Knoxville couple’s battle with effects of war isn't over

Soldiering on: Knoxville couple’s battle with effects of war isn't over, but they're winning
By Amy McRary
Posted July 3, 2011 at midnight

PHOTO BY SUBMITTED

Army Staff Sgt. Bryan Gansner, here in his dress uniform, was six weeks away from coming home when he was severely injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

Three a.m. on a rainy July morning. Her phone rings. Iraq is calling. Cheryl Gansner's heart pounds.

The voice on the phone 6,000 miles away isn't her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Bryan Gansner with the 101st Airborne Division. It's a lieutenant colonel.

A roadside bomb exploded. Bryan is seriously injured.

"All I could do was listen. I just said 'OK, OK, OK,' to everything he said," remembers Cheryl. "I was in shock. I didn't even think to ask if anyone else was injured or was he going to die."

Bryan was on a July 28, 2006, night mission six weeks before he was to come home from his second Iraqi tour of duty. It was a year and two months since he and Cheryl moved their wedding date to marry before he deployed.
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Knoxville couple’s battle with effects of war isn't over