Isaiah Pasterski
De Pere soldier wounded in Iraq
Grenade shrapnel hit face, shoulder
By Nathan Phelps
nphelps@greenbaypressgazette.com
The voice on the other end of the line Sunday morning told De Pere residents Susan and Kevin Pasterski that their son had been wounded in an explosion in Baghdad, Iraq.
Then the line went dead.
When they got a return call a short time later, they learned their 18-year-old son, Pfc. Isaiah Pasterski, had suffered shrapnel wounds to his eye, face and shoulder when a rocket-propelled grenade detonated outside the Humvee he was driving at about 7 p.m. local time Saturday in northwest Baghdad.
"This was just another mission they were going out on, and he said there was one guy on the road and before he could react … the explosive blew up," Susan Pasterski said Monday. "The vehicle swerved off and hit a light pole. He remembers only being pulled out and being put" in the back of another vehicle.
Susan Pasterski talked to her son after he had undergone preliminary surgery on his eye.
His journey home is expected to take him through Kuwait to Germany and on to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where family members will join him.
Isaiah Pasterski, a De Pere native who graduated from the Challenge Academy at Fort McCoy, is a member of the 70th Engineer Battalion out of Fort Riley, Kan. He specializes in clearing mines, his mom said.
He has been in Iraq for the past five months.
"He sounded strong but very, very down that he had to leave his guys behind," Susan Pasterski said about talking with her son Sunday afternoon.
Attacks on American forces in some parts of Iraq have been common since the end of major military operations was declared on May 1.
Susan Pasterski said her son would face extensive surgery and recovery.
"You're so much in shock you can't think straight and you want to be with your child because he's so far away," she said. "The fact that he is alive and he will overcome this gets me through my day and my husband also."
