Major Update on Andrew

Yesterday, while many of us were in the midst of a muted celebration of the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarkawi, my brothers hummer was hit by an IED. He sustained minor burns to his face (sorry ladies), a broken nose, and some shrapnel in his leg. His driver suffered a compound fracture, and they were both taken to a hospital in Baghdad for treatment. After the preliminary work was done on Andrew this morning, it appears that there was some nerve damage done and Andrew will have to live with the shrapnel in his leg for the rest of this life. As of now, he doesn't have use of his leg below the knee, but I can't speak to the long-term prognosis for him other than that there will be considerable rehabilitation needed. What we do know, with relative certainty, is that because of the nerve damage in his leg his first tour in Iraq is over.

I still have some hesitation actually writing those words, because with the whirlwind of this morning I can't believe what I just heard. But I asked Andrew twice (we talked to him on the phone), and he said that to the best of his knowledge it's the truth.

Tomorrow he will fly to Germany with his driver. From there he will make his way to Walter Reed hospital in Washington before finally ending up back in Fort Carson. The timeline for this is unclear, but we hope to have more information later. My brother did make it clear that he'll walk across the country on crutches if he has to in order to make the Cubs games at the end of June.

So, that's the basic outline as we currently understand it, and we will hopefully have more later.