[Vision2020] Merlin's Miracles

[Tom Hansen]

>From the Army Times -

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Marine Sergeant Merlin German
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/3507756.html

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Marine burned on 97 percent of body dies
By Dan Lamothe - Army times Staff writer
   
Sgt. Merlin German had been struggling with burn wounds covering more than 
97 percent of his body for nearly two years when he made a decision: 
painful or not, he was going to don his dress blues and whisk his mother 
away for a dance during a hospital ball.

Over the next few weeks, he practiced his dancing at Brooke Army Medical 
Center in San Antonio, Texas, with Norma Guerra, the hospital’s deputy 
chief of public affairs, Guerra said. And when the 2006 Brooke’s Holiday 
Ball arrived, he surprised his mother on the dance floor, taking her in 
his arms.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Guerra said. “He had made up his 
mind, and he was going to do it.”

That’s one of many memories that friends and family have of German, 22, 
who died April 11 at the hospital, Defense Department officials said 
Thursday. He was assigned to 5th Battalion, 11th Marines and attached to 
2nd Battalion, 11th Marines in Iraq at the time of the explosion that left 
him severely wounded.

His death halted an endless cycle of surgeries, skin grafts and doctor’s 
appointments that began Feb. 21, 2005, the day a gas-fed improvised 
explosive devise detonated near German’s Humvee outside Camp Ramadi, 
according to a web site started in Merlin’s memory.

Family members described German on the web site, www.merlinsmiracles.com, 
as a proud American who loved children.

“He touched the lives of everyone he met,” the family said. “He taught us 
strength, courage and unity.”

Guerra said even in the midst of all his surgeries, he went out of his way 
to brighten the days of others, encouraging fellow patients in the burn 
unit with lesser wounds to dress well and carry themselves with pride.

“He looked at it as he had received a second chance, and he wanted to make 
a difference,” Guerra said.

Before he died, German told family members he “had a vision to help burned 
children and their families,” the family said on his Web said. “He wanted 
the foundation to be named Merlin’s Miracles.”

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Pro patria, 

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the 
tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

-- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.


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