Special to The VOICE, Part 4 of 8
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Zacery Blaisdell, formerly of Ravensdale and Selleck and a specialist in the United
States Army, suffered severe injuries one year ago when his convoy came under enemy
attack in Afghanistan. He has spent most of the past year at Walter Reed Medical
Center in Washington, D. C. and it is expected that he will require another year
of treatment there. This is his story, presented in serial form, in eight parts.
FOR A SOLDIER’S FAMILY, THE ABIDING FEAR IS ALWAYS THERE. IT IS THE agonizing constant
that haunts every parent and is impossible to erase, to push to the side, to shut
out of one’s mind. Every second, every minute, every hour—whether awake or sleeping,
in public or private moments, even when it doesn’t seem like it is there, there
is an awful dread that for mothers and fathers with sons or daughters serving in
harm’s way, especially those stationed in the combat zones of Iraq or Afghanistan,
never eases. For Leanne Blaisdell-Stevens, on the morning of September 1, 2010,
that apprehension turned into excruciating reality. She was busy at the construction
company where she works in Roseville, Minnesota, when her cell phone buzzed. Not
overtly alarmed, she hoped that it might be her son checking in from his duty station
in Afghanistan. But her hope was quickly shattered. On the line was Captain Kevin
Ward of River Forest, Illinois, the commanding officer of Attack Company.
He was calling from Afghanistan and his words are indelibly etched into Leanne’s
memory. “I am sorry that Zacery can’t call you,” he said, “but he has been seriously
injured, but he is stable. I am very sorry,” Captain Ward repeated. “Zacery has
been in surgery and will be going to Germany and then stateside.” Reassuringly,
he continued: “Zacery is a very courageous young man and has performed very courageous
deeds in the past.”
Leanne remembers the patience of her son’s superior officer. He had been in charge
at the Tactical Operating Center (TOC) at COP Sayed Abad when Zac had been hurt
and knew firsthand what he had gone through. Gently, he paused as he spoke and he
would not interrupt the sobs that Leanne knew he could hear through the phone. Regaining
her composure, Leanne asked him the nature and extent of Zac’s injuries. “Leg, arms,
and eye,” he responded. Captain Ward then suggested to Leanne that she speak with
the surgeon who had operated on Zac at Bagram. He would be in a position to discuss
his condition more fully. And Captain Ward, even with the enormity of his duties
overseas, asked Leanne if there was anything that he could personally do for her.
During the conversation, Leanne inquired of the other Attack Company soldiers. Had
they made it through okay?, she wanted to know. In addition, Leanne requested of
Captain Ward that he contact her sister and Zac’s aunt, Colonel Laura Ludwig, a
United States Army nurse stationed in Landstuhl, Germany, and inform her of her
nephew’s impending arrival there. Leanne later learned that Captain Ward called
Colonel Ludwig repeatedly—every hour—until he got through. About an hour after Leanne
got off the phone with Captain Ward, Zac’s surgeon phoned from Afghanistan.
Although she had just been doubled over with unbearable news, Leanne knew what had
to be done. Crying, she dialed up her husband and Zac’s stepfather, Jason Stevens,
who instantly realized something was wrong. Because Jason is a commercial painter
and was at work, Leanne took care to make sure that he was in a safe place and not
on a lift or ladder before she revealed anything. Jason’s brother had been killed
in 1991, in a training accident in the Minnesota Army Reserve. Now Leanne worried
that Zac’s experience might open old wounds. After taking in what was said Jason
thought of contacting Colonel Ludwig. But Leanne filled him in. That was already
being done.
He was leaving the job site and driving directly over and picking her up and taking
her home, Jason told Leanne. He then called his mother and, together, they wept.
They wept for Zac and for what he had already been through, and they wept for what
they knew lay ahead of him.
Twenty-three-year-old Tori Blaisdell, Leanne’s daughter and Zac’s older sister,
was asleep at her home in Circle Pines and the phone rang. Within five minutes of
hearing from Captain Ward, Leanne called Tori, a specialist in the Minnesota Army
National Guard who, like Zac, had enlisted right out of high school and just a week
after she turned eighteen. When she answered, her mom tried to brace her for what
was to come: “Don’t freak out,” Leanne cautioned, “but your brother has been hurt
today.” Then, Tori says, “I totally began freaking out.”
Three more times, Leanne repeated the conversation that she had with her daughter,
with each of Zac’s other sisters.
Jimmy Kreiman had just returned to his dormitory room from his pre-calculus class
at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he is an aviation major
when he got the call that left him physically shaken. Leanne “told me what had happened
and it wasn’t until I got off the phone with her that I realized I had tears rolling
down my face,” Jimmy recounts. He went to his next class, but “couldn’t sit through
it.” Getting up and “leaving early,” he contacted his mom. As they talked, it occurred
to him that his older brother, Matt Monjes, was stationed at Andrews Air Force Base.
Many wounded American soldiers, he knew, are flown there on their return stateside.
Jimmy called his brother, asking if he would “keep a lookout for Zac.”
Zac’s father, Terry Blaisdell, lives in Ravensdale. Receiving that news about his
only son, he asserts without hesitation, was one of the most wrenching experiences
of his life. So much so that nearly all of what transpired that day is now a blur
to him. Leanne had tried to contact him and he had been out and he had had to call
her back, Terry explains, and the first thought that tore through every fiber of
his being when his former wife began speaking was: “Is he still alive?” Their son
had been “injured but he was living,” Leanne assured him. “They were transporting
him to Germany and we would find out more once he got there.”
An hour later, Zac’s sergeant called from Afghanistan. He had been trying to get
through, but Terry’s number had changed and was different from what had been supplied
to the Army by Zac. The sergeant reiterated the same information previously conveyed
through Leanne: Zac had been critically injured in combat and was now on his way
to Germany. There he would be evaluated and his most threatening wounds would be
treated. From Germany he would be flown to the United States.
So that their friends and other family members would know that something had happened,
Leanne posted a quick comment on Facebook. Almost instantly, and the very first
person she heard from, was Sandy Kreiman.
As agonizing as it was, for Terry and for Leanne and for the entire Blaisdell family
and for all who loved and cared for them, there was nothing more they could do now—nothing—but
wait.
Pictured: Zac Blaisdell with his mother, Leanne Blaisdell-Stevens.
Zac's mom, Leanne Blaisdell-Stevens and his stepfather, Jason Stevens.
Shekhabad village in Afghanistan at the exact location where the attack was carried
out on Zac's MRAP on September 1, 2010. The tires of his vehicle were just beginning
to cross over the speed bump in the middle of the road when a Taliban operative
emerged from the rear of one of the metal cargo containers--American soldiers call
them "conexes"--that lined the street and fired an RPG round directly into Zac's
truck. This area of Afghanistan is considered one of the most dangerous and is near
where thirty American military personnel, including twenty-two Navy Seals, lost
their lives this past summer when their helicopter was shot down, also by an RPG
round. The broken asphalt on the lower right of the picture was caused by the blast
of the shell, which exploded outside the cabin of the truck, saving the lives of
the five soldiers inside.
Zac's Platoon: Many of the soldiers pictured here were in Zac's convoy that came
under attack.
