Danielle Green appeared for the Irish women's basketball team between 1995-2000.

Special Feature - An American Hero Returns Home

Sept. 10, 2004

By Denise Skwarcan

As a guard on the Notre Dame women’s basketball team from 1995-00, Danielle Green spent five years helping to build the Irish into the national powerhouse that it is today. Her career ran the gamut of highs (being a part of Notre Dame’s first Final Four team in ’97) and lows (not getting to play that season because she tore her Achilles’ tendon on the second day of practice). Along the way she etched her name in the Irish annals as the 16th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point plateau.

Green will admit, however, that she was somewhat relieved when her collegiate career came to a close, putting behind her the enormous pressure that is felt to succeed at a Division I-A program. Upon graduation, Green turned in her high tops for a chalkboard after securing a job as a teacher.

But it wasn’t long before the Chicago, Ill., native became bored and decided that she “wanted some action”. She found it, but not without sacrifice. After enlisting with the Army, Green was deployed to Iraq, not long after which she returned to the United States with a Purple Heart…sans her left hand.

“I was about 25 (years old) going on 26 and I just felt like the timing was right even though I knew we were going to war,” Green recalled. “I didn’t want to look back on my life and say `could’ve, would’ve, should’ve’ and have any regrets. So I just went and did it. I joined the MP (Military Police) Corps because I knew it would be adventurous and it would give me the adrenaline rush I was looking for.”

She added, “It’s been another experience for me and I can’t wait for this chapter to be over so I can move on, go back to Chicago, hopefully go back to school and raise a family.”

From her room at the Malone House Hotel on the Walter Reed Hospital campus in Washington D.C., where she has been recovering, Green related how her experience with JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) in high school led her back to the military several years later.

“I did that for four years and by my senior year I was lieutenant colonel,” Green said. “During the summer I had an opportunity to go to a military camp and I really enjoyed it. But I had earned a scholarship to play basketball at Notre Dame and couldn’t play basketball and be in ROTC at Notre Dame. So it was just something I kept in my heart. I knew it was something I wanted to do…I just didn’t know when.”

By the time Green joined, the United States military was embroiled in the fight to secure Iraqi freedom and, shortly thereafter, in October 2003 she was notified of her impending departure to Iraq three months later.

“When we found out we were going I was scared,” Green admitted. “I was nervous but I didn’t have too many options. It was either go AWOL, get pregnant or play crazy, and a lot of people did that. But I knew when I signed on the dotted line that I would be going.”

“Once I got over there, though, all my anxieties and fears just disappeared. I felt like if it was time for me to go, it was time for me to go. Everybody has a number. So I just went over there with the best intentions even though I knew before I went that I might get hurt.”

By March 2004, Green was back home for two weeks of R&R and before she returned to Iraq, she married boyfriend Willie Byrd. Green had, in fact, proposed to Byrd before she had departed for Iraq but Byrd wanted to wait. During the course of many phone calls during Green’s deployment, however, Byrd suggested they get married once she returned home.

“I came home March 26, we got married April 7 in Las Vegas and a week later I went back to Iraq,” Green said. “If I died I wanted the American flag to go to him instead of my dad. Don’t get me wrong…I love my dad to death. But I love (Byrd) even more, and that’s what it was all about to me.”

By the end of May, the recently-wed Green had been back in Iraq for almost two months when she arrived at the Al-Sadoon Police Station on May 25 with the rest of her unit for security duty. Green’s team leader was heading up to the rooftop when Green told him that she would go instead. He refused the offer but Green insisted again that he go inside, cool down and then come relieve her an hour later. He relented and Green headed upstairs. Within minutes, Green found herself in the middle of an attack.

“I walked up to the rooftop, to the front of the police station, surveyed the buildings and then I took a seat on some sandbags,” Green recalled. “I was sitting there, just watching the area and maybe about 15 minutes later a rocket came by and all I heard was the impact after it demolished the building in front of me. I looked down at the gunner who was in the turret of the humvee (in front of the police station) and he just shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t know what happened or where it came from. But I had this feeling it came from behind me, from the buildings I had surveyed earlier. So I got up, picked up my M-16 and my intentions were to start firing but before I could even do that a rocket hit me.

“After that everything just went into slow motion. If you’ve ever seen a war picture…that’s how it was. I fell down and I remembered thinking that I was going to die and I just laid there waiting to die. I’m thinking I’m only 27 years old and I haven’t done enough in life yet. My ears were ringing, there’s sand everywhere, there’s smoke everywhere. I’m looking at my thigh and it was busted open pretty bad and I couldn’t really tell if my hand was gone or not but I couldn’t move my fingers or anything. My arm was just numb at this point. The only thing I was able to move was my neck and head a little bit. The rest of my body was numb too.

