Merlin German
Profile
Age: 22
From: Manhattan, N.Y.
Assigned to the 5th Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Incident: Marine Sgt. Merlin German died April 11 at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, from wounds sustained while conducting combat operations in Anbar, Iraq, on Feb. 22, 2005. He had been medically retired on Sept. 28, 2007, as a result of his injuries.
Died: April 11, 2008
Marine burned on 97 percent of body dies
By Dan Lamothe
Staff writer
Sgt. Merlin German had been struggling with burn wounds covering more than 97 percent of his body for nearly two years when he made a decision: painful or not, he was going to don his dress blues and whisk his mother away for a dance during a hospital ball.
Over the next few weeks, he practiced his dancing at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, with Norma Guerra, the hospital’s deputy chief of public affairs, Guerra said. And when the 2006 Brooke’s Holiday Ball arrived, he surprised his mother on the dance floor, taking her in his arms.
“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Guerra said. “He had made up his mind, and he was going to do it.”
That’s one of many memories that friends and family have of German, 22, who died April 11 at the hospital, Defense Department officials said...