Army Spc. Curtis R. Spivey, 25, Chula Vista; dies of explosion injuries

Even after an attack on his Humvee left him paralyzed, Army Spc. Curtis R. Spivey never regretted serving in Iraq.

“I enjoyed deploying. I enjoyed serving my country,” he said last month while undergoing daily therapy in the spinal-cord injury unit at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in La Jolla.

Like many injured veterans, Spivey, 25, had gone through a period of anger and depression. But he had seemingly worked through those issues and was upbeat. He talked of going back to college, maybe getting a degree in some area of criminal justice.

“I’m definitely not going to sit ... at home,” he said.

But his plans were not to be. While he was an inpatient at the VA hospital, a blood vessel in Spivey’s brain ruptured and doctors were unable to stop the internal bleeding.

He died April 2, just short of seven months after a bomb exploded beneath his Humvee south of Baghdad.

After graduating from high school in 2000 in the San Diego-area city of Chula Vista, he joined the Marine Corps. His father had spent a career in the Navy’s enlisted ranks.

“The military seemed like the right thing for me,” Spivey said. “I couldn’t wait to get in.”

He served as a guard at a Navy base in Washington, did two tours in Iraq with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and then left the service at the end of his hitch.

Civilian life was not for him, however, and he joined the Army almost immediately.

At the time of his injury Sept. 16, he was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas.

The blast threw Spivey, a turret gunner, nearly 50 feet from the vehicle. Spinal injuries are rare in Iraq, because of improvements in body armor and armoring of vehicles. But when they occur, they are among the most severe and hard to repair of injuries, doctors say.

Although other soldiers in the Humvee were burned, none were injured as severely as Spivey. He suffered a brain injury and a broken back and was paralyzed from the mid-chest down.

“I got the worst of it,” he said. “Everyone else can walk.”

His therapy was meant to keep his muscles from withering and locking. For spinal-cord patients, therapy is a lifetime chore. So-called phantom pain is constant.

“I’ve had a lot of hallucinations,” Spivey said last month. “I have nightmares, daymares like I’m back in Iraq. Sometimes a door slamming can set me off.”

Through his weeks at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and then at the La Jolla hospital, he kept in close touch with his Army buddies. He had been at the La Jolla medical center since early November.

“He never complained about the pain, but you could hear it in his voice,” said Lt. David Bowers, his platoon leader in Iraq. “Sometimes he was just too tired to even talk.”

If he never lost faith in his fellow soldiers, Spivey had come to believe that the U.S. mission in Iraq was no longer worthwhile.

“We should have been out of there a long time ago,” he said. “We set up their government; now it’s up to them. It’s their country.”

His memories of his days at Walter Reed were withering.

“They’re the rudest, most unprofessional people you can imagine,” he said. “Only two of the nurses were any good. Things are a lot better here. Occasionally we have arguments, but mostly it’s my fault.”

The unexpectedness of Spivey’s death so many months after his injury redoubled the sense of loss felt by those who knew him best.

“He had started to talk about the future and was optimistic again,” Bowers said. “That’s how we remembered him: always looking at the positive.”

Spivey was buried last week at Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery on San Diego’s Point Loma. Family, friends and members of Spivey’s platoon attended.

He is survived by his wife, Aida; their 2-year-old daughter, Marianna; his father, Joseph L. Spivey Sr.; his mother, Tania L. Spivey; his stepmother, Bernadine D. Spivey; three sisters, Vicki DeLagrave, Marissa Macedo and Rebecca Macedo; and his brother, Michael. A second brother, Joey, died last year. Spivey’s wife and daughter live in San Diego; Marissa Macedo lives in Portland, Ore.; and the rest of the family lives in Chula Vista.

In his interview, Spivey talked of his love for his daughter and how he was determined that his injuries not keep him from being “absolutely the best father I can be,” both as a provider and a source of emotional support.

“I’ve got a lot to live for,” he said.

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tony.perry@latimes.com