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Home By PAUL FATTIG,Mail Tribune Dec 28, 2003 12:00 AM A A HomeRecovering among familiar surroundings from wounds suffered in a sneak attack in Iraq, Todd Cory's thoughts are with the 'family' of fellow soldiers he left behind SAMS VALLEY ' Todd Cory is glad to be back in the Rogue Valley for the holidays. Mighty glad. The wounded soldier relished gathering around the Christmas table loaded with baked ham and all the lip-smacking trimmings at the warm and comfortable Sams Valley home of his mom, Linda Wade, and stepfather Larry Wade. There was his kid sister, Amber, and his older brother and sister-in-law, Kevin and Tamara Cory, along with their sons, Blain, 6, and Braden, 2. There were the familiar Christmas tree, colorful presents and the view of Rogue Valley greenery topped by mountain snow. — Yeah, it's really nice to be home, he said, then added, but, at the same time, it's not. The soft-spoken soldier stopped talking for a moment, trying to find the right words. My unit, my comrades, are still over there, he explained. I should be with them. I'm not. It's nice to be home, but this isn't the way I wanted it to be. What the combat engineer with the 14th Engineers Battalion based at Fort Lewis, Wash., wanted was to return stateside en masse with his unit when its mission was completed in Iraq. Instead, he and five others were wounded late Aug. 21 by a roadside bomb which the Army refers to as an improvised explosive device. When the smoke cleared, his spleen was ruptured along with four vertebrae. His kidneys were damaged; his face and hands were bleeding. Todd makes it sound like it wasn't too bad but it really was, said Kevin Cory, 32, of Medford. We're so glad he's home all in one piece. It has been two long years since Todd has been home for the holidays, Kevin observed. Christmas was great for our family this year, he said. We had everybody together. Todd's in good spirits. We had a good time. It's really nice to have him home, that's for sure. The local Purple Heart recipient was lucky: In the past week, half a dozen American soldiers have been killed by roadside bombs in Iraq. As of Friday, more than 465 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq, according to the Department of Defense. And more than 2,300 have been wounded as a result of hostile action, the department reported. Todd Cory, 29, who graduated from Crater High School in 1993, joined the Army in 1999. the time he arrived in Kuwait early in April just before the war in Iraq began, he had already served in war-torn Kosovo. Along with other units, the 14th Engineers roared north in Iraq. They traveled throughout the country: Baghdad, Kirkuk, the Iranian border. Their main mission was blowing up Iraqi ammunition stockpiles. It's pretty much everywhere ' lying alongside the road, everywhere, he observed. Like most other units, they were also called on to provide security. Just before midnight on Aug. 21, he and five others hopped into a five-ton troop-carrying truck, bound for a nearby ammunition dump for guard duty about two dozen miles northwest of Baghdad. We drove over the IED buried in the road, he said matter-of-factly. Somebody in the ditch or in a nearby bunker detonated it. As can be expected, his memory is a little spotty on what happened next. He recalls the fireball rolling up through the back of the truck. Then nothing. I woke up on the ground when they were dragging me away, he said. Of the six soldiers wounded by the bomb, his wounds and those of another soldier were the worst. He was taken to a casualty medical unit in Kirkuk where he was stabilized, then flown to a military hospital in Kuwait. His next stop was the huge Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, near Ramstein Air Base in Germany, then in late August to the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where the most serious wounded are sent. All told, he spent some three months in the hospital. He is home on 30-day convalescent leave until Jan. 11, when he reports back to Fort Lewis. I'm still on the 'broken list,' he said, using military parlance for those who have been wounded and not yet back on full duty. He won't be heading back to Iraq. The unit will be back here before my back is healed enough to put me back on full duty, he said. Although Cory had intended to make the Army a career, there is a chance he may receive a medical discharge based on his wounds. Doctors inserted two metal rods along his spine and removed his ruptured spleen. But he figures he is on the mend. He no longer wears a back brace. I want to stay in the Army, he said. For the past five years, he has been traveling the world in uniform. The Rogue Valley has been largely on the edge of his consciousness. Iraq was the second hostile zone deployment I've been in, he said, explaining his unit was deployed to the Balkans in 1999. When you go into combat with friends like that, the people you are with literally become your family. It's a whole different world that a lot of people wouldn't understand. Most would understand, however, Cory's reaction to Saddam's capture earlier this month. One, I wish I could have been there, and, two, they should have thrown a frag (fragmentation) grenade inside the hole first, he said. His experience in Iraq has changed his life, he concluded. I really don't make any daily plans now, he said. What I do all depends on how well I feel that day. But he does acknowledge taking advantage of a change in chow back home. After living off MREs for five months, then hospital food for three more months, I really appreciate it, he said of homecooking. And it's great to see family and friends. But there are those other family and friends back in Iraq. I feel more guilty than anything else for leaving my other family over there, still fighting, he said. Meanwhile, Cory and his five wounded comrades do have long-range plans to meet this summer in Alaska, the home state of one of the soldiers. We're going to go out, do some fishing and forget about everything else for a while, he said. Todd Cory convalesces at his mother?s home in Sams Valley after being seriously wounded while on duty last summer in Iraq. The Crater High School graduate hopes to return to full duty in the Army. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli - Mail Tribune Roy Musitelli