The Wounded Come Home

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In addition to the physical and emotional toll they suffer, the wounded in Iraq face other challenges--rehabilitation, retraining, postcombat counseling and long-term medical care, to name a few. All of these will drive up spending at the Department of Veterans Affairs for decades to come. There are also the wounds you cannot see. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a legacy of any war, especially those--unlike the 100-hour first Gulf War--that demand months, if not years, of U.S. occupation. "We have become much better at keeping people with severe injuries alive," says Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a military think tank in Arlington, Va. "But the range of treatments provided--including counseling, assisted living, disability benefits and so on--can be quite extensive."

Early-morning light spills into the physical-therapy room at Walter Reed, as wounded soldiers sweat and grimace aboard stationary bicycles. Each man is steadily grinding out the miles with a single leg, his crutches leaning against a nearby wall. This morning happy-go-lucky PFC Wyatt meets with Joseph Miller, the hospital's chief prosthetist, who makes wounded soldiers close to whole again with man-made arms and legs. The types of wounds coming back from Iraq--blast and shrapnel injuries--make his job tougher. "Those kinds of injuries mean more infections and multiple surgeries," he says. Wyatt nods; he knows this from experience. He has had 10 surgeries since being wounded, with several inches of thigh carved off in the process. "So I'm going to start off with a mechanical knee?" the young soldier asks. Miller says no. Like all soldiers now who have lost a leg above the knee, he's going to receive the high-tech, German-made CLeg, which is made of carbon fiber and has a hydraulic knee. "Cool!" says Wyatt with a smile.

Wyatt and more than 300 of the most seriously injured have come to the bucolic Walter Reed, which has been treating wounded U.S. soldiers since World War I. The men--and a few women--coming off the Iraqi battlefields in stretchers tend to be young: Castro is 23, Meinen 24, and Wyatt, from Franktown, Colo., turned 21 two weeks before losing his leg. Many enlisted as a way to earn money for college and get in shape, but now they're wheelchair bound. Contrary to the old Army recruiting motto, they're not fighting to be all they can be anymore. They're fighting to be as close to normal as they can be.

Monday through Friday, their mornings start at 9 o'clock and are filled with hours of physical and occupational therapy. They also take bus trips and tour the capital. The typical stay averages about six months--half the time healing and preparing for an artificial limb, the other half learning to live with it. The pain is decreased by the presence of family members, many of whom can live on Walter Reed's 147-acre campus. Although the soldiers relish stop-bys from stars like Bruce Willis and Jennifer Love Hewitt, they glow when speaking of getting their Purple Hearts from President Bush. "Laura and I are here to thank the brave souls who got wounded in the war on terror," Bush said in the hospital lobby this past Sept. 11.