The Times Herald December 13, 2009
Soldiering on
By Keith Phucas
EAST NORRITON — Army Sgt. John Sabo survived two tours of duty in Iraq, but was paralyzed after a fall from a third-story dormitory balcony at Fort Hood a month before the massacre there.
The East Norriton man, who is 26, has been hospitalized in Texas undergoing treatment and was slated to come home this weekend, according to his mother Kristine Carcarey, who directs a nursing program in Philadelphia. Carcarey has made two trips to Texas to be by her son’s side since the Oct. 8 fall.
But on Dec. 6, Sabo was fighting off an infection that spiked his temperature to 106 degrees and was in the ER at Scott and White Hospital in Round Rock.
“He looks like he’s jumped into a pool because he sweats,” she said. “He’s kind of taken a turn for the worst.”
As can happen with spinal cord injuries, Sabo’s lower half, which is paralyzed, is burning up, while his upper half feels chilled. His hip had swollen to twice its normal size, she said.
To complicate matters, because Sabo’s injury occurred at the military base and not on the battlefield, it was ruled a not-in-the-line-of-duty injury. As a result, unless the army’s decision is reversed, the soldier won’t get a full pension and will undoubtedly face costly medical treatments for years to come.
“It’s overwhelming,” Carcarey said.
Even before the accident, Sabo was trying to get out of the army where he’s spent the past eight years. He was in basic training when the terrorist hijackers attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 killing nearly 3,000. His first deployment was in Kosovo in 2002.
Two years later, Sabo was fighting insurgents entrenched in Fallujah, Iraq with Alpha Company’s Task Force 2-2 in Operation Phantom Fury. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 American troops launched the assault Nov. 8, 2004, according to globalsecurity.org.
The troops fought to regain control of the city from the enemy in the run-up to Iraq’s January 2005 national elections. Nearly all of Fallujah’s 300,000 civilians fled the city before the attack.
After six days of fierce fighting, the U.S. forces controlled most of the city by Nov. 13, but dangerous house-to-house clearing operations followed.
On Nov. 15, troops were still battling isolated pockets of insurgents dug in on the southern side of Fallujah, according to globalsecurity.org. Military officials confirmed tunnels had been dug under the city that connected an underground bunker and tunnels to a ring of buildings filled with weapons that included anti-aircraft artillery guns. That day, troops attacked the bunker.
House-to-house operations were slow, because troops feared booby-traps. Officials said troops generally entered houses only after tanks rammed through walls or specialists blasted open doors with explosives. Numerous weapons caches of small arms, munitions and bomb-making material were discovered. U.S. Military officials announced on Nov. 15, that 38 U.S. troops, six Iraqi soldiers and an estimated 1,200 insurgents had been killed. An estimated 275 U.S. troops were wounded.
Sabo, who was awarded a Bronze Star for the Fallujah battle, returned to Iraq for a second deployment in 2007.
In a poignant letter Carcarey wrote less than a week after her son’s fall two months ago, she observed the soldier’s “night terrors” firsthand as he slept. Sabo called out in the night and gestured with his hands as if treating wounded soldiers on the battlefield, “hanging IV bags and ringing out rags” to wipe the their blood.
Carcarey, who heads the nursing program at Genesis Healthcare’s Chapel Manor, said he lost friends in Iraq and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. She complained in the weeks after the accident that the military wasn’t doing enough to treat him.
“He’s only 26 years old, and he just wants his life back,” she said.
The East Norriton family is preparing to renovate the basement of their Denise Road home for Sabo to live in. That work could cost $60,000 or more.
“We just want to bring him home for Christmas,” she said.
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