Supporting 1LT Dan Berschinski, MMI 2003

In August, 2009, 1LT Dan Berschinski, an AOG (West Point’s Association of Graduates) scholar at MMI from 2002-2003, was seriously wounded in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device while his men were securing a village. Dan lost both of his legs, and his left arm was shattered. A member of the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, 1st Battalion, 17th Regiment, Dan is convalescing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.


Army 1LT Dan Berschinski in Afghanistan. (Credit: Dan Berschinski’s website)

A native of Peachtree City, Georgia, where he graduated from McIntosh High School in 2002, Dan spent a year at MMI preparing for the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. He graduated in the Class of 2007.


Dan as an AOG scholar here at MMI. (Credit: 2003 Orange and Black, MMI’s yearbook, MMI Archives)

Two more images from the 2003 yearbook:





Friends in Peachtree City and Fayette County, Georgia, have set up a website to support Dan. Please access from http://danberschinski.blogspot.com.

This blog indicates that Dan Berschinski’s brigade has been taking horrific casualties outside of Kandahar, Afghanistan, and that a number of these men are with Dan at Walter Reed, some even more seriously wounded than Dan. The blog also mentions another Peachtree City resident, SGT Shawn P. McCloskey, a Green Beret in the Special Forces, who was killed in September.

Undaunted, the blog states that Dan is upbeat and positive, that he has charmed his nurses, and that he greets visitors to his hospital room with a friendly, “Hey, what’s up?”

My thanks to LTC David Bauer for bringing Dan's story/plight to my attention.