John Fernandez
USMA IN THE NEWS
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In a year unlike any other, former West Point lacrosse captain John Fernandez got married in a civil ceremony Dec. 27, was deployed to Iraq on Jan. 20 and got injured April 3 in an attack that forever changed his life. Both his feet were amputated, altering his outlook but not his attitude, as this interview in early June demonstrates. Even with his loss, Fernandez keeps speaking like the winner he is.
Adam Schefter: How is your condition now?
John Fernandez: Mentally or physically?
AS: Both.
JF: Both - actually pretty well. Today, I received my first prosthetic device on my right leg, which is very good. I was able to actually bear weight on it. Tomorrow, I'm actually going to receive it on the other leg. So it's going to take a little while for my limbs to get used to the prosthetic devices. But as I've said, I'm going to love when I get my legs. I love toys, and they can double as beer mugs.
AS: What do you remember about the early-morning hours of April 3, when your artillery platoon came under mortar fire about 80 miles southwest of Baghdad?
JF: Pretty much the whole incident, exactly what happened. In the early morning, I was actually laying in my cot. We had just done a recon the day before, and the area was clear. We had captured 18 enemy prisoners of war. I was asleep and so was my gunner, specialist Donald Oaks, because we already had done our shift. A couple of minutes after that, I got blown off my cot. I thought immediately, "Oh my God, there's a rocket launcher shooting right on top of me." Then I had actually realized what had happened. I realized we had gotten hit by incoming fire. Whatever it was - and we still haven't been told yet - it was big.
AS: What then?
JF: After that, I felt my legs were numb. I really didn't know what happened. So I pulled off my sleeping bag and looked at my feet. They were in pretty bad shape. I screamed for a moment, then regained my composure and crawled over to my Humvee and grabbed my flak vest, my Kevlar helmet and my M-16. At that point, I realized the Humvee was leaking fuel out of the bottom. It was spewing, and I remember the sound of it hitting the ground. So I called out for my gunner, who was in the cot right next to me, and I crawled over to him, and he was in even worse shape than me. He was lying on the ground. I dropped my flak vest and put my M-16 on his chest, and started dragging him away from the Humvee. I don't know how long I dragged him for, but at that point, people came over to where I was dragging him from. I told them to take him off, then have someone come and pick me up. When a solider picked me up, he kind of panicked, looking at my feet. They were badly hit. Most of my toes were gone. They weren't in good shape. He kind of flipped out a little bit, I could tell. I just remember telling him, "Hey, don't worry about it, just grab my legs, not my feet, and we'll be all right." From that point on, I was just reassuring people that I was going to be all right, and everyone was doing a good job, and to continue doing what you're doing. Because it got hectic at that point. They were trying to set up a battery triage area to treat all the casualties and get them to the battalion, where we get flown out of by helicopter. But the way I describe it is, I had a moment of clarity. I knew what I had to do. I wasn't scared about my injuries. I realized they were serious, but they were not life-threatening. I knew my life had changed forever, but I knew I was going to be OK.
AS: How many men from your platoon did you lose?
JF: Three.
AS: Was Donald Oaks one?
JF: Yeah. When we were on one of the following flights to the med-evac site, he had passed away. I had found out after I woke up from my first surgery. They said he did not make it. Now I think about my soldiers who died, and it's good that I do. I'll never stop thinking about them for the rest of my life.
AS: Strange as it sounds, do you consider yourself lucky?
JF: Oh, definitely. In the situation that I was in, one of my soldiers that was lying right next to me died. My feet were hit. If I was laying turned around in the cot, it would have been my head. If I was laying on the other side of the Humvee where I normally set my cot up, I would have been dead. I didn't set my cot up that night because I was the first one on shift. There were so many factors, and you try to think about everything, but you can't. In the end, I just consider myself lucky. So at no point am I going to feel sorry for myself. Because the families of the soldiers that died can't say that their son or husband or father are home. I don't know if there was anything that I could have done to prevent an incident like this. It's hard to say that I could have. But you always think that. Maybe if I pushed people different or if I told people to go different places. But unfortunately, a bomb or a missile doesn't have any discretion. It's indiscriminate on who it hits.
So I have a little bit of a struggle to overcome. But I really just look at it as another obstacle, that's it. I've been through a few in my life. I got through West Point. I got through a lot of challenges in my life. I played Division I lacrosse when I don't know if I had the talent in the beginning to do it, but I worked hard enough to do it. I didn't play my first few years at West Point, but I just worked my (butt) off and when I was given an opportunity to play, I showed my coach I could. I was the third-leading scorer on the team, and after that season, I was voted captain. I've always tried to push myself through every obstacle. I know life is full of so many of them. I can be in so much of a worse situation right now, and I totally realize that. So this is nothing to overcome. In my eyes, I can't look at it any other way.
AS: Does it bother you that we didn't find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
JF: Not really. Because when you actually go into the country and you're looking for a reason to justify what you're doing, you get it the first time you see the Iraqi people. They're skinny and emaciated and all swarming to every vehicle, begging for food. At that point, you just feel like you're doing the right thing. The hardest part about it is that some of the Iraqis who didn't want us there took advantage of the American goodwill. Because you didn't know if someone coming up to your Humvee was really begging for food or had a bomb strapped to their chest. That was always in your mind. But it was hard for me and anyone else to turn down people like that, because it's not the American nature to do that. It's just not.
AS: How much have you heard from your former lacrosse teammates at West Point?
JF: I've heard from so many of them, but a lot of them are still in Iraq. But the other team captain, Nick Bilotta, he was the team captain the year after me, he had shrapnel wounds, and I talked to him. So many other people have written my wife and I and talked to us. There have been so many letters that were just so inspiring. People whose husbands died in 9/11. Letters from little kids. Letters from so many people who were somewhat inspired by the story, and that gives me strength, because if people tell me that I'm giving them strength, it gives me strength. To actually get through all the letters, I'll have to take a year off.
AS: What was your reaction when you found out both your feet were going to have to be amputated?
JF: I kind of knew it was going to happen on my left leg. I knew that I was going to get a Symes amputation. Then once I got here to Walter Reed Army Medical Center (in Washington, D.C.) was the first time I heard that they were going to have to do a below-the-knee amputation on my right leg. Initially, I was taken back a little. But once they give you the reasoning why, it was a pretty clear choice why I had to do that.
AS: What will you and won't you be able to do with your prosthetics?
JF: I can do everything, it's just going to take a little time. I hope I can play in the alumni game at West Point this coming October. I don't know if I'll be able to, but I'm going to work my hardest to try to do it. I've had so many people call me that were injured in similar situations. Veterans from Vietnam just call me up and say they had both their legs amputated and they moved through it. I had another guy from the Long Island national soccer team who lost his leg in a car accident call me. He continued to do athletics and actually trained in the 100-meter dash, and he broke the world record with a prosthetic leg, and he was two seconds behind Carl Lewis. And the guy that broke his world record was a double below-the-knee amputee, with prosthetic devices on both legs. So it shows you life goes on. I'm just going to continue pushing myself, and I'll get to a point where I know I'm happy with what I've done.
AS: So you expect to walk down the aisle at the official wedding ceremony that you and your wife, Kristi, are still planning to hold?
JF: Oh, yeah, of course. Not only that, but to dance. I want to be able to dance at my own wedding. I mean, c'mon.
"Know Him From Adam" is a weekly question-and-answer session conducted by Denver Post sports writer Adam Schefter with various athletes, actors, politicians and people in the news.