Roadside explosion near Fallujah critically injures soldier from city

The soldier will be sent to Walter Reed Army Hospital on Saturday.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Army Spec. Aubrey White, a 23-year-old Chaney High School graduate, was critically injured in Iraq when bombs exploded on a road near Fallujah, his mother says.
Aubrey and his partner were on patrol in a humvee when they were hit by a bomb and then were ambushed, said JoAnne White. She said her son was shot in the chest and stomach and got shrapnel in his left arm and his partner lost a limb.
Fallujah is about 40 miles west of Baghdad, the capital.
JoAnne, of Youngstown, said she received a call Tuesday -- it was Wednesday afternoon in Iraq -- and was told her son, who had been near death, was upgraded to critical but stable. She said he's in an intensive care unit in Germany.
"It was pretty bad but he's coming along," JoAnne said today from her office at the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services. "They have him on a ventilator."
She said Aubrey, whose birthday is on Thanksgiving, will be sent to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., on Saturday and she will travel there to see him. His condition has prevented her from talking to him.
She said she and Aubrey have God on their side.
JoAnne's mother, Alice Long, 60, of Brookline Avenue, said that Aubrey, her eldest grandchild, is a bright young man who attends church and likes to read. She said he is not married.
Long said she and her husband, Rahman, helped raise Aubrey because his mother works.