This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

WASHINGTON - They left under a wave of support - red, white and blue bunting and flags and cheers - and headed to a war half a world away in Iraq. It was their duty, their calling, their patriotic responsibility. They returned missing . . . one his arm, the other his ability to walk. Their lives shaken and futures uncertain, two soldiers from Utah are now at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. They have few regrets.

'We're soldiers; that's our job,' Utahn says

Cpl. Braxton McCoy's uniform had pockets on both sleeves. On the right, he carried a folded flag. On the left, he packed his checkbook. That's meaningful, he's sure, because the bullet from the AK-47 ripped through the checks, not through the Stars and Stripes.

Sitting in his electric wheelchair, the bones in his legs cracked and shattered from a suicide bomber, McCoy isn't outwardly emotional as he recounts the tale of when ball bearings ripped through his hand, his legs and his face.

He'll walk again, he vows. But the 20-year-old member of the Utah National Guard's 222nd who wears his cowboy hat like it's required, won't be riding bulls anymore or shoeing any horses for a while.

"I've always wanted to serve," McCoy says, as he struggles to attach footrests to his wheelchair with his one unbandaged hand. "Being in the Army wasn't enough; as a soldier you don't feel like you've done your duty unless you've gone to war.

"It's sad we had to go over, but we're soldiers; that's our job." McCoy's future paid a price when he did his job. Now his new daily routine isn't feeding horses or cattle or moving the sprinklers on the alfalfa as a ranch hand near Scipio. He's waking to the sounds of a hospital in Washington, D.C., and struggling to get out of bed and into his wheelchair for physical therapy.

There, while grasping a metal rail with his left hand, McCoy takes a step and winces; he repeats the move a few times, catches his breath and reverses the path backward.

His physical trainer jokes about learning how to ride bulls; McCoy wishes he could teach him.

Back in his room, a once-sterile white-on-white rectangle that now looks like a college dorm, his first move is to take off a New York Yankees cap. He's not a fan; it was a gift from two widows of the 2001 terrorist attacks and he wears it in remembrance. He dons his signature black, wide-brimmed cowboy hat.

It was hard to depart for war, he says, leaving his parents and younger siblings and worst of all, his 18-year-old fiancée, Emily, whom he married while on leave in October. McCoy would introduce her to a visitor, but he doesn't know where she is at the moment. He later learns she was under the blankets in the bed, dead asleep until almost noon.

Joining the Guard wasn't about the money to go to college or even a peer pressure thing to McCoy, he says as he leaves his hospital room to check out his new living quarters, a red-brick home shared by several other families. He's become quite adept at maneuvering his electric wheelchair.

Becoming a soldier wasn't a huge family priority, though it was somewhat of a legacy with a grandfather and uncles splitting service in the Navy, Air Force and Marines.

McCoy filled out the remaining branch, signing up for the Army National Guard.

"I really can't tell you where it came from," he says of his patriotic leaning. "Saying the Pledge of Allegiance always just meant more to me."

McCoy entered Iraq with his 222nd Field Artillery Unit last June. In January, the soldiers in his headquarters company were patrolling around Ramadi Ð the "Wild, Wild West."

There are no bulls to ride there.

"There's lots of donkeys, though," McCoy quips, but no Iraqi rodeos.

On Jan. 4, McCoy and his guys were dispatched to help protect a recruiting station for Iraqi police officers at a glass factory. At least a thousand people were already lined up when he arrived at 7:30 a.m. It was Day Four of a four-day operation. And it would be McCoy's last day on patrol.

Later in the morning, a military K-9 dog started growling at an Iraqi. Then the guy pushed the trigger of a bomb concealed under this clothing.

Two explosions ripped through the crowd, killing some 60 Iraqis and injuring about the same. Two U.S. soldiers were killed. McCoy, some 15 yards away, was thrown back, blood and guts strewn across his belly.

"As far as you could see there were dead people and body parts," McCoy says. "I thought I'd been blown up from the waist down. I was just like, 'Son of a bitch,' I thought I was done."

His legs were still there, but his left femur was snapped in three places and felt like gelatin. Ball bearings from the bomb had shot through his right hand and peppered his face. Somehow, a bullet from an Iraqi guard's AK-47 hit him in the left shoulder. The guts covering him were not his own, it turns out, but from a dead body on top of him.

"I thought there was absolutely no way I was going to live," McCoy says now. "All I could think about was my wife."

His friend Johnny Humphries hovered over his body.

"I told him, 'Tell my wife that I love her,' " McCoy recalls, now tipping his hat down to cover his face.

"You're going to tell her yourself," Humphries responded.

"I thought, 'Bullshit. There's no way,' " McCoy says.

But he does get to tell her.

Thousands of miles away and a month withdrawn, McCoy pulls out a can of Copenhagen and talks about his friends Humphries, Zane Williams and Lyle Gardner.

"Them guys are heroes," McCoy says. "They saved my life."

McCoy says he doesn't want to get into the politics of the war but he does believe, "we're overstaying our welcome."

