Infignos Media - Glencoe soldier recovering from blast grateful for support

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Glencoe soldier recovering from blast grateful for support

Monday, June 18, 2012

A soldier from Glencoe is recovering after losing both of his legs in an explosion in Afghanistan. SPC Josh Wetzel, an Army paratrooper stationed at Fort Lewis in Washington state, was on routine foot patrol May 31 when he says a roadside bomb explosion sent him flying through the air. Wetzel says he remembers when it happened. "You know, once the explosion went off, and I went up in the air, flipped around and came back down, you know, I knew something completely wasn't right, you know?" Wetzel recalls.

"You're looking around at your friends thinking, all right, who's it going to happen to? You never look at yourself and think, well, this really could be me." Wetzel says he joked with his close friend, who was also the medic tending to him, even moments after the explosion. He says he made jokes about the prosthetic legs he'd get, and the medic had to tell him to quit joking and focus. Wetzel was taken to hospitals in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan, then to Germany, and finally to Walter Reed Medical Center in Betheseda, Maryland, where he's expected to be for months.

Despite a weekend setback--an X-ray revealed a blood clot on his lungs, causing a rapid heartbeat--Wetzel says he has made a lot of progress. Thursday, which he called his best day yet, saw Wetzel finally leave his bed for a wheelchair, with smartphone video appearing on Facebook.

Back home in Etowah County, Wetzel's war-related injuries have captured the attention of family, friends, even people who don't know him. A Facebook page, Prayers for Josh Wetzel, has attracted more than 9,000 "likes." Wetzel graduated from Glencoe High School, where he had played baseball. He also continued the sport at Gadsden State Community College and Young Harris College. For a time he worked for the City of Glencoe as a lifeguard at the city pool, among other duties from the parks and recreation department.

Friends and family say they're not surprised by his quick progress. Robbie Davis, a close friend who graduated with Wetzel from Glencoe in 2005, recalls the young man who explored woods and played baseball with him. "He was always a guy who had an idea. 'Hey coach Rob, let's try this, let's do this, let's do that. Let's do something.' You know, he always an idea. And the way he's been recovering so far doesn't surprise me at all, you know." His uncle, Phillip Hayes, recalls the shock upon getting the news of Wetzel's injuries, saying, "I couldn't breathe...Our athlete was going to wake up in a strange hospital without his legs and without anyone he knows." But he added, "When the emotional smoke cleared, what we as a family needed to know was that our Josh was still there. And he was. And he has just been amazing." Wetzel kept up with the Facebook phenemenon with an iPad bought for him by family members. He also kept up with fundraisers, including a block party at the Briarmeade Village Shopping Center and word is his old league, the Glencoe Dixie Youth Baseball, raised more than $1,500 for expenses of family members who are staying with Wetzel in Maryland. "And I would love to see everybody that's ever prayed for me, done anything for me, and would love to see and shake hands with anybody, I'll hug their necks," Wetzel told his uncle. "And I just want them to know that they're heroes too, you know. They're my heroes."

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Keywords: Glencoe, wounded soldier, Afghanistan, explosion, SPC Josh Wetzel, Etowah County,

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