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Severely burned JTAC continues his recovery

A message to President Bush: There is an extremely courageous joint terminal attack controller in Texas who really, really wants to meet you.

This time, he promises, he’ll remember it.

Tech. Sgt. Israel Del Toro, one of the Air Force’s most severely injured airmen, continues to recover from the roadside bomb blast in Afghanistan that melted his features and sent him limping into a nearby creek.

That was Dec. 4, 2005. In the weeks that followed, as Del Toro lay comatose in a San Antonio burn ward, the president found time to visit the unconscious airman and whisper a blessing the JTAC never heard.

Today, 96 surgeries later, Del Toro is slowly improving. But the question that worried him last summer, when Air Force Times profiled the airman in a cover story, remains unanswered: Will the Air Force grant him his biggest wish — to somehow stay in the service?

Del Toro has no pending appointments before a review board.

At least once a month, Del Toro relates his experience to a mostly Air Force audience, most recently at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The title of his presentation: “The Day I Went Boom! A Tale of Combat, Suffering and Survival in the Middle East.”

“Of course, people keep telling me I’m a hero. I just don’t see it,” Del Toro said from his new home in Cibolo, Texas, a San Antonio suburb.

“I tell them, ‘I’m like you guys. I still wear the same uniform. ... I’m still considered a JTAC until I get medically discharged or reclass.’”

Del Toro is a humble guy, still dodging the superlatives, still nervous playing the hero in front of a crowd. (Audience warning: He has figured out the old public speaking trick — picture them all in Speedos — and it really works.) He gardens, and kicks around soccer balls with his son, 5-year-old Israel Jr. Despite nubs for hands, he drives a car with no modifications.

“I only have tint [windows] because the sunlight hurts my skin a lot. I could get the little [mounted] ball that helps you steer, but I would never want to get stuff just because I can. Give that to someone who really needs it.”

Surgeons are still reconstructing Del Toro’s face and cutting away flesh seared around his fingers, which fused to his palm during the blast. Though improving at public speaking, Del Toro wants to keep serving the Air Force as a JTAC trainer or possibly an unmanned aerial vehicle operator — although enlisted members do not qualify to become pilots.

“I’m a qualified JTAC,” he said. “Who would be better in that job than a JTAC?”

Del Toro is also continuing to work his connections to score another meeting with Bush. The two narrowly missed each other at Wright-Patterson when the president happened to visit at the same time Del Toro was speaking.

“Hey, I don’t have to go to the White House,” Del Toro said. “I can always come to the ranch.”