DEAN J. KOEPFLER/THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Capt. Timothy Ozmer, a member of the Washington State
National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team, shows an X-ray
of the titanium screws and tubing that stabilize his back.
Ozmer is returning to duty in Iraq five months after his injury.
Titanium spine, iron will, big heart
ADAM LYNN;
The News Tribune
Capt. Timothy Ozmer, a member of the Washington State National Guard’s 81st Brigade Combat Team, shows an X-ray of the titanium screws and tubing that stabilize his back. Ozmer is returning to duty in Iraq five months after his injury.
Timothy Ozmer has good reasons to stay home.
There are the titanium tube and rods holding his spine together, a reminder that the place he’s headed is increasingly violent. There are his wife and two little girls, who already have had to say goodbye to him twice in the past 11 months.
But Ozmer, a captain in the Washington National Guard, will board an airplane at Sea-Tac Airport on Monday and fly back to Iraq. He rejoins the 81st Brigade Combat Team, which is only a few months from finishing its yearlong deployment in the Middle East.
It’s been five months since Ozmer broke his back when an insurgent’s bomb exploded under his Humvee outside Logistical Support Area Anaconda near Balad.
It was an injury severe enough that he could stay out of combat for the rest of his time in the Army.
“I had to push it to get to go back,” he said.
His return comes just days before Iraqis hold their first parliamentary elections in decades – a vote insurgents have vowed to disrupt with violence.
“I wish he could have waited until after the elections, but that’s the way it is,” said Connie, his wife of 16 years.
Ozmer, 37, a Milton resident, made a pledge to himself just days after the Aug. 4 explosion that wounded him, killed one 81st Brigade soldier and wounded two others: He would return to his troops if at all possible.
“My guys are still over there,” he said last week as he made final preparations for his journey. “As long as my unit is forward deployed and I’m medically cleared for duty, I have no business being back here.”
There are selfish reasons as well, he said – reasons that some people might not understand.
“I guess I need to prove to myself that I can still get in the truck and go outside the wire,” said Ozmer, who joined the Army in August 1986 and has had active-duty or National Guard status ever since. Before deployment, he wrote curricula for Army online training courses.
His wife said she understands his decision, even though she doesn’t like it.
“He’s very committed and he worries a lot about his guys,” she said. “If I were him, I’d probably do the same thing.”
‘Six is hit’
The bomb that nearly crippled Ozmer exploded at 5:42 p.m.
“I know,” he said, “because I had just looked at my watch.”
His Humvee was leading another back to Anaconda after several hours on patrol in the dusty farm country that surrounds the huge supply hub 50 miles north of Baghdad.
More than 20,000 coalition troops are deployed at Anaconda, including nearly 1,200 81st Brigade soldiers.
The heavily armored rig, driven by Spc. John West of Federal Way, was rolling down a dirt road alongside a canal when one of the front wheels ran over a piece of plywood buried in the dust.
The plywood was connected to a pressure-triggered detonator. The detonator was attached to three anti-tank mines stacked on top of each other.
The explosion flipped Ozmer’s rig – designated No. 6 on that day’s patrol – onto its roof.
Sgt. Chris Edwards, trailing in the second Humvee, saw the blast and radioed, “Six is hit” back to Anaconda before the sound of the explosion reached him several hundred meters away.
The blast ruptured the engine block of Ozmer’s rig, spraying him and West with battery acid and motor oil.
Ozmer’s seat detached from the floor and crashed onto the upturned ceiling, shattering his L-4 vertebrate into tiny pieces.
“When I saw the X-ray later,” Ozmer said, “it looked like space junk.”
West, a software programmer in civilian life, was crushed by the dashboard and crumpled frame. His back was broken in two places, his pelvis fractured and his leg snapped, Ozmer said. He is still recovering at home in Federal Way.
Spc. Donald McCune, who was riding in the gunner’s hatch on the roof, was thrown clear in the blast. McCune, 20, of Yplsilanti, Mich., later died of his wounds.
Only Sgt. Robert Johnson, a sniper who was riding in the seat behind West, escaped without serious wounds, although he too suffered a back injury. Johnson was awarded the Bronze Star for his response, which included using his bare hands to dig West out of the rig.
“It all seemed to happen pretty quick,” Ozmer said.
Willing a recovery
Getting back on his feet was a long time coming.
