Injured medic helped fellow troops

RINGGOLD, Ga. — Wanda Landowski’s son was afraid of needles as a child.

Now, at 21, Spc. Anthony Landowski is a medic with the Georgia National Guard who instructed fellow soldiers through an explosion in Afghanistan despite two broken legs and other injuries.

Mrs. Landowski doesn’t know how her son, who leads a private life, will feel about his status as a hero when he returns home to Ringgold, but she’s collecting newspaper articles to show him the next time she sees him. She wants him to know people are “rooting for him.”

“To me (the soldiers) are all heroes,” she said. “My son was a hero in my eyes before he left.”

Spc. Landowski and three other soldiers from Dalton’s “Charlie Troop” were injured Sunday. Mrs. Landowski said Command Sgt. Maj. Joey Recker reported on a Facebook networking site for the Georgia National Guard’s 1/108th Cavalry Regiment that the soldiers were in a convoy returning from a mission when an improvised explosive device damaged their vehicle. Spc. Landowski was the medic on the patrol when the explosion hit.

“My son was unable to perform his duty because of his injuries, but had instructed the other troops on how to treat them to where they could be evacuated, but he doesn’t remember this at all,” said Mrs. Landowski. “He told us, ‘I remember the blast and that’s it.’”

The Landowski family received news about the accident Sunday afternoon. Although she was told her son’s injuries were not life-threatening, it was hard for Mrs. Landowski to wait for his first phone call.

“When you first get word of something like that as a parent, no matter what they tell you, until you hear your child’s voice, you’re not happy,” she said. “Up until the time I heard his voice I kept getting up and looking out my window. I was expecting cars, you know, army vehicles pulling up my driveway.”

Mrs. Landowski heard from her son Monday at 6:30 a.m. His first words: “Mom, I’m fine. I got blown up.”

Before her son left for his first deployment in April, Mrs. Landowski said he was worried about her.

“I always tried to protect (my children) all their lives,” she said. “He was ... concerned about me and how I was going to be when he was gone.”

Spc. Landowski joined ROTC his freshmen year of high school and the National Guard his junior year. Mrs. Landowski said he loves his work and Charlie Troop is his second family. Not long after joining the Guard, it became apparent he was destined to work as a medic, as Spc. Landowski performed well on tests and EMT training.

“That was what he chose,” Mrs. Landowski said. “I guess he wanted to help people that way.”

Mrs. Landowski and her husband, Mark, are keeping their phones close by at all times. They don’t know when their son will call, but they want to be sure they answer. Mrs. Landowski said her son soon will be sent to a military hospital in the United States, where he will begin a long road to recovery. The family, including Anthony’s younger brother, Roger, and older sister, Shanna Erli, can’t wait to see him and takes solace in the fact he is expected to make a full recovery.

Mrs. Landowski is thankful to the Family Readiness Group for support and the Army National Guard for keeping her family informed. Mrs. Landowski asks that everyone pray for the injured soldiers and all the other soldiers who are still overseas.

“They are out there fighting for us and their lives can be turned upside down within the blink of an eye,” she said. “We found that out the hard way.