Grenade Blast Cripples Iraq Vet's Memory

[NVMojo]

RICHMOND HILL, Ga. (AP) - His 3-year-old son Nicholas' first steps, the first time Liam, his newborn, smiled - Staff Sgt. Douglas Piper lived to see them. Then his scarred memory erased even those precious moments.

"I can't remember what they did yesterday," Piper says. "Sometimes, I can't remember what I did yesterday. The days are broken."

Iraq left the 30-year-old Piper in his own personal fog of war, one in which remembering the moments and days since April 2003 can be as confusing a puzzle as predicting his civilian future.

Three years ago, in the war's first month, Piper became one of the now more than 17,000 U.S. troops wounded in action. A grenade blast in Baghdad mangled his right eye, collapsed his right eardrum and slammed his brain against the inside of his skull.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2006/mar/18/031809354.html