Healing the wounds of Vietnam- Injured Marine hailed as a hero

Parma- Sirens blasted in the distance. "Welcome home" signs rose above the crowd. Children frantically waved American and Marine Corps flags.

More than 200 people paced the sidewalk looking at their watches. It was almost time. When a police motorcade appeared in the distance, a woman screamed, "He’s here."

A wounded Priestly returned from Iraq to a hero’s welcome on Saturday, as well-wishers - many wearing T-shirts bearing a photo of the Marine - crowded his Brookdale Avenue neighborhood for a surprise greeting.

Priestley emerged from a van with tears in his eyes. He eased his injured body from the vehicle and slid in a wheelchair as cheers grew louder. His right leg was in a brace.

"Thank you, everybody," Priestley shouted, before adding a hearty Marine shout of "Hoo-aah."

While people clambered to the front of the crowd, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Cleveland Democrat, presented Priestley with a congressional declaration for his service to the country.

Many at the homecoming did not know Priestley but wanted to show support for U.S service members in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We have a chance to honor a hero today," said Greg Chizmar, an attorney from Parma. "It should be bigger."

Priestley’s lucky to be alive. On May 7, he nearly died while deployed in Iraq with the 3rd Battalion, 25th Regiment, 4th Marine Division attached to the 2nd Marine Division.

His unit came under enemy mortar fire while patrolling north of Baghdad near the Haditha Dam. Priestley, a small-arms repairman bored with weapons maintenance in a security facility, had volunteered for the patrol.

He wanted in on the action.

While on patrol, a radio call warned Priestley’s unit that insurgents were behind their convoy of four Humvees, two armored personnel carriers and two tanks. The men scrambled out of their vehicles.

"It was a calm, peaceful night," Priestley said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where he was treated before returning to Ohio. "Then it all turned to hell."

A vehicle loaded with artillery shells crashed into the Humvee that Priestley had just exited. The explosion knocked Priestley to the ground, leaving him stunned.

As he came to his senses, he surveyed the scene.

He knew the others in his Humvee were dead.

Priestley reached for his shrapnel-shredded legs but grabbed nothing but bone. He put his M-16 rifle on his chest and yelled for a corpsman.

Other Marines arrived and yanked him to safety. He yelled in pain for them to stop because it felt as if his leg bone was being dragged across the ground.

"It was rough," he said. "There wasn’t much holding my legs together."

He was placed inside a personnel carrier, where another wounded Marine needed a tourniquet to stop his bleeding. There was only one, and it was on Priestley’s leg. Priestley applied pressure with his hand to the other Marine’s legs to prevent him from bleeding to death.

Back at the base, Priestley was mobilized and airlifted to a hospital in Iraq. From there, he was taken to a military hospital in Germany and then back to this country - all within three days.

"The flight [to the United States] was rough," he said. "I had a lot of morphine."

He knew his wife would be contacted and given few details.

"I didn’t want her to be mad," he said, referring to his volunteering for combat.

Priestley had ordered roses for Lisa that arrived at their home on May 7, the day before Mother’s Day - and the day he was hurt.

Lisa Priestley and her kids gathered at her mother’s house for breakfast on May 8. She returned home and played a phone message that said her husband had been injured. There were no details.

"I lost my stomach," she said. "It fell to the floor."

Later, she learned her husband had an open fracture to his leg. Priestley called his wife from Germany and said he didn’t think his leg could be saved. He felt guilty because Lisa had asked him to stop volunteering for these missions.

"He kept saying he was sorry," she said.

Lisa Priestley mentally prepared herself for the worst. She walked into his room at Bethesda and saw his two feet sticking out of the bed.

"I wanted to cry," she said.

Priestley, who lost 30 pounds while hospitalized, is determined to walk again. Doctors transplanted a section of rib muscle into his right ankle during one of his 12 surgeries. He faces the prospect of at least six more operations.

"I want to be able to pull my kids in a wagon and play catch with them," he said. "It’s gonna be a long haul."

While people lined up Saturday to hug and kiss Priestley in his driveway, his sons Garett, 5, and Tyler, 18 months, waited in the arms of family members.

Priestley’s father, Jim, took it all in from the rear of the crowd.

"It’s great to have him here," he said. "It’s icing on the cake that he’s come home alive on Father’s Day."

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This time let’s remember who the real criminals are...

...and from now on to show our appreciation, let’s promise to only use our military to defend the country which is what they signed up for.