Dade Elementary School fifth-graders line the Trenton, Ga., square Monday to welcome home Sgt. Joey Ferguson who was wounded in Afghanistan and has been receiving treatment at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Staff Photo by Angela Lewis/Chattanooga Times Free PressTRENTON, Ga. – If it hadn’t been raining that February day in Afghanistan, Monday’s homecoming might have been a much more somber affair.
“This is not a sad day, this is a happy day!” Bill Lockhart, commander of the American Legion Post, shouted Monday as Sgt. Joey Ferguson rode into Trenton’s city square in a sport utility vehicle.
Back in February, Ferguson, 24, who had twice completed tours of duty in Iraq, was serving in the U.S. Marines with a K-9 unit in Afghanistan. While patrolling one morning with bomb-sniffing dogs, he was careful to follow the muddy footprints of someone who had gone before him. Then, as he put his right foot down in a print, his foot slipped a little in the mud – sliding into a homemade bomb.
Because it was wet and rainy, the explosive was only about half as powerful as it otherwise would have been. So while severely damaging his foot, the blast spared the rest of his leg, and possibly his life.
Ferguson, who greeted supporters Monday from a wheelchair, now wears an external brace to stabilize his bare foot. While the foot is still intact, after about 10 surgeries, it is disfigured and black in some areas. Still, Ferguson hopes therapy will allow him to keep the foot and walk on it again someday.