With her boyfriend recuperating from an explosion in Afghanistan that took part of his left leg, Jennifer Mercado understood why he couldn’t be home for the birth of their daughter in Colorado Springs. She just hoped he would send flowers.
On Wednesday, a day after their child’s birth, Fort Carson soldier Sgt. Andrew Peden did her one better.
In a surprise that involved finagling leave from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Peden arranged a flight to Colorado Springs and got a friend to push his wheelchair up to Mercado’s second-floor room at Memorial Hospital North. Then he delivered the flowers in person.
“I couldn’t even believe that it was real,” Mercado said of their reunion Wednesday, during which Peden held his daughter for the first time.
“I was crying, and he was crying, and she was just chilling,” Mercado said, referring to the calmest person in the room: little Elizabeth Grace Peden, born at 6:15 p.m. Tuesday.
The 7-pound, 10-ounce girl has thick, dark hair adorned with a light green ribbon that Peden traced with his fingertip Thursday while the couple recounted their story.
Peden, 28, was wounded March 24 while on a patrol in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, where he deployed in December as a mid-tour replacement in the 4th Brigade Combat Team’s 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.
After learning that Taliban fighters were in the area, Peden and his comrades prepared for a potential firefight. That is when Peden stepped directly on a homemade bomb, which detonated in a blast that took his left foot and peppered the right half of his body with shrapnel.
Enemy fighters opened fire, but Peden’s comrades drove them away while a medic tended to his wounds.
Peden, who served an earlier, 15-month tour in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division, had his leg amputated just below the knee. He wants to remain in the Army, possibly as a drill sergeant, and plans to learn to snowboard on a prosthetic foot.
His four-day leave ends Saturday morning. Until then, he said, he plans to be at Mercado’s side with their new daughter.
“She’s got a round face, just like her daddy, and lots of hair,” Peden said, cradling the girl in his bandaged arm. “I’m gonna miss you, baby girl.”
