One soldier's sparkle amidst tragedy
By Chip Womick
Staff Writer, The Courier-Tribune
ASHEBORO - Connie Spinks' eyes sparkle. Her smile is infectious. Her
spirit is merry and bright.
Three days before Christmas, Spinks, a 2000 graduate of Southwestern
Randolph High School, sat in a wheelchair in the living room of her parents'
Zoo Parkway home, telling of the October day when a suicide bomber crashed
into her military convoy in Mosul, Iraq, leaving her with multiple severe
injuries.
Since the blast that killed two of her fellow reservists, Spinks has
been in a hospital or in daily therapy on a road to recovery from those
injuries, which include second- and third-degree burns, that doctors say
will take at least a year.
It will be awhile before Spinks can stand because she has a steel rod
in her left thigh where it was broken in three places, a fractured left
fibula and a shattered right ankle that has been pieced back together.
She wears compression gloves on both hands and lower arms to help the
burned places heal. Two of her fingers are broken. She'll have to wear the
gloves 23 hours a day for a year. Doctors say the fingers will never be
straight again and will take longer to heal than her leg.
There's an open wound on the bottom of one heel and shrapnel in her leg.
The explosive concussion damaged her eardrums, leading to hearing loss in
both ears.
Though barely noticeable, her beaming face shows signs of the burns that
left her black skin white from the chin up.
The story of destruction and pain Spinks tells seems to have no possible
connection to happy eyes, a joyous smile, a soaring spirit. And still, she
smiles, brushing off a suggestion that she is a hero, sidestepping thanks
for her service to her country.
"All I did was survive," she said. "I did my job. I really
enjoy my job."
Many people have called her a hero or told her that she inspired them,
in face-to-face encounters or via cards. She has two scrapbooks filled with
cards from well-wishers, many of them sent by Randolph County folks, including
numerous homemade cards from schoolchildren.
According to Spinks, her attitude in the face of adversity is not remarkable.
It's simply founded in faith.
"God is good to me," she said. "That's why I'm smiling
all the time.
"... It could have been a lot, lot worse, they say. They say I had
angels around me that day. I said I know that."
Spinks' mother, Annette, keeps the faith, too. Annette Spinks has stayed
with her daughter throughout her recovery in Texas and will likely return
next year as she continues therapy. She has no doubts about her daughter's
future.
"God is in the midst of all this, he is in charge," she said.
"We know everything is going to be OK."
Connie, as well as her mother and her father, Eddie, said the response
by people - friends, neighbors and strangers - in their time of need, has
been overwhelming.
"They have sent so much love," Annette Spinks said, "and
we appreciate it so much."
"The community's really been great to help," said Eddie Spinks.
"I'm grateful for the prayers," said Connie. "I truly
need that."
Connie Spinks took part in the Junior ROTC program while attending Asheboro
High School and later at Southwestern Randolph. By the time she graduated,
she was contemplating a military career. She finally decided to join the
U.S. Army Reserve, then, because she was 17, had to lobby for three months
to get her father's blessing - and signature.
When she was living in Asheboro, she was assigned to a unit in Greensboro.
After moving to California a couple of years ago, she was assigned to the
426th Civil Affairs Battalion. She was working as a bank teller and studying
elementary education at Pasadena City College when her unit was activated.
They shipped out to Iraq last summer and spent two weeks in Kuwait, getting
acclimated to the desert heat, before entering Iraq on Sept. 8. As a civil
affairs specialist, Spinks and her fellow reservists worked with the civilian
population on humanitarian projects and in assessing the country's infrastructure
needs.
The day of the attack, Spinks and her fellow reservists were heading
back to camp after helping rebuild an open market in the city, a project
to help get the economy back on track.
The attack occurred on Oct. 13, the day after Spinks' 22nd birthday,
when a suicide bomber driving a truck plowed into a military Humvee carrying
Spinks and several fellow Army reservists on a city street in Mosul, Iraq.
Spinks was the gunner atop the armored vehicle and saw the bushy-haired
man wearing a T-shirt driving a little truck toward the convoy from a side
street. She held out her hand in the Middle Eastern gesture signifying stop
- palm and fingers pointed down - and yelled in Arabic for him to halt.
She thought he was a motorist ignoring the rules of the road. By the
time she realized he was not going to stop, it was too late to fire her
weapon, she said.
His expressionless image is etched in her mind.
"I expected his eyes to be squinted. I expected this anger or bitterness.
There was none of that at all. He didn't look like he hated Americans. He
didn't look like he was on a mission. He looked like a regular person."
The explosion catapulted Spinks from the top of the Humvee and she found
herself dangling from a side door blown open by the blast, her body armor
caught on the door.
She managed to pull open a Velcro fastener and fell to the ground as
bullets peppered the area. She could see out of one eye only because blood
from a head wound was streaming into the other one.
"Before I could even scream for God to help me, He was already helping
me," Spinks said, remembering fellow soldiers who appeared by her side
almost immediately and carried her to a Humvee in the convoy that had not
been hit. She was evacuated to a hospital in Germany, then, four days later,
flown to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in Texas.
She did not look at herself for a month and no one told her that two
men had died in the explosion until she was discharged from the hospital.
Spinks believes both of those things have helped her emotional recovery.
"I don't have any bad memories of my face other than it being white,"
she said, laughing.
When she told her 15-year-old brother about her concerns over her face,
he quickly responded.
"I don't care if you've got a white face," he said. "You
know I dig those white women anyway."
"That made me feel good," Spinks said, laughing harder.
During a Dec. 17 ceremony in Texas, Spinks was one of three soldiers
who received Purple Hearts. Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington
presented hers.
Spinks remembers thinking that if the handsome leading man touched her
she would pass out. He held her hand, hugged her and bent to kiss her on
the cheek.
"I was in heaven," she said. "I was just in heaven."
Since Friday, following the apparent suicide bomb explosion that killed
22 people in a mess tent in Mosul, Spinks has been worried about fellow
reservists she left behind in Iraq.
She plans to concentrate on her recuperation - and her studies. She wants
to complete a degree so she can teach first or second grade.
And she says she's not sure, but that she might be deployed on active
duty again in the future. She said she hopes the war in Iraq will be over
by then. If not, she said she'd prefer to be sent to Afghanistan.
"They have their problems, but they don't have quite as many threats
as Iraq," she said.
Spinks harbors no ill will against the Iraqi people for the attack that
left her wounded. She said she worked with too many trustworthy Iraqis who
showed up every day to help rebuild their country despite the personal danger
to themselves and their families.
"I don't hate all Iraqis," she said. "I'm not going to
let that one bad seed spoil it for everyone else."
Spinks' Christmas wish list is short: a bottle of Exclamation perfume
and a cordless telephone (it's not so easy to navigate her parents' home
in a wheelchair and answer the phone as it was in the handicapped-accessible
accommodations to which she's grown accustomed).
She's also craving fried turkey, potato salad, cornbread and dressing,
which she planned to enjoy at a family gathering in Ramseur on Christmas
Eve.
And while she may have a remarkable attitude, Spinks is ready, has been
ready for some time, in fact, to get back on her feet, to reclaim her military-honed
fitness.
"They say my body's healing, so that's why I get tired all the time.
I say this is not me. I'm too young not to be able to hang."
And she says it with a smile.
Copyright 2002, Stephens Media Group
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