Back from Iraq: Four wounded soldiers talk about war and what it means to them
CLAUDIA FELDMAN, Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
May 30, 2004 Updated: Aug. 13, 2011 2:21 p.m.
Sgt. Shawn Monroe's left leg, a high-tech prosthetic, does what he expects it to do. His right leg, the flesh-and-blood limb partially enclosed in a wire cage, does next to nothing.
Small wonder, says the former track-and-field star. During an attack in Baghdad, Iraq, flying shrapnel shattered that ankle, which is still thick and swollen. Shrapnel shattered his knee, too. There are scars and an indentation where the kneecap should be.
At Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, more than 900 soldiers have been treated for wounds suffered in Iraq. A few have questions about the American presence there. Others wonder how quickly they can return to the front to fight another day. And still others, so damaged by bombs or mortar rounds or shrapnel, worry about their inevitable medical discharge and life beyond the military.
If the walls could talk in the modern, sprawling hospital, they would spew war stories and painful memories. Some soldiers in their 20s and 30s have stumps for limbs, horrendous burns, skin grafts that leave ragged scars. Some of the married soldiers worry. They want to go home, but they feel diminished by their injuries. Some of the single ones wonder. Who will want them with scarred sticks for legs or limbs that come off at night?
As the death toll mounts in the fighting in Iraq, the focus, quite naturally, is on the soldiers who gave their lives for their country. It would be easy to forget the injured, except for places like Brooke. And people like Monroe. At 31, he is a patriot. And a symbol. The price of war. Men and women doing their duty.
When Monroe was hit by mortar fire, he remembers, he yelled, "My legs, my legs.
"My first thought was, `There goes my running career.' "
Then he snapped to the problems around him. Two drivers, both friends, also were hit. One had blood oozing from his right leg, which was badly injured but salvageable. The other, a young woman placed on the floor right beside Monroe, died as medics attempted CPR.
"I definitely support the war on terrorism," says Monroe. "I believe we do have an enemy over there, and we need to get the Iraqi people on their feet and the government up and running. But we need to do it quickly and get out, because we're sitting ducks. We don't know who the enemies are. It's not unusual for someone to pull a gun out from underneath a white gown, spray and leave."
Monroe, proud of his service to his country, says he is disgusted by recent reports of abuse in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison.
"I wasn't stationed there, but I took prisoners in and out frequently. My entire unit -- we're the ones that worked to clean it up (after Saddam Hussein). For some reason, some (soldiers) have been messing it up. It's not the Army. It's a select few. But I'm very upset about it. It makes me look bad because I'm military police, and it makes my corps look bad, and it makes us look bad as Americans."
As a kid growing up in West Virginia, Monroe didn't plan on joining the Army. He wanted to be a teacher. He wanted to coach track and field. Instead, he launched a career in law enforcement, and when he realized he needed a change of scenery and the Army offered help paying off college loans, he signed up.
The year was 1999. Four years later, in May 2003, Monroe found himself in Baghdad. "It was surreal," he says. "We knew it was dangerous, but we felt invincible, like Superman. We were the American Army. And early on we had very few casualties."
After President Bush declared an end to the major fighting, the situation deteriorated, Monroe says. "Things got worse as we moved into the peacekeeping or peace-building process. People were popping shots at us -- there were random shots all the time. Independent insurgents -- the little guys -- would collect their weapons of choice and at night do whatever. They'd throw whatever they had and run."
Monroe and fellow soldiers may have fallen to just such thugs the evening of Oct. 26. Six military police officers, including Monroe, sat in Humvees inside a small compound and waited for local police. As a show of unity and cooperation, the Americans and the Iraqis were supposed to patrol together.
It didn't happen. Before the local officers appeared, Monroe and his friends were attacked.
Medical help arrived almost instantly. Monroe was taken to a local military hospital, where doctors decided his left leg had to be amputated. His next stops were Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, then Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., then Brooke.
In the hierarchy of Army hospitals, five, including Walter Reed and Brooke, are tops.
