HELPING HEROES (By Ralph Peters)
HELPING HEROES
By Ralph Peters
December 10, 2007 -- FORT SAM HOUSTON,
SAN ANTONIO
THE rocket-propelled grenade didn't detonate as it pierced the Humvee on a Ramadi street last March. But it blew through at just the right angle to tear off the legs of the machine gunner in the turret.
Pfc. Adrian Garcia, a boyishly handsome 19-year-old from El Paso - a soldier with a smile as wide as Texas and eyes that could stop a pretty girl in the street - was manning that machine-gun. Then the world became a blur.
Adrian had been in Iraq 21 days. Speaking from his wheelchair now, he'll still tell you, proudly, that he's an 11B - an "Eleven Bravo," an infantryman.
In one respect, Adrian mirrored every other severely wounded soldier or Marine I spoke with last week at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio: He doesn't want our pity. He and every other veteran on the medical campus just want our respect.
But these wounded warriors need our help, too. And it's time for all of us to move beyond yellow-ribbon magnets on our cars. So keep reading.
The generosity of New York's own Fisher family, and of thousands of other Americans, helped build the $50 million Center for the Intrepid here at the Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) campus. It's the best rehab facility in the world for patients with "functional limb loss" - whether from amputation, damage or burns.
Intrepid, which opened last winter, has treatment technologies that lead the rest of the world. BAMC also has two Fisher Houses, where the families of those who've suffered catastrophic injuries stay free of charge - often for months at a time.
If you want a sense of how our wounded warriors are treated, just ask them. Adrian Garcia insists his care has been terrific "and then some." He's been offered a scholarship at St. Mary's University in San Antonio; he tells me he wants to study psychology because "I want to give something back."
You have to fight back the tears when a 19-year-old soldier with no legs tells you that he wants to give something back.
BUT the caregivers down at Fort Sam recognized an other need that neither private initiatives nor the government had addressed: Those in long, painful rehabs need a refuge - a place where they can get reacquainted with their families or just get out of their rooms and relax with their new comrades.
So the idea of the Warrior and Family Support Center was born four years ago. It's been an incredible success - but needs to be taken to the next level.
Today's Warrior and Family Support Center is housed in a single large room in an Army guest house adjacent to the Center for the Intrepid. It's such a popular - and needed - facility that it's usually crowded to the edge of chaos.
At the center of the good-natured tumult is Judith "Mom" Markelz, a highly caffeinated version of Mother Teresa. Also known as "Miss Judith," she's a hard case to interview, since her phone literally never stops ringing - and she's constantly getting up to hug soldiers or Marines walking in or rolling toward her in wheelchairs.
Miss Judith knows every name and case history: A wife-and-mother lost her job and medical coverage because she's stayed by her husband; a newly arrived amputee's terrified young wife shows up without even a toothbrush; a burn victim asks if Judith could arrange for a flight home (with donated frequent-flyer miles).
"Mom" handles it all.
Holiday decorations are up for Christmas and Hannukah; children play in one corner of the room; wounded vets sit at computers; a large-screen TV replays a football game, and volunteers serve snacks - or just let the troops talk their hearts out.
There's a sign-up table for r?sum?-writing classes and various outings - for basketball games and concerts, holiday shows and special dinners. The lists are full of names. A luxury? Nope. The key mission of the center is to help veterans missing multiple limbs, with brain injuries or disfigured by burns find their way back into society's mainstream.
THESE wounded warriors are phenomenal men and women, possessed of a tenacious valor more demanding than the adrenaline-driven bravery of the battlefield. They have to work through anger and despair at the devastating changes to their bodies. Their fortitude is humbling.
Yet many dread those first steps back onto the street or the campus, into a new job or a start-from-scratch social life. After 15 operations, a rebuilt face may never be quite right. Despite remarkable advances in prosthetics, legs don't grow back. And the most sophisticated device still isn't a warm, flesh-and-blood hand.
Will they be accepted? How will people react? Will they ever fit in? Many are more concerned for their relatives than for themselves. (Adrian Garcia told me, "I'm more worried about my family worrying about me than anything else.")
The Warrior and Family Support Center is the passageway back. Ground has just been broken for a facility (fully handicapped-accessible) to replace that single overcrowded room; the design is gorgeous.
