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Fostoria GI hurt in Iraq returning to America

Apr-29-2005 » Filed Under: TF Freedom

PFC Mendoza is another Task Force Freedom soldier that could use our suport and encouragement as he recovers at Walter Reed.

Link to Full Article
By STEVE MURPHY, BLADE STAFF WRITER

FOSTORIA - Army Pfc. Jay L. Mendoza lost his gallbladder, adrenal glands, and part of his intestines after being struck by a mortar round in Iraq.

But the 19-year-old Fostoria resident's family is relieved that his injuries from the attack weren't worse.

Private Mendoza, who has undergone surgery in Iraq and Germany, is to be flown today to a military hospital in Washington, where he'll continue his recovery, his father, Jessie, said.

"He's very lucky," Mr. Mendoza said yesterday after speaking with a nurse at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany.

Mr. Mendoza said he learned of his son's injuries Tuesday in a call from the headquarters of the Army's 16th Signal Battalion in Fort Hood, Texas, and soon afterward spoke with officers from his son's unit in Iraq.

He said Private Mendoza, a communications specialist, was working in a trailer in Mosul with another soldier when the structure was hit by a mortar round.

"The report that I got from his captain was that he actually took the hit from the right side of his back that punctured through around his kidney area, but it missed his kidney and just bruised his kidney and his lung," Mr. Mendoza said.

The other soldier suffered superficial shrapnel wounds.


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