“We love you, Mary,” they shouted in unison.
Sgt. Mary Dague had come home, to 600 of her heroes.
The children held up handmade signs, a crayon-colored American flag, posters proclaiming, “Thank you, Mary” and “Thank you for serving our country.”
“I love this town. I love these people,” said Dague, a 24-year-old self-proclaimed “bomb chick” who lost both arms above the elbows in an explosion four months ago in Iraq.
The 30-minute ceremony, sprayed by intermittent sunshine on snow-checkered grass, included two songs by a grade school choir - the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “God Bless the USA” - and a touching rendition of “America the Beautiful,” accompanied by the high school band. Everyone sang that one.
Superior Mayor Mike Wood, Sheriff Hugh Hopwood, Gov. Brian Schweitzer, and representatives for Sen. Jon Tester and Rep. Dennis Rehberg all paid tribute.
“As a result of Mary's service, the United States, Montana and Mineral County are safer places to live,” said Hopwood, whose undersheriff, Mike Johnson, is Dague's father.
Dague, with husband and battalion mate Jared Tillery at her side, didn't speak at the ceremony. But the couple steadfastly greeted politicians and the hundreds of well-wishers who approached them, Mary offering a stump to shake instead of a hand.
“That was just overwhelming. It was hard to hold back tears,” said Rep. Gordon Hendrick, R-Superior. Hendrick and Jackie Clarke, service manager at the bank across the street, mobilized what appeared to be most of the county for the Mary Dague Day ceremony in less than a week when word was received she and Jared were coming to town on leave.
Dague, who graduated from Superior High in 2003, is an Army EOD tech. That's short for explosives ordnance disposal. She loves her job and hates that she's left the soldiers of the 707th EOD to carry on without her.
“They're still in Iraq, but they'll be back this month. Part of the reason I took leave was so I could go see them,” she said. She said she and Tillery will leave Superior on March 25 to greet the unit at Fort Lewis, Wash.
Meanwhile, she faces a long road of rehabilitation at Fort Sam Houston in Texas. Dague underwent the first of many surgeries a couple of weeks ago to prepare her arm to accept a prosthetic.
Dague and her company were deployed to Iraq on New Year's Eve 2006. The company was attached to the battalion that included Jared, whose younger brother, Lance Cpl. Jesse Tillery, was killed in Iraq less than a month before.
Last Nov. 4, Dague picked up a partially defused homemade bomb to be transported to a secure area and detonated. It slipped from her arms and exploded. A protective vest she wore saved her life and that of the team leader behind her.
Besides losing both arms, Dague suffered burns and bruises to her face, a fractured occipital bone, abrasions to a cornea, pinhole punctures in both eardrums, and sand blasted into her ears that was not fully flushed out until surgery in Texas.
Stories of her courage since have already become famous. She's far ahead of schedule in rehab. She left the intensive care unit on her feet, while a wheelchair carried her belongings.
She was discharged from the hospital 17 days after the bomb went off, and she and Jared were shopping for Thanksgiving clothes in San Antonio the same day.
Her mother, Terra Johnson, reported last month in the Clark Fork Chronicle that she was the only female in the rehab room, and spends half again as much time on each workout machine as most of the men.
“When she hears the words ‘I can't,' the Mary factor kicks into overdrive,” Johnson wrote. “She looks at the guy and says, ‘Cowboy up! There's no such thing as can't. You just don't want to.' ”
Hendrick said the address Dague gave in Texas upon receiving the Purple Heart drew a standing ovation and teary eyes, in a room full of hardened war veterans.
What can I do to help you? Schweitzer asked Dague before Wednesday's ceremony.
“The only problem I'm facing right now is with what's called the Warrior Transition Unit,” she replied.
Burned and maimed soldiers at Fort Sam Houston are treated as a regular infantry battalion, subject to regular formation drills and check-ins.
“They try to say their unit comes before medical appointments or physical appointments, which is completely not true,” said Dague. “Our mission is to heal and get back in the Army and get back in the fight.”
But that's about others, Schweitzer pressed. How about you?
“I'm doing great. I'm fine,” she answered. “Honestly, this is nothing I can't handle. I have the support of hundreds of people, people I've never met. They make me quilts, send me letters, come and talk to me. Just that alone. Š I would lose my arms again for that.”
She doesn't talk in past tense about her military service, because she intends to rejoin her unit.
“They're a great bunch of guys. They're like brothers to me,” Dague said of her teammates in Iraq. “It's like missing part of my family over there. This day's dedicated to me, but it should be dedicated to them.”
Hendrick mustered the help of Schweitzer, Tester, Rehberg and Sen. Max Baucus to place Dague into a program that she hopes will result in a set of newly developed bionic arms. The surgeries and assorted medical procedures will take some seven months per arm to complete.
“This is really nothing,” Dague insisted. “It's just a speed bump.”
And days like Wednesday make the bump smoother.
Look into the eyes of the children here to see you, Schweitzer told Dague before the ceremony.
“They look at you as a hero, and you are a hero,” he said. “But you also represent something very special to them, because you may be the only hero they ever knew. And yet there are 150,000 more just like you serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It's a big day, and I think these kids will remember this day, and they'll tell their children about this day when they're in fourth grade.”
“I was overwhelmed at first,” said Dague said as she watched the students, 340 of them, board their buses to return to elementary and high school classes. “But, you know, it could have been pouring down rain and I'd be happy.”
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charisse santha wrote on Dec 10, 2008 1:40 PM: