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Marine burned on 97 percent of body dies

Sgt. Merlin German had been struggling with burn wounds covering more than 97 percent of his body for nearly two years when he made a decision: painful or not, he was going to don his dress blues and whisk his mother away for a dance during a hospital ball.

Over the next few weeks, he practiced his dancing at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, with Norma Guerra, the hospital’s deputy chief of public affairs, Guerra said. And when the 2006 Brooke’s Holiday Ball arrived, he surprised his mother on the dance floor, taking her in his arms.

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” Guerra said. “He had made up his mind, and he was going to do it.”

That’s one of many memories that friends and family have of German, 22, who died April 11 at the hospital, Defense Department officials said Thursday. He was assigned to 5th Battalion, 11th Marines and attached to 2nd Battalion, 11th Marines in Iraq at the time of the explosion that left him severely wounded.

His death halted an endless cycle of surgeries, skin grafts and doctor’s appointments that began Feb. 21, 2005, the day a gas-fed improvised explosive devise detonated near German’s Humvee outside Camp Ramadi, according to a Web site started in Merlin’s memory.

Family members described German on the Web site, www.merlinsmiracles.com, as a proud American who loved children.

“He touched the lives of everyone he met,” the family said. “He taught us strength, courage and unity.”

Guerra said even in the midst of all his surgeries, he went out of his way to brighten the days of others, encouraging fellow patients in the burn unit with lesser wounds to dress well and carry themselves with pride.

“He looked at it as he had received a second chance, and he wanted to make a difference,” Guerra said.

Before he died, German told family members he “had a vision to help burned children and their families,” the family said on his Web said. “He wanted the foundation to be named Merlin’s Miracles.”