A Hero's Welcome:
College Point Army Sergeant
Returns Home With A Purple Heart

By Angela Montefinise

For 16 hours on March 2, United States Army Sergeant David Wurtz of College Point lay helpless under extreme enemy fire, waiting for an American helicopter to pick him up and airlift him to safety.

The 25-year-old member of the 10th Mountain Division had been hit twice in the right leg by Al-Qaeda mortar shells during the first day of Operation Anaconda, and was trapped in enemy territory on top of a freezing cold mountain in Afghanistan.

He was surrounded by gunfire and danger, but throughout the ordeal, remained calm, and told the Tribune, “I knew our guys would do their jobs.”

He was right.

Eventually, his companions tamed the enemy fighters, and Wurtz was airlifted out of danger. He was given medical treatment at five separate hospitals before being sent back home to the United States on March 9.

Back home, first to a Washington DC hospital, and then to his family in the small Queens enclave of College Point.

When he returned to Queens, he carried with him the Purple Heart, a medal given to every soldier who returns home from battle injured. When Wurtz received it in Washington DC, he was visited by senators and generals - “big people,” as he called them. They all branded him a hero.

But Wurtz doesn’t think he’s a hero. The modest, quiet hometown boy just thinks he did his job. “That’s his way,” his mother Joan Wurtz told the Tribune. “He’s so shy. He won’t want all this. He’s a modest kid.”

Modest or not, many heroes emerged in the wake of Sept. 11, and reluctant as he may be, Sergeant David Wurtz is certainly one of them.

Wurtz was born in College Point 25 years ago, and according to his mother Joan, is a “hometown boy through and through.” He went to Flushing High School and Bleeker Junior High School, and was always a “good student,” said Joan. She said, “He was always a good boy. Sweet and quiet. Very shy.” So shy, in fact, that in his 1995 Flushing High School yearbook, he is listed as “camera shy.”

Wurtz was awarded the Purple Heart while at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington.

One night when Wurtz was 17, he didn’t come home for dinner. Joan said, “His father Clem and I were so worried. It wasn’t like him at all to miss dinner. We even started to call hospitals. Then he came home and told us he had enlisted in the Army. I almost died, but it ended up to be very good for David . . . He’s 25 and a sergeant. He shot straight up the ranks.”

Wurtz enlisted in the United States Army’s delayed entry program, which allows high school students to enlist before they turn 18. He told the Tribune there wasn’t any particular reason why he enlisted, and said, “I don’t know. I just wanted to. I just did it one day.”

Wurtz was assigned to Hawaii, but was moved to the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum in Upstate New York  – on Sept. 11. Was it a coincidence? “I guess,” Wurtz said with a laugh.

Wurtz watched the World Trade Center attack on television from Fort Drum, and said, “Everybody was pretty sad . . . I didn’t know yet that we’d be going overseas because no one knew who did it. When we knew, I couldn’t wait to get there.”

Wurtz isn’t allowed to say exactly where he was, but said his division first went to the Middle East in late September to “prepare,” and then went into Afghanistan.

Wurtz found out in late February that he would be participating in a large attack on Al-Qaeda fighters on March 2 - later called Operation Anaconda. He sent a letter to his family that began “What’s up?” to let them know about it and to tell them, “Don’t worry about me.” The letter was dated Feb. 26. The family didn’t receive it until after Wurtz was back in the United States, Purple Heart in hand.

Wurtz said the 10th Mountain Division was airlifted to the top of an Afghanistan mountain at about “6 or 7 a.m.” to start Operation Anaconda on March 2. Immediately, they were hit with enemy fire. He said, “We received fire within a couple of minutes. We were basically in a fire fight for the next 16 hours.”

Wurtz said “a few minutes” after his platoon landed on the mountain, he was hit with a mortar shell in the right ankle. He said, “It felt like my whole leg was burning up. It just felt like my whole leg was on fire. It was extremely painful.”

Only minutes after the first hit, while Wurtz was lying on the ground in pain, he was hit again, this time with a mortar shell in the right kneecap.

Although he received emergency attention, helicopters couldn’t pick him or any of the other 40 soldiers injured in the operation up because of the heavy fire.  He said, “I stayed pretty calm because I could hear the guys around us and I knew they’d do their jobs. I also knew that we had better equipment, and when night time came, [Al-Queda] couldn’t fight anymore.”

