BY DAN GERINGER
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Staff Writer
JERRY GRANTLAND grew up in Lansdowne, enlisted in the Army right out of Cardinal O'Hara High School, deployed to Iraq in 2003 and was on reconnaissance patrol in an armored personnel carrier when a roadside bomb exploded.
He wasn't wounded physically. But after eight months of hypervigilance in Iraq, always ready to run for cover from frequent mortar attacks, Grantland came home to a National Guard assignment in Texas, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
"I was driving 75 miles-an-hour on I-10 when I saw a couple of guys at the side of the road who looked like they were duct-taping something to the guardrail," said Grantland, now 28 and living in Roxborough.
"I slammed on my brakes and walked across three lanes of interstate highway toward them before I said to myself, 'You're an idiot. They're not taping a bomb to the guardrail.' I walked back to my car."
The "Bands of Brothers" concert will support Give an Hour, a national network of 6,500 licensed mental-health professionals who provide free therapy to veterans with PTSD and their families through giveanhour.org.
"No one's going to get kicked off the island on 'Bands of Brothers,' " said Give an Hour's founder, Dr. Barbara Van Dahlen. "The focus is on music and on healing."
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