On the Fourth of May, 2004, Jason Poole was in Iraq. Five days ago, he moved into an apartment. p>

That may not sound like much to you. But those who love him understand that the journey between those two milestones represents something simple and clear. It is a miracle.

"When we got him, he could not walk, he could not talk, he could not breath on his own,'' says Kerri Childress, communications officer at Veterans Affairs Hospital at Palo Alto. "For all intents and purposes, Jason was reborn here.''

"I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk,'' Poole, 21, says today. "I was thinking, 'Damn. This sucks.' ''

Poole, a British immigrant who made news in October when the undersecretary of Homeland Security flew in to grant him U.S. citizenship, almost welcomes the chance to tell the story of the bomb. He's gone over it so often he's on familiar ground and never needs to search for the right word.

A Marine corporal in the infantry, he was leading a street patrol 20 months ago, just 10 days from the end of his third and final combat tour. He was walking with two other Marines, two Iraqi soldiers and an interpreter. He noticed the Iraqis were getting bunched up and had turned to tell them to spread out when a massive IED (improvised explosive device) exploded.

Everyone in the group died except for Poole. He believes that the last-second look back saved his life.

A piece of shrapnel went through his head from behind the left ear, emerging through his left eye. That was only the worst of his many injuries. He was flown to Germany, then to Bethesda Rehabilitation Hospital in Maryland. At least that's what they tell him. He was in a coma for two months.

"I was,'' Poole now says, "pretty damn beaten up.''

At one point, he woke up in Maryland to see his twin sister, Lisa, and another friend. With them was Grammy-award-winning singer Norah Jones, who was visiting the troops. Poole wasn't surprised to see her there. It made as much sense as anything else.

Once he was awake, he was sent to the Palo Alto facility because they specialize in brain trauma and because he was close to his father, Stephen, who lives in San Jose. Dr. Harriet Zeiner, a neuropsychologist with the traumatic brain unit, says her major concern when she met Poole wasn't that he was unable to breathe on his own, or walk.

"It wasn't the gurney part,'' she says. "It was that he didn't speak. He both had trouble expressing himself as well and understanding.''

For Poole, trapped in his body but unable to communicate, it was horrible.

"I've had 21 years when I could do all this stuff,'' he now says. "And then I got hurt and I had to learn it all over again. It's a struggle.''

Poole managed to learn to sit in a wheelchair, take some halting steps and then walk again. But even when he improved, there were obstacles. Zeiner says there was a period when he would reply "yes'' or "no'' to questions but they had no relationship to what he wanted to say. They were just sounds.

But he's managed to work through it. He speaks well now, although he uses a few touch phrases, such as "basically,'' to keep him going. He walks without a limp, and doctors have done a remarkable re-construction of his face. Poole's only disappointment is that when he looks in the mirror he doesn't look like himself.

That's where this story would usually end. Tough break for a vet, but doctors have managed to patch him back up. But there's more. Sometimes, Zeiner says, people ask her if it isn't difficult working with such sad cases.

"I always say, no,'' she says, "because you get to see what's best in human beings.''

There isn't one of us who would blame Poole if he was bitter. When he was in high school at Cupertino High, he played football and soccer and ran track. His favorite race was the quarter mile, and those who have never run it cannot comprehend what it takes to sprint a lap in less that 60 seconds. Poole did it in 49.56.

Can you imagine how it must feel for him to have to struggle to learn to walk? To know that the guy who was headed for college has only recently improved to a third-grade reading level? That his dream to become a teacher has vaporized like smoke?

Can you imagine it? I'll bet you can't.

"I know I got blown up,'' he says. "I know my face doesn't look the same. But oh well, I'm still alive. I'm not exactly the same, but I made it. I'm still living. I know I can't come back 100 percent. But maybe I can come back 90 percent.''

The apartment is a huge step. A high school friend of his, Zhilla Hotchkins, is living in the other bedroom and will help out. But Poole is on his own, watching "Old School'' on a big screen TV and tapping out text messages on his cell phone. And he's got a plan.

"I know I can't still be a teacher,'' he says. "But I can still be a volunteer. I'd like to work with kids, help them get over their disabilities.''

When people meet Poole they may focus on how he has recovered from his injuries. But what they don't know is how he is struggled to maintain his spirit. Just recently, it has begun to seem like it is working.

He says he used to have an odd experience when he would fall asleep. He would rest, but he fell into a kind of dreamless nothingness. Lately, that's changed.

"Before, I never dreamed,'' he says. "Now, I am.''