Team Apache home, alive and well

[unhappycamper]

Team Apache home, alive and well
By Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Wednesday, February 27, 2008

HOHENFELS, Germany — A bullet in the brain didn’t stop Staff Sgt. Matthew Ritenour from coming here to welcome home fellow soldiers from Team Apache on Monday night.

Ritenour was shot in the head Sept. 4 in a firefight with the Taliban in Zabul province, Afghanistan, while serving with Team Apache (Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment).

Since then, he’s been in the U.S. recuperating from the injury that partially paralyzed him. But he fought hard to get well enough to travel to Germany to welcome his unit home, he said.

From his right side or the front, Ritenour looks unscathed. But on his left, you can see scar tissue around the hole where the bullet entered his skull, and two larger scars in the shape of a cross, where the surgeon opened Ritenour’s head to remove bullet and bone fragments.

“I’ve got a way to go, but my rehab is going good,” said Ritenour, 32, who has had physical, speech, occupational and psychological therapy in recent months.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52864