San Antiono's rehab for wounded warriors

Ralph Peters:

THE rocket-propelled gre nade 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.

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There is much more. With all the Washington Post stories on the failure of military health care to provide for wounded troops, you would think that they would also be covering the success story in San Antonio. It is further evidence of just how remarkable these young soldiers are even after they are wounded they continue to show heroic efforts during the recovery process. This story also demonstrates how the private sector has contributed to this effort. It is a good story that makes you not only proud of these men, but also of those who are helping them to recover. Read it all.