As the last surviving squad of mech pilots, you must capture enemy equipment and facilities to level the playing field. Breed contributed to this report.Phantom Brigade is a hybrid real-time and turn-based tactical RPG, focusing on in-depth customization and player-driven stories. "I want to do as much as I can, as much as they'll let me."Īssociated Press reporter Allen G. But his dream is to attend the grueling Ranger school at Fort Benning, Ga., a serious challenge to even the most able-bodied soldier. He also must pass the fitness test for his age - run two miles in just under 16 minutes and do at least 42 push-ups and 53 sit-ups in two-minute stretches.įor now, he must content himself with a job maintaining M-16s and M-4s, machine guns and grenade launchers in his company's armory. Perez has to go before another medical fitness board to determine whether he will be allowed to jump again. The only thing that sets him apart at a glance is the white running shoe on his prosthetic leg. His uniform is sharply creased, his maroon beret sits at an exact angle above one eye and the black leather boot on his good leg gleams with a mirror shine. Today, Perez looks every bit the part of paratrooper - tall, in ripped-ab shape and serious-looking. Frank Christopher, the surgeon for the 82nd Airborne. "It isn't something that historically we've had to deal with a whole lot," says Lt. The military says it does not track the number who choose to stay in the service. Perez is one of about 160 service members who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan who have passed through Walter Reed's amputee patient program. In July, amputee program manager Chuck Scoville of Walter Reed told a congressional committee that amputations accounted for 2.4 percent of all wounded in action in the Iraq war - twice the rate in World Wars I and II. "I also think, deep down, it is a love for their other paratroopers." "I think it's a testimony to today's professional Army," says division commander Maj. He appealed three times before the fitness board allowed him to stay on. Daniel Metzdorf, lost his right leg above the knee in a Jan. Perez has to rise at least an hour earlier than his fellow soldiers to allow swelling from the previous day's training to subside enough for his stump to fit into the prosthetic.īut it is a comfort for Perez to know he's not alone.Īt least three other paratroopers in the 82nd have lost limbs in combat during the past two years and re-enlisted. He trained himself to walk normally with his new leg and then run with it. At one point, a visitor found him doing push-ups in bed. "If I could do everything like a regular soldier, I could stay in." "They told me, 'It's all up to you, how much you want it,' " he says. When he arrived at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., for his rehabilitation, Perez asked a pair of generals who visited his bedside if it was possible for him to stay in the Army. Perez was left with a rounded stump that fits into the suction cup of the black carbon-fiber prosthetic leg. "I was going to stay in no matter what," he recalls telling the surgeons. But an infection crept up his leg, and Perez agreed to allow the amputation below the knee joint. His size 12 1/2 combat boot stood in the dusty road a few feet away, still laced.Ī photograph of Perez's lonely boot transmitted around the world and spread across two pages of Time magazine became a stark reminder that the war in Iraq was far from over.ĭoctors initially tried to save part of Perez's foot. He saw that his left foot was folded backward onto his knee. Perez felt surprisingly little pain, but when he tried to get up, he couldn't. The blast killed one of Perez's comrades. Perez recalls flying through the air and hitting the ground hard. 14, 2003, Perez, of Carteret, N.J., and seven other members of his squad were rumbling down a road outside Fallujah when a bomb blast rocked their Humvee. With a new carbon-fiber prosthetic leg, Perez intends to show a medical board he can run an eight-minute mile, jump out of airplanes and pass all the other paratrooper tests that will allow him to go with his regiment to Afghanistan next year. Perez is one of at least four amputees from the elite 82nd Airborne Division to re-enlist. "I'm not going to let this little injury stop me from what I want to do." Perez, 21, lost his leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq more than a year ago, but despite the phantom pains that haunt him, he says he is determined to prove to the Army that he is no less of a man - and no less of a soldier. And sometimes, when he gets out of bed at night without thinking, he topples over. He's still plagued with nagging cramps in his calf muscle. George Perez still feels the sweat between his toes when he exercises.
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