghdad, he said. His left leg was shattered and his hearing shot.

Ramirez described himself as a go-to guy in his platoon, a gunner who hauled a heavy machine gun, even with a broken wrist.

“I wasn’t prepared to do anything else,” Ramirez said.

This month, Ramirez will leave the Army, decorated with a Purple Heart, but earlier than he expected.

“It’s scary now, because we have two kids and he needs a job,” Emma Ramirez said.
go here for more
http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/local/story/340932.html