First there was surgery and a nearly monthlong recovery at Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center in Germany, where a doctor fused his spine with titanium. Then there was a weeklong convalescence at Madigan Army Medical Center at Fort Lewis.
Then came four months of physical therapy to restore strength and flexibility to his back. He spent hours on exercise machines, he stretched, he ran laps at the Puyallup YMCA with his body armor strapped to his torso.
“Every week it gets a little bit better, but I still have trouble touching my toes,” Ozmer said.
Then there was the campaign to return to duty.
Ozmer said he began lobbying the surgeon in Germany even before his operation was scheduled.
The doctor told him he’d have to see how the surgery went, Ozmer said. In the worst case, he’d be medically discharged from the Army. The best case: With work, he’d be able to go back to the battlefield.
In his mind, Ozmer focused on the best case and began working to make it happen.
“There are things I refuse to give up,” he said. “It’s all about choices. It hardened my resolve about things. You can do what you choose to do.”
But there was still Connie to convince. The Army flew her to Landstuhl shortly after his surgery.
“I started in on her almost as soon as she landed,” Ozmer said.
She wasn’t thrilled about the idea of his going back and still isn’t.
“If I would have my choice, I’d prefer he didn’t go,” Connie Ozmer said last week.
In the end, after talking to her husband about who he is and what he wants to be, she relented, she said.
“She has stuck right beside me through all of this the whole time,” Ozmer said. “I have a lot to be thankful for.”
The Ozmers are celebrating their 16th wedding anniversary today.
Escalating violence before the vote
Still, Connie Ozmer has doubts about her husband’s timing. He will arrive in Iraq a few days before next Sunday’s parliamentary elections.
Violence across the nation has increased in recent weeks as insurgents try to disrupt the vote. Attacks in cities where 81st Brigade troops are deployed – Baghdad, Mosul, Balad – have spiked in the last month, and the violence is expected to get worse in the coming days.
“There’s no doubt about that,” Ozmer said.
The scout platoon he commanded before his injury traveled to Mosul earlier this month to reinforce thousands of Fort Lewis-based troops already there. The U.S.-led coalition has poured troops into the northern city in an effort to quell violence in advance of the elections.
Insurgents have detonated at least five car bombs at coalition checkpoints in the area since Jan. 1.
On Thursday, Stryker soldiers from Fort Lewis opened fire on a car that did not heed signals to stop as it approached their patrol. Two Iraqis in the front seat were killed. Six children riding in back were not hurt.
In e-mails home, Ozmer’s troops describe Mosul as “the Wild West.”
But Ozmer probably will spend election day in Baghdad. His current orders call for him to join his parent unit – the 1st Battalion, 303rd Armor – at Camp Victory near Baghdad International Airport. The 1-303rd provides security on the perimeter of Victory and runs patrols and civil affairs missions in some nearby neighborhoods.
Another 81st Brigade unit – the 1st Battalion, 161st Infantry Regiment – also is in Baghdad, guarding the Green Zone and running combat operations in the city’s eastern suburbs.
On Thursday, four car bombs exploded in Baghdad, killing more than 20 Iraqis. On Friday, two bombings killed 20-plus more.
The increasing violence doesn’t faze Ozmer.
“I wish I could have been over there a month ago,” he said.
A promise to a 5-year-old
The hard part is preparing to leave his family for the third time since February 2004.
That’s when he first left home for training in California before deploying to Iraq. He was also home briefly on emergency leave in June when his mother fell ill.
During his convalescent leave, he shuttled his girls to gymnastics and swim practice, read to them at night and treated them to lunch at McDonald’s.
Now, he’s leaving again for what could be months.
His youngest daughter, 3-year-old Elizabeth, is too young to understand, Ozmer said. Lately, though, he’s had some long talks with his eldest daughter, 5-year-old Emily, who isn’t happy.
“She associates Iraq with being hurt,” Ozmer said. “When I tell her about some of my friends over there, she asks, ‘Have they been hurt yet?’”
The two reached an understanding recently, Ozmer said, when he promised to try to be home by her April 3 birthday. The brigade is scheduled to return home this spring.
It will be a long three months, his wife said, but it would have been a long three months had he stayed.
“For his mental well-being, I think it’s probably best for him to go, the little turkey,” Connie Ozmer said.
And her well-being?
“I left that at the beginning of the deployment,” she said, “and I’ll pick it up at the end of it.”
Thanks to Willie for passing this along.
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