Afghan bomb takes veteran's legs, but not his resolve

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Brian Brennan was leading a convoy of four vehicles into the Afghan village of Zambar to set up a meeting with village elders.

It was quiet the morning of May, 7, 2008.

Too quiet.

Brennan, 23 at the time, knew something was wrong, but canceling a meeting is taboo in Afghan culture, so he drove on.

He had a mission: to safely deliver a team of civilian operatives charged with reaching out to locals and learning more about the village's culture and needs. The Human Terrain team Brennan was delivering is a key component of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy of fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda by winning over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

"It was weird," Brennan says. "We were in that area all the time, and it was usually populated, but nobody was around that day. I knew something bad was going to happen, but in their culture, if you break an appointment, you disrespect them, and it is hard to regain their trust."

Brennan says he told his team to go slowly.

"I told them to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary," he says.

But they didn't see the roadside bomb.

Brennan's Humvee, which had taken the lead in the convoy, blew up. Two soldiers and a Human Terrain team member were killed. Only Brennan and his gunner, Spc. Ryan Price of California, survived.

Brennan was found in cardiac arrest. He had sustained an acute brain injury, a collapsed lung, internal bleeding, a ruptured spleen, multiple compound fractures of his left arm, and a shattered femur.

Both of his legs had to be amputated.

For many people, that would be the end of the story.

Not for Brennan.

It was the beginning of a long, arduous road to recovery that continues today as he participates in tonight's Honda Grand Prix 5-kilometer road race, where he will help raise funds for other wounded military personnel and disabled athletes in general. The event, which begins at 6:30 p.m., uses the downtown track race cars will follow for the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.

Brennan will be reunited with Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, which runs the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. While recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Brennan was visited by Petraeus on May 23, 2008. Brennan says he doesn't much remember that, but they talked again by phone July 4, 2008, and have since struck up what he terms an enduring friendship.

Petraeus, who is in the area for a conference at the University of South Florida, is scheduled to be with Brennan at the race today. He calls Brennan "an absolute hero.''

"His recovery has been a testament to his sheer force of will and indomitable spirit,'' Petraeus said. "It has been extraordinary to see him come back from being in a coma to being able to compete in a 5K race.''

Brennan, who was fitted with prosthetic legs and has been cleared to return to duty, says he wanted to run in the race, but he is not ready and will instead use a wheelchair.

Many people might think his recovery so far is amazing, but not Brennan.

"I am only up to two, 2½ miles of running," he says. "That is unacceptable."

A constant reminder

Brennan says that when he woke up from a coma at the hospital, he didn't know where he was.

"I thought I was still in combat," he says.

Until he looked down and realized his legs were gone.

Each day, he says, he went through the same routine: forget where he was, look down, see he had no legs and remember.

Because Brennan also had a brain injury, he was transferred to the polytrauma unit at the James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa, one of the nation's leading facilities for treating severely injured military personnel.

Brennan had a diffused axonal injury.

"Kind of a fancy medical term which means that all the nerves in your brain get sheered away," he says. "You want to move your right arm, but you can't tell it to move."

At Haley, medical personnel helped Brennan's nerves find new pathways to his brain.

"I can do everything I did before, I just have to do it in a different way," he says.

His recovery went so well he was eventually cleared to return to duty with the U.S. Special Operations Command, where he works in the experimental department, using lessons learned and experimenting with solutions to military problems.

Credit to family, alma mater

Just as he was determined to drive on to Zambar, Brennan says there was no option for him other than to recover.

He credits his parents, Joanne and Jim Brennan, for raising him to not dwell on what happened but to move forward.

He credits his siblings, Kerri, Jimmy and Jasen. Jasen was supposed to be deployed to Iraq with the National Guard but instead was by his brother's side during the recovery, serving as a nonmedical attendant.

And he credits his alma mater, The Citadel, which he says reinforced his family-taught lesson of driving on.

There are dark days, he says. Days full of doubt and worry.

But he pushes past that. For himself and for military personnel past and future.

Brennan, of Howell, N.J., says he wants to take command of a basic training company and he needs to be able to run five kilometers to meet the requirements.

He started the nonprofit Brian Brennan Stands Alone Foundation, which raises money to help the wounded recover. A separate venture from his military career, the foundation enables him to visit injured service personnel and offer counseling and advice from someone who has been there and done that.

"You might think that you can't handle this stuff, that you can't do it, but it is a lot different when you have to do it and you don't have a choice," Brennan says.

As he gears up for today's race - on behalf of the Sam Schmidt Paralysis Foundation, Challenged Athletes Foundation (Florida Chapter) and Shoot for a Cure American Spinal Research Organization - he has a message for anyone injured in combat.

"Don't ever think you can't do anything," he says. "You will be surprised what the human body and human spirit are capable of."