Judith Markelz and her colleagues have fought for a building worthy of our troops, one that's warm and "homey," where devastated families can get to know each other again, where recovering soldiers can take test-drive college classes before being thrust into the hubbub of a campus, where they can regain their social confidence - or just watch a game on TV with their new band of brothers and sisters from the rehab center.
Alerted to the need, the people of San Antonio stepped up. Two local business leaders, Steve and Les Huffman - from a military family - donated their services as the developer and general contractor for a new facility. Subcontractors have promised materials at cost or reduced rates. Local citizens have been sending in checks.
The total cost for the new Warrior and Family Support Center will be $4 million. Not much, considering what's at stake - and the fund-raising is halfway there.
But it isn't fair to expect one city to finish the job when those wounded soldiers served an entire nation. So The Post is asking our readers to help (details on how you can donate are below).
For the rest of the week, you'll read stories of courage and sacrifice on the part of our heroes and their families - stories of triumphs over heartrending odds and in the true spirit of this holiday season.
AS for Pfc. Adrian Garcia, if you could watch him learn ing to walk again, you'd know he's going to make it. The Army and those Fisher Houses enabled his mother and sister to join him for his long rehab - and nothing helps like loved ones at your side.
Adrian's great joy in life right now is having his mother, Lourdes, make him breakfast. Lourdes Garcia beams when he says it, recalling how she knew Adrian was "coming back to us" the day he hid under the bed to scare her. He blushes when she hugs him.
Adrian's a brave man. And still a boy, too. And he's our hero.
Let's help.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Post readers who wish to donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center project can do so via credit card by phone at 1-888- 343-HERO or on the Web at ReturningHeroesHome.org.
This is a nonprofit 501c3 endeavor; all donations are tax-deductible.
To give by mail, send your donations to:
Returning Heroes Home
P.O. Box 202194
Dallas, TX 75320-2194
Checks should be made out to Returning Heroes Home, Inc.
All contributions, in any amount, will help our wounded warriors. Please give to those who gave so much.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12102007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/helping_heroes_810929.htm
By Ralph Peters
December 10, 2007 -- FORT SAM HOUSTON,
SAN ANTONIO
THE rocket-propelled grenade didn't detonate as it pierced the Humvee on a Ramadi street last March. But it blew through at just the right angle to tear off the legs of the machine gunner in the turret.
Pfc. Adrian Garcia, a boyishly handsome 19-year-old from El Paso - a soldier with a smile as wide as Texas and eyes that could stop a pretty girl in the street - was manning that machine-gun. Then the world became a blur.
Adrian had been in Iraq 21 days. Speaking from his wheelchair now, he'll still tell you, proudly, that he's an 11B - an "Eleven Bravo," an infantryman.
In one respect, Adrian mirrored every other severely wounded soldier or Marine I spoke with last week at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio: He doesn't want our pity. He and every other veteran on the medical campus just want our respect.
But these wounded warriors need our help, too. And it's time for all of us to move beyond yellow-ribbon magnets on our cars. So keep reading.
The generosity of New York's own Fisher family, and of thousands of other Americans, helped build the $50 million Center for the Intrepid here at the Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) campus. It's the best rehab facility in the world for patients with "functional limb loss" - whether from amputation, damage or burns.
Intrepid, which opened last winter, has treatment technologies that lead the rest of the world. BAMC also has two Fisher Houses, where the families of those who've suffered catastrophic injuries stay free of charge - often for months at a time.
If you want a sense of how our wounded warriors are treated, just ask them. Adrian Garcia insists his care has been terrific "and then some." He's been offered a scholarship at St. Mary's University in San Antonio; he tells me he wants to study psychology because "I want to give something back."
You have to fight back the tears when a 19-year-old soldier with no legs tells you that he wants to give something back.
BUT the caregivers down at Fort Sam recognized an other need that neither private initiatives nor the government had addressed: Those in long, painful rehabs need a refuge - a place where they can get reacquainted with their families or just get out of their rooms and relax with their new comrades.
So the idea of the Warrior and Family Support Center was born four years ago. It's been an incredible success - but needs to be taken to the next level.
Today's Warrior and Family Support Center is housed in a single large room in an Army guest house adjacent to the Center for the Intrepid. It's such a popular - and needed - facility that it's usually crowded to the edge of chaos.
