After Afghanistan blast, Marine takes it day by day

<p>Marine Lance Cpl. Hubert William Perkins Jr. of Santa Rosa is determined to walk again on his left leg, shattered by a roadside bomb four weeks ago in Afghanistan.</p><p>“I'm all right,” Perkins, 20, said Monday, sounding groggy by phone from his bed at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. “I'm taking it day by day.”</p><p>Perkins, who joined the Marines last year, was the only one of six Marines injured when the Cougar armored vehicle he was driving hit a concealed bomb Nov. 24 in the Bakwa District.</p><p>The blast lifted the 17-ton vehicle 15 to 20 feet off the ground, in the process breaking every bone in Perkins' left foot and both his lower leg bones, said his father, Hubert William Perkins Sr. of Rohnert Park.</p><p>The elder Perkins said it was “still uncertain” whether his son's lower leg would be amputated, but the Marine was adamant.</p><p>“I'm keeping it,” he said. “I'm looking forward to going home.”</p><p>Perkins, nicknamed Billy, said he has had multiple surgeries, the most recent a skin graft on his injured leg. </p><p>“Looks pretty gnarly,” said Perkins, an extreme skateboarder before he enlisted in March 2008.</p><p>Perkins was behind the wheel of the Cougar on a routine night patrol when the left front wheel hit the bomb and “blew my leg up,” he said.</p><p>The Cougar's V-shaped hull, designed to deflect the force of a roadbed explosion, did its job, Perkins said.</p><p>“We were the only ones (in the convoy) in an MRAP,” he said, using the acronym for a mine resistant ambush protected vehicle. “If I had missed it and one of my buddies hit it with their Humvee, they'd all be gone.”</p><p>The elder Perkins, a former Marine who served from 1974 to 1980, said minesweepers had preceded his son's vehicle, but the bomb's detonation plate was made of wood and wasn't detected. Insurgents “are getting smarter,” he said.</p><p>Both Perkinses served with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, based in Twentynine Palms and known as the “Thundering Third.”</p><p>Billy Perkins said it was a coincidence that he wound up in his father's old unit. </p><p>His sister, Staff Sgt. Lora Shae Perkins, a helicopter flight paramedic with the Army's 101st Airborne Division, has served two tours in Iraq and is training for a deployment to Afghanistan.</p><p>“We are warriors in my family,” the elder Perkins said.</p><p>Tracy Perkins, the wounded Marine's mother, said she was “terrified” when her son signed up. But her father and grandfather served in the Army, making hers a “military family,” she said.</p><p>Tracy and Hubert “Bill” Perkins arrived at the naval hospital Dec. 4. He came home to take care of their other children; Tracy said she will stay with her son until he transfers to a Veterans Affairs rehabilitation center in Palo Alto.</p><p>“They are just trying to salvage his limb,” Tracy Perkins said by phone Monday.</p><p>Spending Christmas at a military hospital is not ideal, but there is compensation.</p><p>“I'm just thankful he's alive. That's the best Christmas present,” she said.</p><p>Tracy Perkins said her son hasn't said much about the incident.</p><p>“He's getting better,” she said, but he's having “bad dreams” at night and suffering constant pain by day.</p><p>It hurts “all the time,” Billy Perkins said.</p><p>His father said he's been told that about one-third of the Marines with a similar injury ultimately elect to have part of the leg amputated.</p><p>The young Marine said he enlisted just after graduating from New Haven Adult High School in Union City.</p><p>“I felt like I wanted to make a better life for myself,” he said. “Help my country. Feel like I was making a difference.”</p><p>Perkins' unit arrived in Afghanistan in early October.</p><p>He hasn't been out of bed since the explosion, but is awaiting the attachment of a new external fixator, a system of pins or screws attached to the bone and secured with external clamps and rods. </p><p>Doctors have told him the fixator will be capable of bearing the weight of his lean, 6-foot-1 body, enabling him to stand up “as tolerated,” Perkins said.</p><p>“If I can tolerate it, I will” stand up, he said.</p><p>Born and raised in Santa Rosa, Perkins attended Santa Rosa Christian School, Riebli Elementary School, Rincon Valley Middle School and Montgomery and Ridgway high schools.</p><p>“Fought his way through all of them,” his father said.</p><p>As a teenager himself, Bill Perkins said he was given the choice of going into the California Youth Authority or the Marines, and he took the latter.</p><p>An aggressive skateboarder, the younger Perkins broke 26 bones in skating mishaps before joining the Marines.</p><p>Despite the serious wound, he had no regrets about going to Afghanistan, he said.</p><p>“Some of my best friends are over there,” he said.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.</p>