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"I love you, too, Son," would come the reply.

'Stay with me'

After the explosion, Beck blacked out but woke up quickly to a disorienting scene of injured soldiers and dust so thick he had to struggle for each breath.

A female medic began working on his wounds.

"Stay with me," she kept saying. "Stay with me."

He was carried on a stretcher to a truck. Lying in the back of the truck, he heard the mortar alarm again and one more explosion; then he lost consciousness again.

At the base hospital, Capt. Leland Pearson stood over the bed. Beck, who was probably in shock, reached up and began rubbing his company commander's face.

"It'll be all right," the injured man said. "Everything will be fine."

In Rocky Mount that day at 1:49 p.m. Lynn Beck's cell phone rang. She works for a company that escorts wide highway trailers; but it was Sunday, so she was piecing together one of the care packages she mailed to her son every Monday morning. She was about to drive to a store to pick up the last item: athlete's foot cream.

The soldier at the other end of the line said her son had been wounded. Beck handed the phone to her mother, Laura Beasley, and, flapping her arms in distress, stepped outside, trying to regain composure so she could ask the questions she needed to ask.

Beck would go to a hospital in Germany, but by the time she could get there, he would probably be in Washington. Laura Beasley called Lynn's brother, Ray Beasley of Kill Devil Hills. The injured soldier and his mother would need Beasley's help: He retired as a gunnery sergeant after 21 years in the Marine Corps and knows the ins and outs of military health care and disability issues, as he was injured himself while in the service.

Blurred memories

In Baghdad, shock and medication turned things vague for Beck. He doesn't remember being bundled onto a big jet headed for Germany, or a few days later another plane, this one headed to the United States. He got to Walter Reed on April 11. His mother and sister Jennifer headed up that day. Lynn Beck said she was so happy to see him that she barely noticed all the wounds and the various tubes running into his body.

"He's here," was all she was able to register.

Even the first week at Walter Reed was a blur to Beck, as the doctors kept him sedated. He would wake up for a few minutes, then nod off again, Beasley said.

His family won't forget that week, though. There were at least four operations, and once they wheeled Beck away saying that they were going to amputate his savaged right leg, and the remnant of his left foot above the ankle. When they brought him back, though, the foot and leg were still there. The doctors are still not sure they'll be able to save his leg.

Lynn Beck said they won't forget how much the doctors and nurses cared, either. The first doctor had tears in his eyes as he explained the long catalog of injuries. Another took half an hour to explain to the family his plan for an operation.

After the first week, the hotel bill was piling up, and Lynn was struggling to get housing from the Army. Beasley figured out whom to talk to, made one phone call and fixed the problem.

It wasn't until the second week that Beck was able to stay awake and focused. Still, the operations went on, at least three of them, including one to remove the shattered parts of the bones in his right calf, which left that leg shorter.

If the mangled leg doesn't have to be removed -- still almost a day-to-day question -- the surgeons might eventually perform a series of operations to gradually lengthen it again.

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