Sunday, August 17, 2003

By Cindi Lash, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Blood spurted from his shattered legs and from dozens of small gashes all over his body. More blood streamed from wounds on his head and down on his face.

	Sam Ross with his aunt, Libby Ross, with whom he lives. (Doreena Balestreire, Post-Gazette)

When he cried out that he couldn't see, his frantic buddies poured bottled water over him to wash away the red ooze that matted his hair and eyelashes. But by then, Army Pfc. Sam Ross was aware of only one thing: the wave of pain so intense he was sure he would not live through it.

"I was supposed to be dead. I thought I was actually dead," Ross said, recalling the chaotic moments in May after a live bomblet blew up in front of him in a Baghdad lot while he worked with other U.S. soldiers to disarm and destroy it.

"I said my last words to the guys, words we'll never repeat to anyone," he said. "But the guys with me did exactly what they needed to do for me and they kept me alive."

Against the odds, 20-year-old Sam Ross stayed alive despite injuries so grave that Army doctors expected him to die in a matter of hours.

He forced himself to stay conscious while other soldiers tied a tourniquet around what was left of his left leg and cried out prayers for the chance to get him onto a medical helicopter. He made it through flights to a mobile Army hospital, then on to a hospital in Spain and to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C., even though his lungs had collapsed.

He hung on through 14 surgeries, a serious bout of pneumonia and the depression that threatened to swamp him when he learned that he was blind, then later that his left leg had been amputated and that he was partially deaf. Now the former Army paratrooper and combat engineer is back in Fayette County, where he is no longer just hanging on to his life but is determined to create a different, but equally productive one.

"Sure, I cry about it. I yell. But [the injuries] happened and I have to deal with it," he said this month while recuperating at the home of his aunt, Libby Ross, 41, of Dunbar.

"I know guys who died over there. And when I was at Walter Reed, I could've ended up like that; but I didn't," he said. "I try to take my sorrow and just get rid of it because feeling sorry for myself isn't going to get me anywhere."

'Hero of Fayette County'

Ross, who turned 21 today, returned in late July to the rural hilltop where he'd grown up after spending two months undergoing surgeries, treatments and therapy at Walter Reed.

For a time, his hospital room was next to that of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the former POW who'd become the best-known U.S. soldier of the war after her capture and rescue from an Iraqi hospital.

Unlike Lynch, Ross did not come home to international fanfare that drew hundreds of media representatives and well-wishers to his tiny town. No television networks broke into regular programming to document his reunions with relatives and friends, and they probably won't show up for the comparatively modest parade in Dunbar and ceremony at the nearby Fayette County Fairgrounds that his neighbors are throwing for him and other local service people next Sunday.

Ross doesn't care.

He begrudges Lynch none of the fame, the gifts or the offers of cars and scholarships she's received, saying she suffered, too, from her injuries and from the deaths of comrades from her Army unit. He's grateful that his community recognizes his service, and he's urging families of other soldiers to join him Sunday so that their loved ones are honored as well.

"Someone wrote a letter to the editor [of a local newspaper] and said that Jessica Lynch may be the hero of the war, but that I was a hero of Fayette County," he said. "That hit a nerve with me ... made me feel good that people think about other soldiers, too."

Besides, he's too busy going to physical therapy every day, perfecting his gait with his new prosthetic leg and preparing to attend a three-month rehabilitation program in Chicago where he'll learn to live on his own.

"In my mind, there are things I want to do, but I don't know now what I will be able to do," he said. "People have [lived with blindness] before. I guess I can do it, too."

Poverty, religious piety

Growing up on what's known locally as Hardy Hill, Ross thought about becoming a teacher, or maybe a park ranger. Graduating with honors two years ago from Connellsville Area High School, he looked around at what is one of Pennsylvania's poorest counties and saw little opportunity to make that happen.

His father and namesake was in jail, serving a life term for killing his wife in 1999. His mother, who was not married to his father, was estranged. His grandfather and aunt, with whom he'd lived, had made him their own but didn't have money lying around for college.

"I was no saint when I was younger," he said. "I stayed off drugs and I stayed off alcohol for the most part, but I had my share of problems with my family. But I knew I needed to do something with my life, not be a bum sitting around doing nothing."

