- Staff Sgt. John Quincy Adams limped across the floor
to a chair in his living room, tried to steady a cellular phone in his
left hand and struggled with every word he spoke to his war buddy on the
other end.
-
- The last group of soldiers from 1st Platoon, Charlie
Company, 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry of the Florida National Guard had
returned from Iraq, and Adams was determined to be a part of the group's
final act of loyalty - going to have dog tags tattooed on their arms.
-
- Adams, 37, who came home six months ago with shrapnel
lodged in his brain, is among 3,241 U.S. military personnel wounded in
Iraq, in addition to the 564 who have died.
-
- The number of National Guard and reserve troops wounded
has created special problems in the U.S. system of military hospitals.
And the types of injuries sustained present new difficulties.
-
- Soldiers who would have been killed in previous wars
are surviving this one, in part because of advanced trauma care on the
battlefield and improved body armor. But many are suffering severe injuries
to their limbs, and their lives are irreparably altered.
-
- No longer is Adams the suburban Miami lawn-care worker
and weekend warrior who reported to Army duty once a month. Nor is he simply
the devoted family man who loved to roughhouse with his 3- and 5-year-old
sons.
-
- That changed Aug. 29 in Ramadi, Iraq, when a roadside
bomb exploded as he and two other soldiers drove by in a Humvee.
-
- His arms are covered with red scars from metal fragments
that damaged his nerves. Part of his right palm is missing. His walk is
slow and unsteady. His arms are too weak to lift his children. He struggles
to speak coherently. He is forgetful. And he sleeps with his head propped
up on pillows to keep the metal in his brain from shifting and causing
further damage or death.
-
- It is not the life Adams and his wife, Verlorene, bargained
for when he left for the Persian Gulf last year. But they harbor no anger
- except at the Iraqis.
-
-
- "When I joined the National Guard 15 years ago,
I felt like I was destined to wear the Army uniform," said Adams,
whose Puerto Rican parents named him after the sixth U.S. president, believing
he would have better opportunity in the United States. "I looked forward
to going to Iraq. I was nervous, but I did what I had to do. I still feel
good being a soldier, but this has changed the way I look at life. I appreciate
life a lot more now."
-
- Numerous orthopedic injuries
-
- The high number of orthopedic injuries is forcing the
military to re-evaluate its medical programs.
-
- "A different medical picture is being painted this
time because we have more people surviving what formerly would have been
a lethal experience. The body armor keeps them alive, but if fragments
hit the extremities, we see more orthopedic injuries and more amputations,"
said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of deployment health support
in the Department of Defense Office of Health Affairs.
-
- "Our folks are facing a different mission in Iraq
as they are dealing with guerrilla warfare, terrorist activity and urban
warfare. And it is impacting the way we provide health services. They are
attacking American forces any way they can, with crude explosive devices
made from nail fragments and metal, set off by remote control. They can
be hidden in a cardboard box, in a dead animal along the road or an innocuous
paper bag. But they are extremely dangerous, and the injuries can cause
problems for years," Kilpatrick said.
-
- Verlorene Adams, 30, who has been married to John for
six years, knows that better than most. Sometimes, she said, it is like
having three children.
-
- Still, she feels lucky that her husband is recovering
at home. Many injured members of the National Guard and Army Reserves are
forced to remain at military hospitals many miles from home. Because Adams'
injuries are so severe, he is treated at a veterans medical center near
his home.
-
- "We had a lot of plans. We were going to buy my
father's landscaping business one day. We were going to fix up this house,"
said Verlorene Adams, who gave up her customer service job to care for
her husband. "He waited a month to tell me he was going, and I was
so mad. I knew it was dangerous. But I understand why he had do it, and
I have so much respect for him."
-
- Sgt. Jason Recio, who served with Adams in Iraq, joined
the 124th Infantry of the Florida National Guard four years ago, fresh
out of high school, because he wanted to go to college and also be a soldier.
Two weeks before deployment, he got married.
-
- On July 6, Recio and four others were ambushed during
a patrol in Ramadi. Injured by a rocket-propelled grenade and an ensuing
gun battle, he was severely wounded in both legs and lost his right calf.
-
- Now a scrapbook in Jason and Patricia Recio's home in
Kendall, Fla., gives a pictorial account of his recovery, after 16 surgeries.
Doctors said he would not walk again, but Recio, 22, manages to get around,
often without a cane.
-
- "I always had a dream of fighting in a war. And
when it happened, I wanted to go. But I would not want to go again,"
Recio said. "It wasn't until I got off the plane in Baghdad and saw
pictures of Saddam Hussein that I realized this was the real thing."
