Mary Herrera, 27, Somerton, Ariz.
Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to join the Army. I grew up in a very patriotic home. I think that my parents and grandparents instilled in me the desire to join the service because, while our roots are in Mexico, they were so proud to be Americans.
I enlisted in the National Guard at 19 and was deployed to Iraq in March of 2003, when I was 22. I was an MP (a military police officer) so we were taking the prisoners of war and moving those who were tagged al Qaeda to Abu Ghraib, the military prison. On November 8, 2003, I was sitting in the turret of my tank, manning a grenade launcher, when we were ambushed. I felt a pinch on my right bicep, like I'd been flicked with a finger. I didn't know what it was, but it didn't hurt enough for me to stop firing my weapon. A few seconds later, I got hit in the forearm. I figured it was blown off, but I didn't look because I didn't want to panic. I secured my weapon with my left hand and ducked down to get my head out of the cross fire.
Two rounds of an AK-47 had broken my arm and blown the ulna and radius out of my forearm. I was treated in several different hospitals in Iraq, then in a U.S. Army hospital in Germany, and I was back home by Thanksgiving, at a hospital in the United States. My arm was almost amputated three times, but I got to keep it, though it doesn't work very well. Most of my physical therapy has been about learning to be left-hand dominant. It's hard to remember that there are some things I can't do anymore. Like if I'm carrying groceries in my left hand and I want to open my front door, I can't just shift the bag to my other hand, I have to put the bag down. This kind of thing used to upset me, but now I mostly laugh--after all this time, I still forget that I don't have full use of that arm!
Once I was finally able to return home to recuperate, it was great to spend time with my parents, siblings, nieces and nephews. But honestly, being medically discharged from the Army was the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. I just never believed my injury was so bad. I thought, it's a gunshot wound, they'll fix it up. In fact, I wanted them to send me back immediately. My company was still in Iraq, and it felt wrong to be enjoying the comforts of American life, sleeping in a clean bed with no sand, while the rest of my guys were in Iraq. I was in a cast after surgery and I said to the doctor, "Send me back and I'll just man the radio." He replied, "Are you crazy? You have skin grafts, you already have an infection; it's not a good idea."
But being in the military was all I ever wanted to do. I never had a plan B. Even today, whenever I go back to the hospital and I see all those kids in uniform, I still wonder, Do they love it as much as I did? Do they have as much pride as I had when I put on that uniform?
It doesn't bother me that public opinion has turned against the war. When you join the military, you take an oath to protect and defend the country, whether or not you agree. But I'm glad that people can have their opinions, whatever they are, and I'm proud that I got injured protecting our freedom. I would do it again.
Right now I'm trying to get back into the Army. I would love to go back to Iraq. I can still fire a weapon with my left hand. But in case that doesn't work out, I just finished a bachelor's degree in social psychology, and I plan to be a social worker for soldiers just coming back from Iraq. I can help them realize they're not alone, and that even if they feel like they've wanted to do one thing for their entire lives and that they're not good at anything else, they'll find something else. That's my plan B.