Meeks ’01-’02 Wounded Near Fallujah

Jim J. Meeks ’01-’02, an Army second lieutenant who was severely wounded in Iraq on Saturday, is recovering at a military hospital in Germany and expects to be back in the United States this weekend.

Brynn L. Jinnett ’05, a close friend of Meeks who spoke to the injured soldier last evening, forwarded questions from The Crimson to Meeks and relayed his responses.

“I’m recovering very quickly. The pain is manageable,” said Meeks, who underwent surgery yesterday to remove a piece of shrapnel from his leg.

Meeks, a former social studies concentrator in Lowell House, was injured when his convoy struck an improvised explosive device (IED) 15 miles west of Fallujah.Both of Meeks’ eardrums were punctured and a piece of shrapnel struck his right eye, Jinnett said.

Jinnett said that several Harvard students and alums who are studying in the United Kingdom this year have arrived in Landstuhl, Germany to offer support to Meeks.

Meeks said yesterday he had become accustomed to danger during his tour of duty in Iraq.

“Every day I rolled out of my base camp, I knew I potentially could be killed,” he said. “I had run that route 12 times, and five out of the 12 an IED had hit some part of the convoy, so I pretty much thought it would be inevitable.”

Meeks said that after the attack Saturday, “I was pretty confident that I was going to survive my injuries, but not knowing what happened to the other men in my vehicle was what frightened me the most.”

The Boston Globe reported Tuesday that one Iraqi detainee in Meeks’ convoy died in the attack. But Jinnett said that no one in the convoy was killed. She said that the Iraqi who was killed was being pursued by the U.S. troops.

Meeks is scheduled to fly to Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County, Md. tomorrow night, Jinnett said.

From there, Meeks will either proceed to Ft. Riley in Kansas or to his family’s Mass. home, Jinnett said.

Meeks said he hopes to return to Iraq. But, he said, “it depends on whether my unit is deployed before my injuries heal.”

“I want to go back because I don’t feel like my mission is complete,” Meeks said. “I don’t want the Iraqis to have the satisfaction of thinking they got me.”

Speaking at Memorial Church yesterday, Lt. Seth W. Moulton ’01 paid homage to his injured friend [see article left].

“In a time when the nation is dismayed and outraged by the prison abuse in Baghdad,” Moulton said, “who can say they’ve done more to solve these problems in Iraq than Jim Meeks?”

“He worked outside Fallujah in an Iraqi prison, overseeing, leading and mentoring the same type of enlisted soldiers as the seven who are now so infamous across the globe,” Moulton said. “Those young men and women at Abu Ghraib did not have good leaders. I can assure you that Meeks’ soldiers did.”

Gomes said “the country is a great deal better off” with soldiers like Moulton and Meeks.

“Jim Meeks I baptized when he was a sophomore in college,” said Gomes, who added that he has tried to reach the wounded soldier but missed a phone call from Meeks yesterday.

“In a very dark and troubled time, these two fellows are signs of encouragement to me,” Gomes said.

The wounded soldier’s father, Louis W. Meeks, an assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School, was not in his office yesterday and could not be reached for comment.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.