-
- The military has become increasingly dependent on the
National Guardsmen and reservists, who represent about 40 percent of the
more than 110,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Most military hospitals on U.S.
bases, built to take care of enlisted soldiers and their families, have
been flooded with guardsmen and reservists as well as their own active-duty
troops.
-
- Overcrowding and inadequate staffing have led to long
delays in providing medical care to returning troops.
-
- Recio was hospitalized for six months at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center in Washington. He has lived for two months in a hotel
near Ft. Stewart in Hinesville, Ga. He takes a leave to go to Miami when
he can, but mostly his wife drives eight hours to Ft. Stewart.
-
- "We've been traveling back and forth from Walter
Reed to Miami and from Ft. Stewart to Miami for eight months," Recio
said. "My wife and I haven't had a chance to spend that much time
together, so we have over $5,000 in phone calls."
-
- Recio has had muscle replacement surgery and wears braces
on both legs. Because of damaged nerves, he cannot move his feet or feel
his legs. His left leg has been broken twice, and pieces of both knees
were blown way. He lives in constant pain. Doctors have told him that his
right leg must be amputated. He knows he will have to do it eventually,
but he is resisting for now.
-
- "At Walter Reed, I was so depressed. For a long
time, I could not even look at my leg. Every day I woke up, I was in the
worst pain I had felt in my life. It was hell for me," Recio said.
"I am doing good mentally and physically now because of Patty. If
we get through this, I know we can get through anything."
-
- Patricia Recio, 23, a senior majoring in criminal justice
at Florida International University in Miami, has been a source of strength
for her husband. She keeps things going at home on the $3,000-a-month Army
pay they live on.
-
- What U.S. never sees on TV
-
- "We are just getting to know each other because
he has been gone so much," she said. "This is what America never
sees on TV. Some guys have lost both legs and are blind, but they manage
to keep their spirit up. But being separated from family is hardest."
-
- War wounds have been devastating for active-duty soldiers
as well as those in the Guard and reserves. But critics say certain conditions
have made it tougher for guardsmen and reservists.
-
- In October, it was revealed that hundreds of sick and
injured soldiers in the Guard and reserves were being housed in barracks
at Ft. Stewart that had no air conditioning or toilets and were waiting
for weeks--behind active-duty soldiers--to receive medical care. Since
the revelation, Winn Army Community Hospital at Ft. Stewart has added more
than 100 doctors, counselors and other staffers, and has improved living
conditions for injured guardsmen and reservists.
-
- Most now live in hotels while awaiting completion of
new housing on base.
-
- "If the National Guard and reserve soldiers are
taking 100 percent of the risk that active-duty soldiers do, they should
be entitled to 100 percent of the support when they return. The message
is, 'We love you when we need you, but when the war is over, you are on
your own,'" said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National
Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.
-
- "The Department of Defense needs to step up to the
plate and provide money and resources to get these people back home to
their families. There has to be a way to allow them to get heath care and
appointments through existing veteran facilities where they live."
-
- Meanwhile, the 400 soldiers recovering at Ft. Stewart
struggle with transition.
-
- "I am frustrated at times, and on bad days, I have
to remind myself that I am lucky to be alive," said Sgt. 1st Class
Vanessa Peeden, 48, an Army reservist who suffered a compound fracture
of her knee when the Humvee in which she was riding overturned in Iraq.
"I am tired of being on crutches. I'm tired of being away from home
and separated from my family."
-
- Like many others who are injured, Peeden, a 3rd-grade
teacher in Huntsville, Ala., is required to remain at her mobilization
base until a military board decides whether she should stay on active duty
or be discharged. It is a process, officials said, that can take a year
and a half .
-
- Peeden's husband has grown impatient.
-
- "It's like they are being punished after having
an accident. And that makes me very bitter," said Raoul Peeden, 50,
a computer scientist who drives 450 miles each way to visit his wife. "She
did her duty and now they are saying she can't come home. I know that she
would recover faster and much better if she were at home."
-
- Military official said they are looking at ways to improve
medical holdover periods.
-
- "Those on active duty go back to their home base,
get care at the hospital and can be home with their family at night because
it is there on the base. But the National Guard and reservists who are
injured or ill are held in a captured environment. We are looking at how
we can do this in a community-based system," said Kilpatrick of Department
of Defense Office of Health Affairs.
-
- "There is tremendous efficiency in having people
located where the health-care system is. The question is, 'When can we
start to move that care closer to home?' It is a delicate balance, but
the pendulum is focused on giving the best care."
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- Copyright © 2004 Chicago Tribune
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