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John Moore / Getty Images
Sgt. JD Williams, 25, and a triple amputee, flowboards on a wave machine at the Center for the Intrepid on Aug. 7. The wave therapy is designed to improve balance, coordination and strength for injured soldiers, most of whom have lost limbs in combat. Williams lost his legs and right arm in October 2010 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device while his unit was on a foot patrol in the Arghandab Valley of southern Afghanistan.
Lieutenant Colonel Donald Gajewski swears he has the best job in the military.
As an orthopedic surgeon and chief of the Center for the Intrepid at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, Dr. Gajewski oversees the care of soldiers who return from combat with the most severe wounds.
The center, which opened in 2007, is one of three military facilities in the country for amputees, and it also rehabilitates soldiers with serious burns and injured limbs that were not amputated. More than 1,000 service members have been treated at the Center for the Intrepid in the past five years, many of them for lost limbs.
The joy in Gajewski's work comes from watching these soldiers confront the reality of their injuries with the same drive and determination that characterized their military service.
Sgt. JD Williams, 25, (above) lost his legs and right arm in October 2010 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device while his unit was on foot patrol in the Arghandab Valley of southern Afghanistan. Gajewski calls Williams a "superstar" whose nearly two-year-long stay at the center has been defined by his leadership.
"The inspiring thing about JD," Gajewski says, "is that he comes in here and he knows that there are other (amputees) that will look up to him."
One of Williams' goals was to hunt by himself again. Now, Williams not only dresses deer in the field by himself, but he recently took other triple amputees into the woods too. He also has taken up bow hunting.
There is grief and pain, though, as soldiers work to meet their ambitious goals.
Gajewski says they often arrive at Brooke Army Medical Center devastated after three or four days of being evacuated from the front lines to the U.S. hospital. They've spent the time thinking: "My military career is over, my girlfriend is going to leave me, I won’t be able to fly-fish with my dad," Gajewski says.
John Moore / Getty Images
A U.S. Army soldier and leg amputee scales a two-story climbing wall at the Center for the Intrepid on Aug. 7.
John Moore / Getty Images
At the Center for the Intrepid at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, soldiers confront the reality of their injuries with the same drive and determination that characterized their military service.
The center tries to show patients a different future by matching them with a soldier in rehabilitation, who might walk through the door on two prosthetic legs. "That’s when it clicks," Gajewski says.
A soldier with a single below-the-knee amputation might stay at the center for six months, receiving a prosthetic and physical and occupational therapy. The timeline lengthens with the severity and number of amputations; for those who lost both legs above the knee, a stay at the center might last as long as two years.
Among the amputees treated at the center, 17 percent have returned to active duty once recovered, and some eventually deploy again, often in support roles. A handful have even returned to combat. Of the 49,000 Iraq and Afghanistan casualties, more than 1,400 have been amputees.
"These guys have a lifetime of adversity in front of them, but from what they show us," Gajewski says, "I think they’re going to do pretty well."
Rebecca Ruiz is a reporter at NBC News. Follow her on Twitter here.
John Moore / Getty Images
Certified prosthetist Robert Kuenzi holds a life-like sleeve for a prosthetic arm at the Center for the Intrepid on Aug. 7. Artists paint the rubber covers, complete with custom tattoos, which slide over prosthetic arms and legs made at the center for military amputees.
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Sgt. Williams looks like a badass mofo! Get 'er done, Sgt!
Wow, good for them! The government should be footing the bill for all their equipment and trips, especially as they often had to foot the bill for their own equipment and lost limbs as a result of what they couldn't afford!
Imoen of Telengard sounds like someone who spends an awful lot of time immersed in fantasy, pretending to be a warrior.
This story, and countless others, I would expect no less from these heros. The same courage, intestinal fortitude they had to volunteer to join the military, now shows in their recovery. Be brave my brothers and sisters of the armed forces, we who have been, know, and we support you all.
