Injured Granby Marine returns for care in D.C.
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The Granby Marine injured in a bomb blast in Afghanistan last week arrived on U.S. soil Friday to start a long medical rehabilitation.
Sgt. Joshua J. Bouchard was admitted to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., after flying in late Friday afternoon from the Landstuhl Medical Center near Frankfurt, Germany.
His parents and step-mother also returned Friday from Germany, where they spent much of this week providing emotional support as Bouchard underwent repeated surgeries and began to come to terms with his injuries.
Bouchard, 26, lost his left leg below the knee and suffered a serious back injury and other wounds when an improvised explosive device went off near his lead position with a Marine convoy in southern Afghanistan. His brigade was taking part in a coalition offensive designed to retake territory from the Taliban.
Irene Bouchard, the Marine's sister, spoke to her brother by telephone Thursday, then was on hand in Washington, D.C., to welcome him home Friday.
Though he was groggy from anesthesia administered for surgery Thursday, Irene Bouchard said her brother spoke of his condition and asked about her children, 3-year-old Kegan John and 5-month-old Caeden Cottrell-Bouchard. "He sounded like himself. It was nice."
At the U.S. medical center in Germany, surgical teams labored in a marathon session Monday to rebuild Bouchard's lower back.
According to family accounts, the surgery involved three separate teams that worked for 15 hours to remove bone fragments and shrapnel from Bouchard's lower back, as well as reconstruct two severely damaged vertebrae. A nerve in Bouchard's right arm used to control his hand was also compromised in the explosion.
As of late this week, hope remained that Bouchard, despite the back injury, would be able to walk with a prosthesis. While vertebrae were badly damaged and some nerves had to be repaired, his spinal cord had not been severed, family members say.
Bouchard told his family in Germany that he remembers the blast and recalls crawling away from where he landed, after being blown off the top of his armored vehicle. Two Marines in the same vehicle were killed in the attack and another was injured.
John Kelley, of Holyoke, a family friend, was in touch by telephone with Joshua's father, James Bouchard, of Granby, in Germany this week.
"The military was great in bringing everybody in," he said of the arrangements that got James and his wife, Sue, as well as Bouchard's mother, Maryann Hafford, of Harwinton, Conn., to Germany. "The motive is for them to give emotional support."
Kelley has known Joshua Bouchard for more than a decade, he said. "He's the nicest kid. He's polite and thoughtful and considerate - and very patriotic."
When his family arrived at Landstuhl, Joshua Bouchard reportedly greeted them with the line, "Welcome to Germany."
Joshua Bouchard, a 2001 graduate of Amherst Regional High School, was on his second deployment to Afghanistan with the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division of the II Marines Expeditionary Brigade, based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to Frank Real, public relations officer with the Marine Corps League.
He had been sent twice to Iraq and recently re-enlisted in the Marines.