Monroe requested the move to Brooke because he wanted to be as close as possible to his wife and two boys in Pasadena. They visit every other weekend and take him on small excursions.
With his Brooke friends he's been to two San Antonio Spurs games, a botanical garden and the movies to see The Passion of theChrist. The rest of the time he is in therapy or waiting for therapy or just waiting.
Monroe admits he's depressed and frustrated. He's ready, he's anxious, to master his prosthetic. His other leg is still so damaged it's holding him back.
He has two more surgeries to go and maybe as much as a year of rehabilitation. He does go home to Pasadena sometimes, he says, and he's hoping his family will move to San Antonio this summer.
Beyond his rehab at Brooke, Monroe is not sure what the future will bring. He and his wife might buy some property in Alvin. He might get back into law enforcement. Or he might go back to school and get that teaching certificate. He says he'd still like to coach track and field. Truth is, he wants to run again.
And right then he flashes a smile and a glimmer of hope.
t Brooke, the medical staff is well-known for orthopedic and burn care. Less is said about the psychiatric care and counseling available to wounded soldiers, who usually arrive at the hospital rattled and afraid.
Col. Thomas Hardaway, a psychiatrist, explains, "Most young people grow up believing that they are immortal and the world is a safe place. Gradually they learn that's not the case, but the process is so slow they're able to handle it."
Young, relatively immature soldiers don't get the benefit of that slow awakening. Says Hardaway, "They see someone blown up or they have to put their buddy in a body bag, and it breaks the acrylic shield protecting them."
Hardaway, Brooke's director of behavioral medicine, says many of the Americans serving in the war effort are teenagers or slightly older. They still are preoccupied with their bodies, and they think their successes in romance and relationships are tied to their physical perfection.
When the young men and women come home damaged, Hardaway says, "the loss is very tangible and devastating. It's like losing a loved one. There is no replacement."
The stages of grief are similar, also. Hardaway ticks them off: "There's denial, then anger, then depression. Finally, there's some sort of acceptance. It's, `Here I am. What do I need to do?' "
How long it takes injured soldiers to get to that point depends on their injuries, their personalities, their reserves of strength and their support systems, the psychiatrist says. Timetables can range from days and weeks to months and years.
Some soldiers, he says, will not fully recover.
pc. Clinton Davis is so fresh from the war in Iraq that his leg wound is still draining. He's still on morphine, and he's still checking his visitor's chair to make sure his wife and baby son really are there.
For now, he says, he can't imagine returning to Iraq.
"I know it's good to help other countries," Davis says, his voice low and conflicted. "But does Iraq even want to be helped?"
His left leg is encased in a wire cage. Pins go directly into the skin to stabilize two broken bones. (Davis asked not to be photographed.)
"Maybe it's because I just got hurt and I'm a little depressed, but I don't think we should have soldiers over there," Davis says. "Maybe the higher-ups can see progress, but the lower enlisteds just don't. I remember as I was getting shot at, the local Iraqi police were supposed to be helping. I don't remember seeing any of them doing that. I saw them run."
It was frustrating, to put it mildly, not to know whom to trust, Davis says. "Iraqis all wear civilian clothes, and they're authorized to carry weapons. You never knew if somebody was going to take one of those guns and point it at you."
He shakes his head at the memory, the thought of yet another surgery on his left leg, the prospect of six to eight months of rehabilitation with uncertain results. He took two bullets between his knee and ankle. In the scheme of things, Davis knows, he got off lightly.
"But I've never had an injury to this extent," he says. "Doctors have had to go in three or four times just to clean out the dead tissue and beat the infection. I'm hoping my leg will get back to normal. I just don't know."
After Davis gets the care he needs, the Army will grant him a medical discharge. He doesn't know what he'll do, however, when he, his wife, Gina, and their 2-year-old, Kyle, move back to Batesville, near Uvalde. In the past it's been hard for him to find work there, which is why he joined the Army in the first place.
