Wounded NH Soldier Reunites with Family, Recalls Al-Qaida Shootout
WASHINGTON, March 16–Like many 21 year-olds, Army Pvt. Kyle McGovern of Merrimack likes to watch television sitcoms, smoke cigarettes and play basketball; but he has something few his age can boast: a Purple Heart medal for the injuries he sustained on March 2 in Operation Anaconda, the massive 12-day offensive that drove al-Qaida operatives from Afghanistan’s Shahikot Valley.
Sitting in his hospital bed in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. on Saturday with his parents and 23 year-old sister Keely by his side, McGovern relived the battle during which he was hit by shrapnel that severed two of his toes on his right foot.
“It happened pretty fast,” he said about the first eighteen-hours of Operation Anaconda’s first battle, when the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division inadvertently landed in an al-Qaida stronghold.
“We landed on the first morning, when it was dark,” he said. “Even though [al-Qaida fighters] like to blow up helicopters, they let the helicopters leave. Then they started firing on us pretty heavy.”
“We were on really, really big mountains with snow” near the Shahikot village in southwestern Afghanistan, he said. “Under it was hard, packed dirt, like clay. The whole time we were on a slant and all we had for cover were hard plants that look like tumbleweed in the ground.”
After only about three hours of fighting off rocket-propelled grenades, McGovern was hit by shrapnel from mortar that fell two feet behind him.
“I was lifted up and put on my stomach,” he said, as he leaned forward in his hospital bed to scratch around the soft cast on his right leg with a metal grabbing device. “It was just like in the movies – my eardrums were blasted, my vision was blurry and it seemed like everything was going slow mo. My finger was covered in blood and my legs were hurting. My squad leader said to move and I ran over to get assessed. Then the mortar tube next to us was destroyed. We had to keep moving because of the mortar, before I finally got to the helicopter.”
McGovern did not know the seven U.S. soldiers who died in the battle. His platoon of 26 people was a part of a large company of approximately 100 people.
Standing next to her son in his snug single hospital room flanked with flowers, fruit baskets and honorary coins delivered by dignitaries including Bob Dole, Debbie McGovern, Kyle’s mother, said she’s happy to see her son for the first time in five months.
“We got here yesterday and stayed the evening with him,” she said. “We had to buy him clothes, because all of his stuff is still in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.”
McGovern, a former soccer and basketball player, said the doctors have assured him he’ll eventually walk normally on his right foot, which is missing two toes and had to be screwed together. “They showed me an x-ray and the foot bones weren’t all together but spread apart,” he said. “But I didn’t loose my big toe or end toes, so that’s good.”
Doctors are discussing whether to give McGovern prosthetic toes or removable foam to put in his shoes. In the meantime he does physical therapy to strengthen his leg and occupational therapy to return movement to his right index finger, which has two gashes, for one hour a day. He hopes to soon put weight on his left leg, which is now in a brace.
McGovern went from a field hospital in Afghanistan to hospitals in Uzbekistan, Turkey and Germany before arriving at Walter Reed on March 8.
McGovern does not know if he’ll be given a medical discharge or return to duty in a non-combat role. Though has not decided if he will reenlist when his military contract expires in two years, he takes pride in how his platoon performed.
“My platoon sergeant and my platoon leader got hit at the same time and then the squad leaders just took right over,” he said. “I had to do some stuff with the radio as I was getting fired at, so I thought I did a good job with that.”
McGovern enlisted in 2001, two years after graduating from high school, because he “wasn’t doing much of anything,” he said. Now that he’s been overseas and seen battle, he said, he likes the military “even better.”
“I got to meet a lot of interesting generals,” he said.
“As soon as Kyle was here I called Rep. Sununu,” said Jack McGovern, Kyle’s father, “and the congressman called right back.”
“We contacted him because we wanted more recognition,” said Debbie McGovern. “It wasn’t so much about Kyle, but we wanted all of the wounded to get recognition.”
McGovern said he’s looking forward to going home to Merrimack, where he has an 18 year-old brother named Kelly.
Pointing his gripper at the small TV attached to his bed that receives basic cable, McGovern grinned, “I can’t wait to go home and watch satellite TV.”
Published in The Union Leader, in Manchester, New Hampshire