As night fell, Wurtz said the mountain became “absolutely freezing” and helicopters were able to pick up the wounded. Wurtz said, “I never doubted that I’d be OK for a second.” He added, “I remember the whole thing really well. I was taken to five hospitals overseas, but I can’t really say where. I had an operation to clean out my knee. They cut me open and took all of the fragments out and then stitched me up.”

On March 9, Wurtz was taken to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC to fully recover. His family was there to greet him.

Clem and Joan Wurtz returned home from Las Vegas at about 3 a.m. on March 3, catching the Red Eye to get home from their daughter Samantha’s wedding. Working on four hours sleep, the two checked their answering machine when they got home to hear David’s voice. Joan said, “He said something like, ‘I’ve been wounded. I’m going in for an operation. But I’m OK.’ He kept saying he was OK. But, of course, I was so worried.”

The worries got larger when the Army’s Casualty Unit called the Wurtz home at 6 a.m. to tell Clem and Joan that their son had been “severely injured,” and was being treated. “That was it,” Joan said. “I don’t know how I got through it. We’re very religious, and God got us through that day.”

Wurtz called his brother Chris several hours after the operation to tell him that the operation was successful. The Casualty Unit also called Joan and Clem. Joan said, “I was so relieved. I can’t even describe it.”

On March 8, when Clem was in Whitestone buying bagels, he bought a Daily News and found a photo of Wurtz being carried away from the battlefield on a stretcher. The caption called Wurtz an “unidentified soldier.” Clem told his wife, who called the Daily News. Wurtz’s name was in the paper on March 9.

The same day, Wurtz was airlifted to Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC, and nine of his family members drove down to surprise him: Joan and Clem, brothers Chris and Daniel, aunt and uncle Judy and Lenny Crawford, cousins Peggy Crawford and Brianne Pawson, and sister-in-law Danielle Auletta. His sister Samantha in Las Vegas and his brother Kevin in California couldn’t make the trip, but Joan said, “They were definitely thinking about him.”

After waiting several hours, the family was allowed to visit Wurtz, who said, “I was really surprised. I was shocked. I didn’t expect to see them there. It really made me happy. It really made me feel good.”

His family returned home shortly after the visit, but his father Clem drove back on March 18 to drive the hero back home. “He didn’t want to take a plane,” Joan said. “So Clem drove to get him.” Wurtz said, “It was a really great drive home.”

Wurtz returned to College Point at about 9 p.m. on March 18. He said, “It’s really great to be back. I missed my family and the neighborhood.”

Wurtz also missed his nearly two-year-old daughter Danella. He said, “Since I had her, I haven’t wanted to do anything else but be with her.”

Local College Point residents and leaders, including representatives at the College Point Board of Trade, have been thinking of ways to honor the injured hero. Councilman Tony Avella is planning to visit the soldier on March 22 to present him with a City Citation, and Borough President Helen Marshall is also preparing to honor Wurtz “in some way,” according to Borough Hall Spokesperson Dan Andrews.

Joan said, “I think this is a big deal. It’s nice to see the neighborhood and the City feel the same way.”

So does the nation, and while in Washington DC, Wurtz was presented with the Purple Heart, and was visited by “about five senators,” he said, including Hillary Clinton.

He said, “She just told me she was proud of what I did and that she appreciated it. It made me feel really good that these big people wanted to see me.”

Although Wurtz is proud of his Purple Heart, he said, “I wish I didn’t get hurt,” and added, “I wish I was still back with my platoon.” Still, Wurtz said he’s “really glad” to be home, and that he can now concentrate on family – and the Mets. He said, “I think they’re going to win the championship this year, man. Look at that team.”

 Wurtz may go to Shea and do more than watch, because The Mets also want to do something to honor him. Joan said, “We hope he’ll get to throw out the first pitch. Imagine that?”  

Currently, Wurtz has to rest at his home near 9th Avenue and 119th Street, and said that he’s “doing alright,” and that, “he’s not in pain.” He’s wearing a leg brace and has to keep his leg attached to a heavy suction machine. “It’s still an open wound,” he said. “They have to keep cleaning it out.”

Still, Wurtz said he can walk around, and that he is already feeling better. He has to report back to Fort Drum in 30 days, and isn’t sure if he’ll have to go back to Afghanistan. His wound will probably keep him in the United States, but he said, “If I have to go back, I will.”