Returning home safe

Jenny Marder

Fighting in the arid deserts of Iraq was surreal, almost like being

in a movie, said Lance Cpl. Eric Moore, who returned to his Surf City

home last week after being struck by pieces of an exploding grenade

outside one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in central Baghdad.

“We don’t think about being scared,” the 24-year-old Marine said.

“The training just kicks in. You don’t notice how big of a battle it

is and you don’t notice how long. And it doesn’t all sink in until

you see someone get hit.”

He called the war a positive experience.

Iraqi families would greet the soldiers and offer them cigarettes

as they passed by, he said, smiling as he recalled handing out food

and candy as his company passed on the way to Baghdad.

“We did as much as we could to be as hospitable as possible,” he

said.

The people were mostly civil, even helpful, directing the soldiers

to weapon storage sites, he said.

“We tried to be the least intimidating as possible,” Moore said.

“We tried to go there with as many smiles as we could. But we still

had to maintain focus and discipline.”

The 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, Bravo Company entered Kuwait on

Feb. 7 and crossed the border into Iraq on March 19.

Moore was fighting just outside one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in

central Baghdad on April 10 when an exploding grenade ricocheted off

the hand of one soldier and the jaw of another before striking Moore

in the shoulder and launching him 6 feet backward. Pieces of shrapnel

ripped through muscles and nerves in his arm and chest and caused a

lung to collapse before settling near his right lung, where it’s been

ever since.

“Everything instantly went numb,” he said. He remembers asking

another soldier if his arm was still there, and then if his tattoo, a

black and red Viking symbol on his forearm, was intact.

Within 30 minutes, Moore was at a hospital.

“They operated on me immediately,” he said. “They patched us up

really fast.”

Now his left hand feels like pins and needles, everything below

his shoulder is numb and his arm won’t move backward.

Back at home, where Teresa Lord, 46, waited for her son, nothing

about the war was positive.

“I cried all the time,” Lord said. “I missed him, I was worried

and I’d keep praying and praying and praying. I was throwing myself

into prayer groups. I couldn’t watch the news or listen to the radio

because it was too hurtful. I was driving myself insane with worry.”

Moore’s homecoming has been one of fanfare, excitement, media

attention and the occasional emotional outburst.

The garage in the family’s northeast Huntington Beach home is

decorated in signs made by family, friends and neighbors that say

“Welcome home, Eric,” “We are proud of you,” and “You are our hero.”

The staircase is lined with streamers and balloons. One is a birthday

balloon, as his birthday, April 1, was spent in cross-fire at the

Saddam Canal.

“It was like a party,” he said and grinned. “A lot of fireworks.”

Fame seems a bit unnatural to the young Marine, who is humble and

soft spoken by nature. But with the homecoming he’s received, he’s

quickly growing accustomed to it.

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing since he returned.

He has free tickets to a Mighty Ducks game on Wednesday. On

Thursday, he’s being honored at a flag ceremony by the mayor of La

Habra. On Friday, he’ll speak to an elementary school in Mission

Viejo. And on Saturday, another in a long sequence of barbecues.

This is all in between trips to the naval hospital, where he is

undergoing treatment and physical therapy for his injuries.

On his birthday, while Moore faced gunfire, his mother bought him

a bouquet of flowers.

When Eric was injured, he called his best friend Eddie and asked

him to break the news gently to his mother, because he didn’t have

the heart to tell her over the phone.

Immediately after learning that her son was wounded, Lord ordered

a passport. Shortly after, she was told her son would be coming home.

“Eric’s my baby,” she said. “It’s so good to have him back.”

Moore, who hopes to serve in the Huntington Beach Police

Department one day, said that doctors have predicted 80% to 95%

recovery.

“We just hope his future isn’t impacted by the wounds he’s taken,”

Lord said.