He grew up in modest circumstances. Midway through high school, he quit to work and help his mom pay bills.
"I knew there were lots of opportunities in the Army, a guaranteed paycheck and good benefits," Davis says.
His first assignment was Hawaii.
His second was Iraq.
He says Gina went through hell worrying about him. And he worried nonstop about her, their baby and the possibility that he'd be killed before he made it back to them.
The day Davis was shot, he was doing riot control in a town two hours north of Kirkuk.
"We were called to protect the City Council building. It was getting close to the Iraqi elections, and there was an anti-coalition protest going on. We didn't bother the protesters. That was their right, but there were a lot of people in the street, and two or three blocks down we could hear gunfire."
One minute, it seemed, the streets were filled with people and activity. The next, the village was a virtual ghost town.
"The locals knew something the coalition forces didn't. The shots were getting closer and closer."
Then Davis found himself in a shower of bullets. He was on the sidewalk, moving toward the insurgents. He took half a step into the street, trying to get a quick look at his squad leader.
That's when he got hit.
t. Col. Alfredo Montalvo is a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist assigned to the burn unit at Brooke. That means he deals in pain, heartbreak, then hope.
"Burn injuries are pretty bloody," Montalvo says. "I've seen soldiers lose ears, noses, lips and hair. Sure, they worry about the reactions of their girlfriends, their wives, their children. This is not the time for loved ones to say, `I won't be your friend,' or, `The marriage is off because I can't stand looking at you.' "
The staff counsels the families, Montalvo says. They counsel the soldiers, too.
"We push them gently through the grieving process," he says. "We encourage them not to drink because alcohol is a depressant and it impairs judgment. And we encourage them, little by little, to get out in social situations. A whole group of them might go out to a restaurant. And we encourage them to say, if people stare, `Go ahead and ask me what happened. I got this in Iraq. I got this in the war.' "
pc. Edward Stephenson found happiness in the Army. But he wouldn't have predicted that -- probably nobody would have -- when he was growing up in New York.
He spent his first 12 years living with his mom. He spent his teenage years with his grandmother. He planned to go to college, he meant to go to college, but he wound up in the Marines instead. That didn't last, because he hurt his shoulder. He was drifting from one low-paying job to another when someone tried to recruit him for the Army.
"No offense," was his first reaction, "but I was in the Marines."
Then he thought about it. His shoulder was healed, and enlisting was a way to go to college free.
In April 2001, Stephenson reported for basic training. Slowly but surely he became a disciplined, dedicated soldier. On two occasions he served in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. His next assignment was Saddam's hometown, Tikrit.
He remembers camping out in an Iraqi military base that had been trashed by the retreating army. He remembers moving into Saddam's birthday palace. He remembers identifying so thoroughly with his job of infantryman that he was sure he had found his calling, his place in the world.
His happiness was short-lived.
Stephenson was on duty, protecting a senior officer in Tikrit, when the Humvee they were riding in hit an improvised explosive device. Then they hit another, and the Humvee caught fire.
That was Oct. 1, 2003.
Stephenson says infantrymen in vehicles usually don't wear seat belts because they have to be ready to jump out and do their jobs. That day, he says, he buckled up because the senior officer had insisted. As fire licked the floorboards, Stephenson's seat belt jammed. He was trapped. His feet caught fire. His hands caught fire. Finally he slid under the belt and jumped out of the Humvee.
He landed in a puddle of fire.
He stopped, dropped and rolled to put the flames out. That didn't work. He threw sand on himself. He was still smoldering.
In a state of shock, he crouched behind a concrete planter.
"My training took over," he says. "I was working security."
Finally Stephenson heard the senior officer yelling his name. That's when the young man realized his feet were still on fire. The company commander doused the flames with a jug of water.
Two other soldiers had been riding in the Humvee.
"I could hear them screaming," Stephenson says.
Their seat belts had failed to release, too.
The driver died. The other soldier, who was supposed to leave Iraq the next day, wound up deaf in his left ear, almost blind in his left eye, with shrapnel wounds, burns and a shattered ankle.
