Wounded Warrior Finds Healing in Music

HOUSTON - Step into any of half dozen "open mic" jam sessions around Houston and it's easy to see that Paul De La Cerda has found refuge in rhythm, purpose in uninhibited percussion and relief in the mending force of a sturdy beat.

Even when his drum skins turn silent , he says the tempo raps on within his head, a staccato soundtrack, so to speak, for his American life.

"I wasn't the easiest kid to get along with. We had very little," says De La Cerda.

Raised on the tough streets of Houston's southeast side Paul, by sixteen, was more or less on own - a high school drop out drawing and drumming to survive.

It worked, for a while, but after a few bad breaks the one time gang member landed just a hair above rock bottom.

"On the streets basically, sleeping where you can, then I got this bright idea late 94. I'm going to go into the army. I told the recruiter too, you know, I don't have a place to live, so this is it," recalls Paul.

"People in my family have gone down the wrong path. I didn't want to become that same person," he adds.

As it turned out, Paul De La Cerda finally found his "place" - airborne, long range surveillance, a life mission he calls "bigger than myself", generating a connection and kinship running far deeper than offered by any gang.

"They are like my brothers and sisters, that's what it's like," he explains.

Hot spot deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda preceded a disabling knee injury that brought Paul's military career to an abrupt close, or so he thought

"There goes 9/11. I got to get back in," Paul says with a sense of urgency.

Literally fighting to get into the fight, De La Cerda re-built his broken knee, refusing to take no for an answer.

"I was told three times I couldn't get back in. I finally proved them wrong," he says with a smile of satisfaction.

Deployment to Iraq and combat soon followed.

"When you are there and you can smell it, the burnt flesh, burnt bodies, people screaming and all that stuff, it sticks to your head and it never goes away," Paul insists.

In 2005, while patrolling for roadside bombs, Paul's vehicle was hit by one.

He and his crew survived, but not without the kind of wounds you can feel, but not see.

"Yea, traumatic brain injury," he says when asked about his diagnosis.

Army doctors say trauma from the blast claimed memory and damaged nerves.

"It's kind of frustrating, because I have no control over it. I can't do anything to cure it. It is what it is. It's going to be there for the rest of my life. Forgetting things is the worst," says Paul of his disability.

What De La Cerda could did forget was his passion for drum work, rhythm that five, sometimes six nights a week is helping smooth the rough spots of a soldier's return home.

"You come out of a war, it's not over," he says.

His "Percussive coping" has comes with a fresh mission. Turns out, Paul is actively recruiting the future members of an all wounded warrior rock and roll band.

"I want those guys to show other veterans, hey man, its not over. You are disabled, but you're not broke, that's the thing," he says adding that his named the group "Warrior Spirit"

Without his music, De La Cerda believes he'd be lost in this civilian world and says with so many coming home from the front full of hurt and heartache, he's hardly alone.

"They don't want to reach out. They feel less of a person than they were before, but they are not."

There may just be true mending in that message and fresh bearings for life after war, in the sergeant's beat.