A Marine comes home

Arriving at Columbia Regional Airport late Tuesday afternoon, Lance Cpl. John McClellan negotiated the steps from the plane to the tarmac with care and concentration, as though the skill had been recently mastered. It had: Almost two months ago, McClellan was shot in the head by a sniper in Iraq. For the young man friends and family call “Lucky,” those steps marked a recovery that was hoped for but far from expected.

McClellan, 20, waved to the 100 or so people waiting to welcome him as he walked to a waiting wheelchair, holding a cane that never touched the ground. Doctors didn’t expect that he would walk or talk again, much less eat pizza or go to a Buccaneers game — all accomplishments of the past week.

But family and friends knew better.

McClellan, a Hickman High School graduate, earned the nickname “Lucky” after he was shot in his right arm twice in the same week during his first tour with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Echo Company in Afghanistan. On Sept. 26, while in Haditha, Iraq, serving a second tour of duty, he was shot again. The AK-47 bullet entered over his left ear and went out the back of his neck. McClellan was taken to a hospital in Balad, Iraq, where doctors operated on him for five hours, removing brain tissue and bone fragments. After the surgery, he was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

On the day McClellan was shot, his mother, Connie McClellan, said doctors at the hospital in Balad told her that, if he survived at all, John would probably be severely mentally and physically impaired.

“We didn’t know how to pray,” said Susie Edwards, John’s godmother. “I didn’t know if I should pray for God to take him if he was going to be a vegetable, or if I should pray that he would live.”

The next morning, the prognosis changed. John’s condition had improved and, although he was still unconscious, he responded to commands and his vital signs were good.

John’s family caught up with him when he arrived at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where he stayed for the next 3½ weeks. When he arrived, John was unresponsive and needed a ventilator to help him breathe. A week later, he was not only breathing on his own but was aware of his surroundings and talking to his mother, father and sister.

“It was this kick in the gut of excitement, and I could see him, and he looked like John, and I was so excited all of a sudden,” his sister, Jane McClellan, said at the time.

On Oct. 24, John was moved to James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa, Fla., to begin physical therapy and continue a recovery his mother calls miraculous.

Throughout his recovery, the McClellans have been supported by family, friends and Columbia residents they have never met — many of whom turned out late Tuesday afternoon to welcome John home.

“He’s all of our sons at this point,” said family friend Terri Lukehart.

The crowd was so excited, in fact, that watching from outside the chain link fence beside the tarmac, they cheered for the first two men who got off the plane — realizing a beat later that neither was John and laughing good-naturedly at the mistake.

Then, John appeared at the door of the plane, ducking his head on the way out with seemingly practiced care.

His mother, who had traveled with him, waited at the bottom of the steps, and together they walked to a wheelchair. When they reappeared in the parking lot, John had removed the blue helmet he wore to protect his fragile skull. A scar shaped like a question mark carved through his short hair on the back of his head.

More than the scar, the nerve damage limiting movement in the left side of his face is what really bothers John, said his father, Carl McClellan. Still, John’s smile was big, if a little lopsided, as he received hugs and gifts in the airport parking lot.

The McClellans are looking forward to life with their son, though they acknowledge they have some adjusting to do. They planned to begin that adjustment with Chinese food. John request: mushu pork.

Carl and Connie are delighted to feed their son. He lost 50 pounds after his injury and has gained only 30 back, Carl said. He plans to remedy this problem with steak, John’s favorite food.

But that will have to wait. The McClellans will serve turkey for Thanksgiving at their home.

“He’s a steak man,” Carl said of his son, “but tradition can’t be broken.”