Life shattered in Iraq pieced back together

What he was most anxious about was sitting when the president walked into the room. With his wife's help, he stood and remained standing for his commander in chief.

Of course, the memory of duty and honor wouldn't last

24 hours for McGinnis. Brain injury meant he lived only in the moment. Sometimes the memory of what happened in Fallujah disappeared, too.

But McGinnis had help. During their eight-hour shifts at his bedside, his parents would quietly tell him that he had to be strong. He had to get better, for his family, for his wife, for his son.

McGinnis remembers some of it today, but only secondhand. "My father would whisper in my ear. He'd tell me about the baby and told me about my leg so I wouldn't freak out. I'm sure it pulled me through."

When McGinnis' successful eye surgery replaced his damaged lens, his parents went home in early December 2004, confident of an eventual recovery. Andrea and Derek McGinnis would come west a couple of weeks later.

In Palo Alto, the VA therapists started putting McGinnis and his life back together again. The family was told that it was as if he had spilled the memory files from his brain all over the floor. Now he had to learn to pick them up and use them.

The first emotional landmark on McGinnis' road back was when he was able to tell his wife and parents how much he loved and appreciated them. But what is one memory for McGinnis happened repeatedly for his wife and parents. Sometimes his short-term memory was an hour or less.

As McGinnis' memory slowly returned, he set a goal. He desperately wanted to be a father, like his father had been to him. "To be able to read books to my son and spend time with him."

In late January, he was transferred back to Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, where he learned about prosthetics. But by the time his son Sean Patrick was born there Feb. 15, 2005, he was still in a wheelchair.

Even when he couldn't walk, his wife remembers McGinnis tending to Sean in the wee hours.

The one thing he couldn't overcome was the loneliness when he was separated from his family in the summer of 2005.

When Andrea McGinnis and Sean went back to her post as a logistics officer with the Seabees in Hawaii, Derek McGinnis went into depression. Andrea McGinnis recognized the problem. She asked for and received a hardship discharge from the Navy.

With his family reunited for a move to Texas in October 2005, McGinnis was ready for the next phase of his recovery.

Men from the Injured Marines Semper Fi Fund had visited him while he was in the Bethesda hospital. They challenged McGinnis to run with them in the November 2005 Marine Marathon in Washington, which included a 10-kilometer run.

But McGinnis' leg required another operation in Texas. A calcium growth had to be cut out so he could more comfortably wear a prosthetic.

"I was really disappointed when I couldn't keep my word," he said.

Therapists from Brooke Army Medical Center worked to help him reach his goal. "It took me a month just to figure out how to run," said McGinnis.

One lap was all he could manage at first. Again and again, his leg was rubbed raw by his obsession to run. The former high school football, track and soccer player in Fremont vowed to keep his word to Semper Fi. He said the Marine Marathon in November 2006, his first athletic event after Fallujah, will always be his favorite.

The run ends in Arlington, Va., at the National Cemetery. McGinnis finished his course going uphill to the base of the Marine Corps monument depicting the men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima in World War II.