At the center of the good-natured tumult is Judith "Mom" Markelz, a highly caffeinated version of Mother Teresa. Also known as "Miss Judith," she's a hard case to interview, since her phone literally never stops ringing - and she's constantly getting up to hug soldiers or Marines walking in or rolling toward her in wheelchairs.
Miss Judith knows every name and case history: A wife-and-mother lost her job and medical coverage because she's stayed by her husband; a newly arrived amputee's terrified young wife shows up without even a toothbrush; a burn victim asks if Judith could arrange for a flight home (with donated frequent-flyer miles).
"Mom" handles it all.
Holiday decorations are up for Christmas and Hannukah; children play in one corner of the room; wounded vets sit at computers; a large-screen TV replays a football game, and volunteers serve snacks - or just let the troops talk their hearts out.
There's a sign-up table for r?sum?-writing classes and various outings - for basketball games and concerts, holiday shows and special dinners. The lists are full of names. A luxury? Nope. The key mission of the center is to help veterans missing multiple limbs, with brain injuries or disfigured by burns find their way back into society's mainstream.
THESE wounded warriors are phenomenal men and women, possessed of a tenacious valor more demanding than the adrenaline-driven bravery of the battlefield. They have to work through anger and despair at the devastating changes to their bodies. Their fortitude is humbling.
Yet many dread those first steps back onto the street or the campus, into a new job or a start-from-scratch social life. After 15 operations, a rebuilt face may never be quite right. Despite remarkable advances in prosthetics, legs don't grow back. And the most sophisticated device still isn't a warm, flesh-and-blood hand.
Will they be accepted? How will people react? Will they ever fit in? Many are more concerned for their relatives than for themselves. (Adrian Garcia told me, "I'm more worried about my family worrying about me than anything else.")
The Warrior and Family Support Center is the passageway back. Ground has just been broken for a facility (fully handicapped-accessible) to replace that single overcrowded room; the design is gorgeous.
Judith Markelz and her colleagues have fought for a building worthy of our troops, one that's warm and "homey," where devastated families can get to know each other again, where recovering soldiers can take test-drive college classes before being thrust into the hubbub of a campus, where they can regain their social confidence - or just watch a game on TV with their new band of brothers and sisters from the rehab center.
Alerted to the need, the people of San Antonio stepped up. Two local business leaders, Steve and Les Huffman - from a military family - donated their services as the developer and general contractor for a new facility. Subcontractors have promised materials at cost or reduced rates. Local citizens have been sending in checks.
The total cost for the new Warrior and Family Support Center will be $4 million. Not much, considering what's at stake - and the fund-raising is halfway there.
But it isn't fair to expect one city to finish the job when those wounded soldiers served an entire nation. So The Post is asking our readers to help (details on how you can donate are below).
For the rest of the week, you'll read stories of courage and sacrifice on the part of our heroes and their families - stories of triumphs over heartrending odds and in the true spirit of this holiday season.
AS for Pfc. Adrian Garcia, if you could watch him learn ing to walk again, you'd know he's going to make it. The Army and those Fisher Houses enabled his mother and sister to join him for his long rehab - and nothing helps like loved ones at your side.
Adrian's great joy in life right now is having his mother, Lourdes, make him breakfast. Lourdes Garcia beams when he says it, recalling how she knew Adrian was "coming back to us" the day he hid under the bed to scare her. He blushes when she hugs him.
Adrian's a brave man. And still a boy, too. And he's our hero.
Let's help.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Post readers who wish to donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center project can do so via credit card by phone at 1-888- 343-HERO or on the Web at ReturningHeroesHome.org.
This is a nonprofit 501c3 endeavor; all donations are tax-deductible.
To give by mail, send your donations to:
Returning Heroes Home
P.O. Box 202194
Dallas, TX 75320-2194
Checks should be made out to Returning Heroes Home, Inc.
All contributions, in any amount, will help our wounded warriors. Please give to those who gave so much.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12102007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/helping_heroes_810929.htm
0
-
I was going to spend $125.00 on a 22 mag. pistol, I think its better spent here. so I'm writing a check and putting it in the mail tues. AM. God Bless you for spreading the word. 0 -
Daveald:
Thank you for your contribution to such a worthy cause. Men who demonstrate such kindness, as you have, are exactly the reason I love America and continue to wear my uniform in her defense.
NS0
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
2 comments