He worked for a while in a machine shop and spent some time with an aunt in Texas, looking for better job opportunities. Then a military television show on The History Channel hooked him long enough to sit through the credits.

The next day, he was searching for an Army recruiter to sign up for a shot at an education, a career and a fulfilling life. Ross was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina with the 82nd Airborne Division's 307th Engineering Battalion before shipping out in February for Iraq.

Ross' speech grows animated when he talks about learning to jump out of airplanes, about the buddies he made, about earning a place in a famed division that stands ready to be anywhere in the world in 18 hours.

His job as a sapper, or combat engineer, required him to install mine fields or other obstacles to hamper the advance of enemy troops and to remove mines, explosives or other obstacles impeding U.S. infantry. It was dangerous work, but he believed his extensive training had left him well prepared.

Ross arrived in Kuwait on Feb. 14, where he and his unit spent more than a month training. They moved into southern Iraq in late March, heading first to an air base in Talil before spending two weeks moving and fighting their way north.

They reached Karbala in time to observe the Haj, or annual pilgrimage of Muslims to holy Islamic shrines. Ross was both shocked by the poverty and rustic conditions he saw in some areas and impressed by the ancient culture and religious piety of the Muslim pilgrims around him.

He also was stunned by the political and social restrictions under which Iraqi citizens lived while under the rule of Saddam Hussein.

"People here don't realize how good they have it, with all the personal freedom we have," he said.

Meritorious service

After arriving in Baghdad, Ross spent about a month collecting and defusing bomblets and shells that had been dropped from airplanes but hadn't exploded in combat. On May 18, he and five other soldiers were removing cone-shaped bomblets, each about 4 inches long, from a field in southwestern Baghdad where local children had been killed by the deadly objects.

One by one, Ross picked up about 20 bomblets with a shovel and slid them into a hole for demolition. The next one blew him off his feet and 30 feet into the air. Bits of shrapnel also injured another soldier and a bystander slightly, but Ross took most of the impact.

His comrades later told Ross that he lay screaming on the ground, but he doesn't remember. He only recalls saying, "I'm sorry," over and over because he felt he'd let them down.

"The people around me were pretty hysterical. When you spend all those months together, you're pretty close," he said. "But they were all trained in first aid and they saved my life, no question."

At a military hospital in Rota, Spain, and later at Walter Reed, doctors found that shrapnel had nearly sheared off Ross' left leg, leaving it gangrenous and forcing them to amputate it. Debris also had torn through his right calf, leaving a fist-sized hole.

His eyesight was gone in one eye; the other registered only light and darkness despite surgeries to reattach his retinas and transplant a cornea. His left eardrum was punctured, his skull was fractured and his sinuses were smashed. His skin looked like Swiss cheese, pierced in dozens of places by more splinters of shrapnel.

Libby Ross, who'd been listed as her nephew's next of kin, rushed to Walter Reed to meet him when he arrived four days later, only to be warned that Sam was likely to die within 72 hours. She was shocked, but didn't believe it.

Sam was unconscious for 36 days, then was "in and out" groggy for another week. He didn't fully realize he was blind until Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Walter Reed and stopped in his room to say, "God bless you for what you've done."

"It tore a hole in me when they told me about my leg. But now I'd let them cut off my arms and legs for my sight," he said, adding that he was not optimistic about ever regaining it.

At Walter Reed, Ross was awarded the Purple Heart for his injuries as well as a commendation medal for exceptionally meritorious service. He stores them in a keepsake box with a U.S. flag, photographs and other treasures from his time in the service. He has retired from the Army, and will receive a pension that will cover his day-to-day needs.

But Sam Ross isn't just sitting around waiting to collect it. He's mastered bathing, dressing and other personal tasks on his own and is learning to eat without assistance. He stays in touch by telephone with Army friends, and he jokes about hoping to meet a pretty blond lady around his own age.

After completing his rehabilitation course, he expects to undergo at least four more surgeries to repair his sinuses and a damaged finger. Then he'll figure out what kind of career will best suit his abilities. One day, he plans to live independently in his own house on property he owns across the road from his aunt.

"Sometimes, it all makes me sad, but there's a lot of guys out there like me or worse than me," he said. "But I feel that I'm somebody who can [accomplish things], and tell my children some stories some day and have them look at me and say, 'Dad, you're an awesome dad.' "

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