"The last I heard from him," Stephenson says, "he was in Walter Reed. He called. I think he just wanted to hear my voice."
Stephenson was flown from Tikrit to hospitals in Kirkuk, Kuwait and Germany. Then, he remembers, he made the long flight to Brooke, famous for burn care.
"The doctors here told me I had about 10 percent of the tissue left on my legs. The first thing they did when I got here was scrub the dead skin off."
He'll never forget that procedure.
"Ask in any burn ward," he says. "They'll tell you it's the most excruciating pain you'll ever go through. And I remember telling them, it didn't matter what they had to do, I was going to walk out of this hospital. I wasn't walking then. My Achilles tendons were exposed. The tibias, the big bones in my legs, were exposed, too."
About half a dozen operations later, Stephenson, 27, is walking. His gait seems normal. His hands are healed.
"One of my main issues is my right heel. When I stand, it doesn't touch the ground."
And he has nightmares and flashbacks. It's hard to sleep.
What does he think of the war effort? He had a job to do, and he did it to the best of his ability.
"I really don't have the luxury of questioning orders," he says. "Unless they're illegal."
Stephenson sounds so relaxed.
He's not, he says. "I find it very unsettling to be around large groups of people. Once I went out with friends, and one of them told me I looked like a scared dog. When I go out, I'm always looking around for Iraqis and snipers on rooftops."
At Brooke, the soldiers are showered with invitations to sporting events, movies, community events.
"I really appreciate how everybody wants to do all this stuff for us," Stephenson says. "But for me, personally, at times I just want to be by myself."
There's a long pause.
"There is one bright spot," he says. "I'm seeing someone. We dated before I went to Iraq, and we're dating now."
Yes, Stephenson says, she has adjusted to the changes in his body. "In fact, the biggest shock for her was seeing me walking with a cane."
gt. Tracy Reep, about to retire from the Texas Army National Guard and say his goodbyes to the staff at Brooke, exudes confidence. He's got the height, the build, the executive-businessman look.
On close inspection, however, he's a soldier.
Instead of a ring finger on Reep's left hand, there is one knuckle -- just enough room for a wedding band. His little finger is missing. His left elbow and shoulder are damaged. His left eye is red and virtually sightless. Before doctors at Brooke replaced a lens in his right eye, he was blind.
Eighteen months ago, Reep would have said he was a most unlikely target for insurgents' rocket-propelled grenades. He was living in Dallas and working in the restaurant business. His commitment to the National Guard involved one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer.
Then Reep's unit was called to active duty.
"It was traumatic," he says. "I hadn't been away from my wife or kids for longer than that two-week span."
In January 2003, Reep reported to Fort Hood for the start of a journey that led to northwest Baghdad. In November, during a routine trip to a fuel storage facility, he and other members of the convoy were ambushed.
"We stopped, hoping we could overtake the insurgents," Reep says.
They could not. A grenade struck the vehicle Reep was commanding. The left side of his upper body was ripped and bloody.
"Coming home as an injured soldier is hard," says Reep, 35.
Early on, he says, he was so used to the military routine and rules and regulations that he was overbearing when he took leaves from the hospital to visit his family.
Other times, particularly when he couldn't see, he felt like a drag and a burden.
"My wife had to do everything," he says. "I wasn't able to be much of an asset to her."
He still remembers the magical evening after the lens replacement surgery. He and his wife went for a walk, and he could see trees, even birds.
Reep hopes doctors will be able to replace the lens and restore the vision in his left eye, too. Even if they cannot, he feels just about ready, just about able, to return to Dallas and his old position in the restaurant industry.
"I'm going to go back and enjoy the freedoms I helped protect," he says. "I'm going to make up for lost time."
And no, he says, he is not self-conscious about his injuries.
He is incredulous at the very idea.
"I earned these scars."
Claudia Feldman is a Chronicle reporter.
CLAUDIA FELDMAN
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