For those on this post who would take the time to politicize this article, I have something to say to you as well, go f%ck yourselves. If you had 1/10th of the courage these brave men and women have, your post would mean something. These men and women took an oath, to uphold the constitution of the United States, to defend against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. And they are not there to fight for you, they are there fighting for each other. To paraphrase Col. Nathan R Jessup, I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think.
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http://taylormorris.org/
Here you can read a quad amputee's entire journey through the eyes of his mom and girlfriend. Very inspiring :-)
Well, it's nice to know that million$ are made available to help make these ex-soldiers whole again. One has to wonder as he watches those SPCA ads on TV with all those sad faced dogs, cats and other animals who are also in need of a few bucks from a compassionate America. The sad thing is that the men, women and children in AF/PAK, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Gaza and places known only to God where 'America's finest' have murdered, maimed, tortured, raped and sodomized innocents while leaving people homeless and penniless. Who in AmeriKKKa is helping to make these people 'whole again?' How many of these war ciminal GI's are being prosecuted for grotesque racist war crimes they committed against these poverty stricken, often illiterate people, possessing 'torn apart, bodies and minds.' Nope, I didn't think I would get a response.
right. every single one of our soldiers has committed those crimes. Not a select few.
They have been killing each other for thousands of years... who is there to try and bring peace does not matter. We even provided weapons to Afghanistan to fight the Russians... and then they turned on us. They do not want peace. The only thing they can do now is set off IEDs in an effort to maim our men. They have no idea how many more we have.
As a Red Cross Volunteer.. I work with some of these guys every week. They are an inspiration and a joy to be around. As they filter back around the country, please welcome them and give them a chance. That is all they need. You will be impressed at what they can do.
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Unfortunately, they are dumb pawns, who swallow this "warrior" garbage so they will think they are doing something gallant, instead of serving Israel's best interests, not America's.
I'll respond to you, AZCowboy. Are you over there, seeing what the GI's are doing? Or are you just repeating things you have read and heard? There have been some war crimes committed by GI's and those GI's have been punished. You speak of the people being illiterate-well, our GI's have tried to establish schools for them. I guess you didn't know that part because the media doesn't report it. Nor do they report anything good our soldiers do in Afghanistan. They aren't just going around shooting up villages and bombing them. In fact, there was a story on 60 Minutes a while ago about a certain company that had lost a large amount of men because of their rules of engagement-it was something like when the enemy shot at them they weren't allowed to shoot back or they could only shoot back under very limited circumstances. I can't remember the exact rules they had, but the deck was definitely stacked against our guys. You don't have to approve of the reason we are in Afghanistan, but that doesn't mean our GI's themselves are guilty of war crimes.
And, BTW, I have spoken to a number of vets, who have told me their experiences in combat and otherwise. I'm a PT, and sometimes people tell me things when I am working on them-it seems to help them to have someone to talk to, and I don't judge any of my patients because of what they tell me. I've had maybe two vets tell me about things that I suppose could be considered war crimes; but they were the exception, not the rule-and they weren't from Afghanistan or Iraq. They were from much earlier wars-one was even from WWII. Most vets I've spoken to were from Vietnam, and they struggled with the fact that women and children were shooting at them and killing other American soldiers-sometimes the kids actually had grenades on them which they would plant on soldiers-it was either shoot back or everyone died. What would YOU do in that situation? You're in a war, and your enemy soldiers include women and children who are shooting at you, trying to kill you and your fellow soldiers. You see your buddies dying all around you. Would you shoot them? Then you come home and your country calls you a "baby killer." Why do you think so many of those vets are messed up? (Well, there are other reasons, too; but we won't go into the seemingly inexplicable orders given by the government at "Hamburger Hill" and other places.)
My point in all of that about Vietnam was that it's easy for people safe at home to judge soldiers who are in harm's way when they really have no idea what is going on. It's fine if you don't approve of the war, as I said; but that doesn't make the GI's themselves war criminals.