Hoffman Estates man awarded Silver Star

The sound of Taliban gunfire woke Army Staff Sgt. Matthew Ritenour on an early September morning that would change his life.

The Hoffman Estates High School graduate jumped out of bed and found his M4 rifle as he and his platoon armored their bodies and steeled their nerves for what was to come.

"Our platoon sergeant told us to get up and that we were under attack, which we already knew," Ritenour recalled in a telephone interview from Germany.

According to the military's account, 180 Taliban fighters surrounded the Army's combat outpost in Baylough in southeastern Afghanistan, drastically outnumbering the 40 American troops inside.

During that battle, Taliban machine-gun fire found Ritenour, cutting through his Kevlar helmet and into his skull. The wound left him partially paralyzed, but he never lost consciousness and continued to help fend off insurgents until air support arrived.

Nine months later, Ritenour calmly tells the story as he slowly regains mobility. He's still in the Army, now stationed in Germany and living with wife Nancy and their 4-year-old daughter, Natalie.

"I feel like I'm the same person, at least mentally," he said.

He's humble about his actions that day, but the Army isn't. In May, on his 33rd birthday, Ritenour was awarded the Silver Star - one of the military's highest honors for valor under fire.

His parents, Kathleen and John Ritenour of Hoffman Estates, were there when he received the medal in Germany.

Kathleen, a nurse at St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates, she says it's a miracle her son survived the attack.

"When you're talking about the brain, it's a matter of a millimeter here and millimeter there. It's just amazing," she said. "It's hard to say you're lucky, but I think we're lucky, I think we're very blessed."

Ritenour has endured three surgeries and lost some hearing in his right ear. Doctors have placed a metal prosthetic in his head. His right ankle remains paralyzed and he lacks full range of motion in a shoulder.

Simple exercises like curling his toes and stretching leave him winded, but he said sharing his experiences also proves therapeutic.

"I think it helps to talk about it," he said.

From the trenches

According to the military's account of the battle that injured Ritenour, Taliban forces had scouted the post where his platoon - members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment - were stationed.

Ritenour called the Taliban's early-morning attack last Sept. 4 well-coordinated.

"The Taliban had their game face on," he said.

His platoon fought back from below a hill and behind some giant boulders known as the rock guard. The bullet struck his head as he tended to another wounded man.

Ritenour's right side instantly went numb. He crumpled to the ground. Soldiers rushed in, trying to stop the bleeding as they dragged him to a safer spot.

But Ritenour was still focused on stopping the Taliban from taking the post. From the ground, he continued to bark orders, call for mortar fire and yell out to his soldiers to check their status.

They held their ground for 45 minutes before air support arrived, dropping 500-pound bombs on insurgent forces.

A medical helicopter rushed Ritenour to Kandahar, but his injuries were severe and his survival seemed a longshot.

But as luck would have it, a British neurosurgeon, normally stationed 90 minutes away, was at the Kandahar field hospital. He performed lifesaving surgery on Ritenour.

Days later, he was shipped back to Germany to be reunited with his wife and daughter.

Healing at home

Within a matter of weeks, Ritenour arrived at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where his parents met him and took him home to Hoffman Estates.

The family opted for private medical care, and his next destination would be the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Confined to a wheelchair and with a large scar running across his head, Ritenour couldn't move the right side of his body except for his index finger. His wife had to help him with basic tasks like showering and shaving.

Surgeons at Northwestern Memorial Hospital also inserted a titanium prosthesis in his head.

But among the harder things to deal with was that his daughter was frightened by his condition and all the hospital machinery.

"She's young. She didn't really understand. She was afraid of me at first," he said. "But she kind of warmed to me over time. It's been easy since then."

In late November, he shipped off to the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where tests showed his short-term memory was intact, though his complex problem-solving skills had suffered.

In the months since, Ritenour has regained some mobility but not the partial hearing in one ear.

He now has three physical therapy sessions a week. The sessions leave him out of breath, but he said that's more of a product of being out of shape after months of inactivity.

"I'm not going to get 100 percent movement back. I've pretty much been told that," he said. "But considering where it was, that's not too bad."

He's also walking again "in his own way," his mother said, adding family lovingly calls him "Lurch" after the slow-walking butler from TV's "The Addams Family."

Homefront help

Ritenour opted for private medical treatment in Chicago after his mother got the opinion of other wounded soldiers at Bethesda. That's when the Arlington Heights-based charity Salute stepped in. Though the government fully paid for medical care, other costs weren't covered.

"We're there to fill in the gaps," said Salute Executive Director Mary Beth Biersdorf. "We're there if they need food, clothing, travel expenses."

Through its Nightingale program, Salute paid for a $3,000 furnished apartment in downtown Chicago so Ritenour's wife could walk to the Rehabilitation Institute to visit him.

"We didn't have that kind of cash," Kathleen Ritenour said. "We would have borrowed if we had to."

While back stateside in February, Ritenour was invited by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois to attend President Bush's State of the Union address. Durbin said he was struck by Ritenour's modesty. It wasn't until after their meeting that Durbin learned the young man was up for the Silver Star.

"The guy didn't tell you much, but he was involved in a heck of a battle," Durbin said. "He must have really shown some courage."

Kathleen Ritenour described the Silver Star ceremony as a surreal experience but one that made her extremely proud.

"It's an odd feeling to see what your child is really capable of doing," she said.

The younger Ritenour was 13 when the family moved from Chicago to Hoffman Estates. He enlisted in the Army in 1996, three years after graduating from Hoffman Estates High, but left after he met his future wife. He re-enlisted in 2005.

Ritenour remains reluctant to share his views on Operation Enduring Freedom, which had killed 461 U.S. troops in or around Afghanistan as of June 21. He did say he wishes the news media would pay more attention to Afghanistan.

"It seems when it makes the paper it gets buried on the back page," he said.

Life after combat

Germany has provided a bit of stability for his wife and daughter, who've lived there since 2005.

Comfort comes from being able to return to the yellow house his daughter missed when the family was in Chicago. And from being able to greet loyal Army buddies when they return from missions in Afghanistan.

"I wanted to see all my guys get off the plane," Ritenour said.

He still hopes to return to the infantry one day, but he realizes his injuries might not allow that. The military has given him a year to heal before any decisions are made about him returning to action. Right now, he's working a military desk job, and is due to return to the States for another long hospital stay for further treatment, but isn't sure what the future holds after that.

"It's kind of the million-dollar question," he said.

In one way, Ritenour sees his choice as a simple one: Either he'll stay in the Army or he'll find something new.

Before the injury, Ritenour had talked of following in the footsteps of his father, a retired Chicago police officer. But with the injury, pursuing that option might not work.

"To think he could be just another injured veteran looking at making a living," Kathleen Ritenour said, "That's frightening to him."