Soldier's Brand

At Fort Campbell, KY, Gunner prepares for his fifth tour in a war zone. A branded cross marks his right shin. A brand. Not a tattoo. Gunner's Mom, a rural Tennessee mountain of a woman, works as a home health care aide.

On Tuesday, my mother was one of her many charges. Mom is recovering from a knee replacement. I didn't expect to have much interaction with Gunner's Mom. But she works carefully and makes the time to talk with families. 

That's how the brand came up. Five years ago, in a war zone, Gunner scratched a cross with "Jesus Saves" into the door of a Humvee. A week later, an enemy combatant blew up the vehicle as it traveled with a full crew including Gunner. 

The blast mangled Gunner's right thigh and propelled him to the ground. Munitions inside the Humvee caught fire and exploded causing the red-hot, cross-etched door to burst free. It landed on Gunner. The cross he made then seared into his flesh, just inches below his wound.

In Germany, doctors patched Gunner together. Surgeons at Walter Reed Army Hospital rebuilt Gunner's thigh with a titanium rod. His mother says, Jesus kept him from losing his leg with its cross. The medical care made him well enough to go back to where he wanted to be, in the war zone. 

Gunner's Mom explains: Gunner believes that soldiers are all that stands between America's sworn enemies and civilians. And soldiering is in his blood. Though she also thinks the Army brainwashes its young soldiers so they won't quit.

The emotions run deep in Gunner's Mom. Others were less fortunate when the Humvee exploded. Gunner pulled one soldier friend--on fire--from the wreck. He survived with 85 percent of his body burned.

And there's the dead lieutenant. Sitting near the front of the Humvee, in an instant she became the 90th female solider killed in that war. She was the commanding officer and Gunner's friend, notes his mom.

Mother to mother, she keeps in touch with the lieutenant's mother, who lives five states away in Colorado.

"She is not doing well," says Gunner's Mom. "In the summer, she has horses to take care for and can get outside.  In the winter, when it gets cold and with all that snow, it's hard."