"We're trying to do good things, trying to help them," he says, "and those people hate us. You can only do so much."

And he thinks about his injuries and how it will affect his life.

"My life will never be the same. [But] that sacrifice to me is worth it. It's worth it to protect my guys."

The rest of his life won't be as easy as he once thought. Still, he adds, "I'm not going to let this stop me from living my dream."

He has friends who are soliciting lumber and home supply companies to donate materials to help build a home in Scipio.

He has a good friend, Sonny Murphy, of Herriman, a bull rider who's pretty good on the rodeo circuit.

"Hopefully," McCoy says, "he'll be a world champion for me."

"

"

'I still have a life; I still have options'

Thrown some 30 to 90 feet, Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Gubler knew the homemade bomb had taken his left arm. His vision was gone too, replaced with white flashes. But that didn't stop him from shouting orders to his soldiers.

"I started to scream at them to get security out," Gubler recalls, at the time fearing an ambush by insurgents. "It set me at ease to do something, not just sit there and be hurt."

Months later, Gubler, a native of La Verkin, is learning how to use his shoulder muscles to move a prosthetic arm; it's one that can include a cosmetic hand, a hook or even a paddle for swimming.

Things are different now.

"I'm doing well, but it's not always been like that," Gubler says, his open shirt sleeve dangling over the remaining stump on his left arm and a black patch over his right eye. "You think about what was and how it's going to be."

The worst, he says, is how frustrating it is to wait for the injuries to heal. Especially for the robust, get-it-done type of guy Gubler is. You get a sense from talking to him for a few minutes that he'd rather be at home or working or doing something, anything but sit in a chair and talk about the past.

"I still have a life; I still have options," Gubler says, taking the positive look that he says has helped him pass the days holed up at Walter Reed Medical Center. His wife, Robalyn, is there as well, but the couple's four kids are at their new home in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Back home, Gubler was a general contractor for commercial buildings; it's a job that will be tough to do without his natural arm. The new plan is to go back to school to finish that engineering degree Gubler started at Dixie State College in St. George, where he met his wife. His children understand, he says. Except maybe for 3-year-old Kaleb. When the child first saw his dad missing an arm, Kaleb asked what happened.

"I lost it in Iraq," Dad told him.

"Well, let's go find it," the son responded.

Gubler had always wanted to be a pilot. But when he couldn't get in the full-time military because of a minor juvenile record, he entered the Utah National Guard instead, hoping to end up flying. He never did. Or will.

At dusk Nov. 16, Gubler and his soldiers were sent to patrol a section of a road going to Ramadi when they came upon a 5-gallon drum in the roadway. It was staged, the soldiers were sure, and they shot at it from a distance to see if it was a bomb. Assured it wasn't, they approached and found just an empty can.

But a few yards away, there was a small section of a Humvee hood, an older piece of metal from a blown-up military vehicle, just sitting off the side of the road. Gubler went to check it out. On first glance, there was nothing under the metal.

But, "I just had a feeling there was something there," Gubler recalls.

There was.

Gubler was 2 1/2 feet from the buried explosive device; it had a kill range of 50 meters.

He never lost consciousness, even after the explosion blew him far away. He landed on his arm, or what was left of it. That's when he yelled to his troops to prepare for small-arms fire from insurgents; none came. Other soldiers came to his rescue. Zane Bybee of Cedar City applied a tourniquet.

"I was telling jokes with the guys," Gubler recalls, forgetting now what the jokes were, only that they were self-deprecating.

Months later, Gubler says maybe he should have done something different Nov. 16; maybe he should have approached the bomb differently or shot it first. But he has accepted his new life.

"I don't look back and wish it didn't happen," he says.

Gubler's religion - he's a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - is important to him, but he doesn't want to talk about it much.

"I have a lot of faith and that's what helped me in the tough times here," Gubler says, ending questions about religion right there.

Doctors say Gubler will be able to see clearly again out of both eyes; right now, he sees blurry out of his left eye and the right eye needs more time to heal. His new arm is made in Utah. It's called a myoelectric prosthetic for its use of natural muscle and electronics to operate.

Gubler must learn how to control his muscles in his remaining shoulder so they can send electronic impulses causing the elbow and device to move.

For now, Gubler is focused on what will be, not what has been.

Anything else? he is asked.

"Life's great," he answers. "Life's good. Life's a great thing."

"I think we'll be all right," Robalyn adds.

"We will," he says.

IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

2,500 DEAD, 17,500 WOUNDED

Cpl. Braxton McCoy

222nd Headquarters Battery

Age: 20

Hometown: Scipio

Wife: Emily, 18

Injuries: Shattered bones in his right hand, a bullet wound to his left shoulder, broken bones in both his legs and shrapnel to his face

Sgt. 1st Class

Daniel Gubler

222nd Charlie Battery

Age: 37

Hometown: La Verkin

Wife: Robalyn, 33

Children: Erica, 13; Josh, 10; Kyle, 8; and Kaleb, 3

Injuries: Wounds to his right eye, amputation of his left arm 3 inches above the elbow