“As I was laying there I realized I wasn’t crying and I wasn’t in a whole lot of pain, and then I realized I was going to live to be able to tell my story and that kind of put a smile on my face. It got my adrenaline pumping a little bit and I felt like I could get up although I don’t know if I could have. But I thought that if I had gotten up I might have been hit by another rocket. So I just laid there. About five minutes later, my team leader came up and said, `Green are you okay?’. But he couldn’t see me at that point because I was behind some sandbags. Right then I was able to lift my head up and say, `Sergeant’ as he was going down the stairs. So he ran over and he just couldn’t believe what he was looking at and he just kept screaming for help.

“So a couple of soldiers came up to secure us while they picked me up and took me down to the second floor. That’s when they applied a tourniquet and we started joking around because they thought I was going into shock even though I was pretty conscious the whole time. Within a matter of minutes I was in a Medivac helicopter on my way to the hospital where I woke up about 2 or 3 hours later.

“I woke up to the whole chain of command standing there with tears in their eyes, looking like someone had just died. And I said, `Hey guys, nobody died…I’m still here!’. I was looking down at my left arm, thinking it was a little bit shorter, so I asked (one of my comrades about it). She said, `Yep buddy, you’re hand’s gone.’ Then I broke down and cried for like a minute or two but then I wiped the tears away and made a couple of jokes.

“That’s when (they) gave me my two wedding rings. They told me that my platoon sergeant and my platoon leader went back up to the rooftop and found my hand under seven inches of sand and retrieved my rings for me. I just thought that was the coolest thing. It put a big smile on my face and that’s when I was awarded The Purple Heart.”

The next day, Green was in Germany and by May 29 she was back home in the United States at Walter Reed Hospital where she was reunited with her husband. It was there that she began her long road to recovery. The soft tissue injury she incurred on her thigh healed several weeks ago, leaving her with a 12-inch scar and a runner’s mentality…far removed from the sprinter she was at Notre Dame who “didn’t believe in long-distance running.”

Green’s biggest challenges have come with her arm, which suffered the most trauma. Occupational and physical therapy occupy several hours of her day, and Green estimates that she will probably be at Malone House, just a five-minute walk from the hospital, until December.

“I have no triceps movement and I have a plate in my left arm,” Green explained. “Right now we’re trying to get the elbow to bend and it’s at about 90 degrees but it took a while. I work on a machine that helps break up the scar tissue which makes my elbow (more mobile) because in order to work the prosthetic correctly I need that flexibility in my elbow and shoulder.

“I do a lot of stretching and a lot of massaging because I still have a lot of swelling in the arm. Some days I work on my handwriting because I was left-handed. I cook, even though I know how to cook, but it’s about learning how to use appliances, I play catch…normal everyday activities that you would think would be easy but they’re kind of difficult because I’m learning how to do stuff with the other hand now. All of that’s occupational therapy. In physical therapy they also stretch me out and they do wound care with me. I had a skin graft and they have to change that everyday because it’s still open right now.

“I’m actually ready to go home but I realize that I can’t leave until I’m 100 percent. I get bored. I’m not going to lie to you…I get bored. And I get tired too. It doesn’t seem like a lot when you’re talking about three or four hours of therapy a day, but when Thursday or Friday hits I’m just walking in like a zombie.

“So I just try to stay fit and stay emotionally strong and we have all kinds of support so if I need help it’s there.”

Dealing with the loss psychologically probably has been Green’s biggest hurdle, but it’s one that she’s working on to overcome.

“Walter Reed is not mainstream society and once you leave those gates it’s a whole different world,” Green commented. “I find people staring at me and taking triple looks. It’s kind of uncomfortable but it’s something that I’m going to have to learn to get over. Once I have my final prosthetic you probably really won’t be able to tell unless you’re staring at me, but it’s something I’m going to have to overcome. It’s a problem for me because every time I go out I just think somebody’s looking at me.”

All eyes will be on Green today when she presents the flag to the Color Guard before the Irish take on Michigan. Being uncomfortable in public almost caused Green to turn down the offer, but some encouraging words made her choose otherwise.

“At first I was kind of uncomfortable about it because I didn’t want to come out on the football field and do something like that just because I had one hand,” Green said. “I’m still learning how to accept this. But then I talked to some friends and they said, `You know what? You have to look at this as an honor. Notre Dame is just trying to find a way to honor you and you should be grateful, be humbled by the experience. So I decided to do it and now I can’t wait.”