SOUTH BEND -- A local soldier wounded in Iraq is happy to be home.

Sgt. David Gillam is part of the Indiana National Guard based in South Bend. For the past four months he's been recovering from a serious accident while working as a convoy escort.

David Gillam's two scars on his arm are starting to fade, but they will never go away, serving as a constant reminder. "I broke my arm pretty good and banged my head on the dashboard," he said.

David was working as a convoy escort in Central Bagdad. He got into an accident this past February after the Hummer he was riding in got stuck behind a leaking diesel truck.

"The diesel fuel spilled out across the road," Gillam said. And as we were turning the wheels lost traction on the diesel fuel and we slid right across into a concrete barrier."

David's wife Anna turned 31 on the day of the accident. She's says it's a birthday she'll never forget. "And on the machine was a friend of ours whose husband was with mine," Anna told us. "And she said, 'Anna call me, Dave has been hurt.' It's like my heart dropped to my stomach. And I didn't know if I could breathe and just panic started to set in."

David received treatment at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Four months later, he's healed. He's back home with his family, and enjoying the things he loves, but being home isn't the place David wants to stay.

"I'm already asking to see what to do in order to get my plane ticket on the next ride back over," said Gillam. He believes the U.S military is making a major difference in the lives of the Iraqi people. And that's what makes him want to go back.

"It's easy to stay back here when you don't see and not care. But once you actually go and see how the people were living at the start of the war when we first went over there. It's just hard to ignore how bad they have it and not want to go over and help."

This was Gillam's second deployment to Iraq. He joined the National Guard 15 years ago.