Alive Day - Lt. Dawn Halfaker

First Lt. Dawn Halfaker, U.S. Army

First Leutenant Dawn Halfaker is strikingly well-spoken. She is intelligent, driven, attractive, and an amputee. Dawn's right arm and shoulder were blown off by a rocket propelled grenade, which fortunately exploded after it had passed through her shoulder. During Dawn's interview in the Alive Day documentary I heard many of the people watching the film crying as they considered the impact this has had on this young lady. Dawn discussed her concerns about the fact that if she has children some day she will never be able to pick them up with two arms the way most mothers do. She talked of her concerns that her children may not see her as a normal mother but that they may see her as a little bit less somehow.

But these fears were not on the surface when I met Lt. Halfaker. She was very impressive from the moment I began speaking to her. She is intelligent and full of life and has a fanatastic outlook.

Here is Dawn's story in her own words:

My dark memories are inescapable, they are the fiber that shape the threads of my new life and I must accept them for what they are and persevere through them.

In theory my life has moved well beyond the tragic event that befell me on 19 June, 2004. I have a new and successful career that consumes me; keeps me occupied twenty four hours a day and takes me on adventures around the country. I am in graduate school; I have a beautiful new condo in metro D.C. and I have a slew of friends who I trust and love that make me laugh. However, through the windows of my ‘new' life, each day I find myself at one moment or another looking back at my service in the military and my injury, wondering how different, easy, and wonderful my life would be like had I not become a product of the ravages of war. I could have gone to Yale. I could have branched ---, rather than MP and sat behind a desk doing war-fighter's errands. My list of ‘I could be doing...' is quite long. And through my best efforts to skew my vision at something other than the past, I am reminded of it every day and every day it tears at my heart, mind and soul.

Lt. Dawn Helfaker and Nancy Hogan of
Paralyzed Veterans of America

Whether I watch the news and see that another suicide bomber has taken more life from the people I was trying to protect, whether I hear that another one of my friends and/or former comrades has died in the heat of battle, or whether I just feel a hint of phantom pain trickle down from my brain to my armless shoulder, I remember and I am conflicted. But, at the end of the day when I lay down to go to sleep with all of my modern comforts surrounding me, I am happy with who I am, and although my dark memories are inescapable, they are the fiber that shape the threads of my new life and I must accept them for what they are and persevere through them, no matter how painful they may be. My happiness would suffer otherwise.