Local War Stories...

The Appleton Post-Crescent Covers the story of a local vet blinded in Iraq here.

Andrew Neumeyer remembers seeing life drain from the face of fellow soldier Andrew Wallace.

Neumeyer was cradling the mortally wounded Ripon man — a fellow member of the Wisconsin Army National Guard's 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry, based in Appleton — after a roadside bomb struck Wallace's Humvee near Basra, Iraq.

Wallace's blood ran into the desert sand.

"I held him for a half-hour before he died. To me, it seemed like an eternity," said Neumeyer, 26, of Neenah. "I was giving him water. He said to tell his wife, Angela, that he loved her. I did.

"In the end, we were communicating by blinks of the eye."

Four months later, the compassionate eyes that bade Wallace goodbye were all but torn from Neumeyer when another roadside bomb sprayed shrapnel into his Humvee.

Metal shards destroyed his right eye, and severely impaired vision in his left eye. And the blast fractured his skull.

Despite his horrific injuries and the emotional trauma of witnessing Wallace's final moments, Neumeyer is upbeat and focused, ready to face the rest of his life, including his planned marriage in December.