Without ever meaning to, Joe Bacani has become the face of disabled American veterans.
He had been discharged from the Army in 2007 after taking sniper fire in Iraq and spending weeks at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in a wheelchair, learning how to walk again. A few years later, he got a package in the mail. Inside was a letter detailing the ongoing construction of a memorial dedicated to disabled vets. Also inside was a photo taken of Bacani in his wheelchair after he had just been awarded the Purple Heart. Would he allow this image to be used on a wall?
"I remember what I was thinking when that photo was taken," Bacani says. "Half of me was like, 'Hurry up and take this photo. I can't wait till this ceremony's over.' And the other half of me was thinking, 'What am I going to do? How am I going to move on?' "
This morning, Bacani will be at the unveiling of the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial, his image next to Bob Dole's. The memorial, which took 16 years to complete and was funded by $80 million in private donations, sits within view of the Capitol. It's a collection of glass and granite walls representing wounded veterans from all branches, clustered around an eternal flame.
Bacani had no idea he was so prominently featured until last week, and he feels both honored and slightly mortified — he's no more special, he says, than any other disabled vet.
"I thought my image would be small, with thousands of veterans alongside me," says Bacani, now 29 and a junior at Columbia. "Then I saw the image, and I was like, 'What? Are you kidding me?' I'm bigger than life-sized on that wall!"
Joe Bacani, now a junior at Columbia University, endured a grueling rehab to get out of his wheelchair.Photo: J.C. Rice
Bacani grew up in Tustin, Calif., and joined the Army at 17, when he was still in high school. He was inspired by cinematic depictions of World War II — "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers," especially — and then 9/11 happened. "I was like, 'I'm joining the Army for sure,' " he says.
He deployed to Iraq in November 2006 and was stationed at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. From the beginning, he had a bad feeling. "We deployed with maybe 20 scouts and six snipers," Bacani says. "I was really conscious about how shallow our platoon was."
On March 20, 2007, Bacani and his platoon were doing route clearance, sweeping for IEDs, or improvised explosive devices. "It was just five guys on foot and three or four other trucks full of guys," he says. Bacani, in 50 pounds of body armor, had the mine sweeper.
"So we found the IED," he says, "and five minutes after that, I first heard the clack from a rifle. And I was just like, 'Oh, God. I know what that sound means.' "
Bacani didn't even have time to look back at his friend, Spc. Jesus Bustamante, who was also on foot. "I was trying to find out where the sniper was shooting from," he says. "And as soon as I figured it out, I got shot."
The bullet went through his pelvis. He describes the feeling "as if the strongest person on the planet really hates your guts, and he got this sledgehammer from a blacksmith oven and took all his might and whacked you right on your ass."
Bacani tried to take cover, but he collapsed on the open road, all sense in his right leg gone. He was an open target.
As if the strongest person on the planet really hates your guts, and he got this sledgehammer from a blacksmith oven and took all his might and whacked you right on your ass. - Joe Bacani, on his injury
"I was just lying there, feeling this 140-degree sun, in full battle rattle," he says. "And I was just like, 'I guess this is where I may die.' "
He played dead, cursing at the top of his lungs so his sergeant would know he was still alive. Bustamante had been shot twice — once in the knee and once in the rib, the bullet tearing through most of his vital organs and leaving him near death. Still, Bustamante "had this grenade launcher, the M203, and he fired rounds into the building. I think he saved both of us that day."
Bacani thinks they were on the ground for 30 minutes — "a reasonable time" — before they were rescued. Bacani and Bustamante were loaded into a Humvee, and "we drove this bumpy-ass road all the way back to base." There, they were triaged, then flown to the Green Zone for emergency surgery.
Bacani didn't yet know he couldn't walk. When he woke, he was greeted by his battalion commander, "and the first thing I asked him was, 'Hey, when can I go back to my unit?' And he laughed at me. I said, 'No, it's a serious question.' "
Bacani was flown to Walter Reed, where he underwent intense rehab. It took him six months to walk without assistance, and still he wanted to go back to Iraq. He thought constantly of the friends he had lost while serving there.
Two months before Bacani was shot, he had lost his roommate and best friend, Pfc. Darrell W. Shipp, who had become an older brother to him.
Bacani after receiving his Purple Heart from the military at Walter Reed Medical Center.Photo: UPI
"He was showing me life, and how to live, before we deployed," Bacani says. "I knew something bad was gonna happen, but I never thought someone would be killed in action." Shipp was killed by an IED.
At the memorial service, "I was wailing, really hard," Bacani says. "And my whole platoon — it started off with one hug, then everyone wrapped themselves around me, three guys deep. I was crying hard, but I was in the center of it all, and as soon as I couldn't breathe, I stopped crying. That was an eye-opener to me: If pain was a person, it got suffocated away, because my friends were there, and they squashed my sorrow. It's something only a few people have ever experienced."
After that, the Army put Bacani on 10 days' leave. On March 2, less than a month after returning to Iraq, Bacani was leading a convoy on another sweep when he heard an explosion. His training kicked in, and he patted his body for injuries. "I was like, 'They missed!' And then I realized they didn't miss." The truck behind his was on fire.
"My sergeant comes back and says, 'We lost Latourney [Staff Sgt. Paul M. Latourney] and our driver, Rodriguez. But our guys are trying to pull somebody out of the canal." It was Mark Graham, who lost both legs and suffered third-degree burns.
"I never saw him, but I feel for my friends who were trying to rescue him," Bacani says. "One of them has really bad PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] and became an alcoholic." Graham was flown back to the States, where he died.
Bacani began having panic attacks. He was taken off patrols for a week and treated for combat stress. It worked, he says: "I was good to go; I had my head back in the game."
And then he got shot.
I feel like I'm reborn. I have all these opportunities in front of me. - Joe Bacani
Today, Bacani still suffers from "intermittent and shocking nerve pain" that lasts about two minutes. He has aching muscle pain every day and expects to have it for the rest of his life. He wears three KIA memorial bracelets — one each for Shipp, Latourney and Graham. "This is not everybody I've lost," he says. On each of their birthdays, he says to himself: "I'm living your life. I'll take over from here."
On Aug. 18, he enrolled at Columbia, which has a long history of recruiting veterans and providing financial aid. This past May, 145 veterans graduated from the university.
"I'm so happy I'm here," Bacani says. "I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I just went to community college."
He finds it ironic to now be in New York, "because after I got out of the Army, I just wanted peace and quiet," he says. "But moving to New York — I feel like I'm reborn. I have all these opportunities in front of me."
He's majoring in psychology and plans to go into PTSD treatment and research. He still feels guilty he's here and not in Iraq.
"People are always telling me that I did enough, that I don't have to go back," he says. He's proud of this new memorial and his place in it, but he worries that people might see it and feel something, then go on about their lives without realizing how much help veterans need.
"If there is one thing I want to do," Bacani says, "it's in finding solutions."
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