COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: Casualties
Amputee Soldiers Return to Active Duty
MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press
May 30, 2007
In the blur of smoke and blood after a bomb blew up under his Humveein Iraq, Sgt. Tawan Williamson looked down at his shredded leg and
knew it couldn't be saved. His military career, though, pulled
through. Less than a year after the attack, Williamson is running
again with a high-tech prosthetic leg and plans to take up a new
assignment, probably by the fall, as an Army job counselor and
affirmative action officer in Okinawa, Japan.
In an about-face by the Pentagon, the military is putting many more
amputees back on active duty even back into combat, in some cases.
Williamson, a 30-year-old Chicago native who is missing his left leg
below the knee and three toes on the other foot, acknowledged that
some will be skeptical of a maimed soldier back in uniform.
"But I let my job show for itself," he said. "At this point, I'm done
proving. I just get out there and do it."
Previously, a soldier who lost a limb almost automatically received a
quick discharge, a disability check and an appointment with the
Veterans Administration.
But since the start of the Iraq war, the military has begun holding
on to amputees, treating them in rehab programs like the one here at
Fort Sam Houston and promising to help them return to active duty if
that is what they want.
"The mindset of our Army has changed, to the extent that we realize
the importance of all our soldiers and what they can contribute to
our Army. Someone who loses a limb is still a very valuable asset,"
said Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, a spokesman for the Army's Human Resources
Command at the Pentagon.
Also, just as advances in battlefield medicine have boosted survival
rates among the wounded, better prosthetics and treatment regimens
have improved amputees' ability to regain mobility.
So far, the Army has treated nearly 600 service members who have come
back from Iraq or Afghanistan without an arm, leg, hand or foot.
Thirty-one have gone back to active duty, and no one who asked to
remain in the service has been discharged, Arata said.
Most of those who return to active duty are assigned to instructor or
desk jobs away from combat. Only a few the Army doesn't keep track
of exactly how many have returned to the war zone, and only at
their insistence, Arata said.
To go back into the war zone, they have to prove they can do the job
without putting themselves or others at risk.
One amputee who returned to combat in Iraq, Maj. David Rozelle, is
now helping design the amputee program at Walter Reed Medical Center
in Washington. He has counted seven other amputees who have lost at
least part of a hand or foot and have gone back to combat in Iraq.
The 34-year-old from Austin, Texas, said he felt duty-bound to return
after losing his right foot to a land mine in Iraq.
"It sounds ridiculous, but you feel guilty that you're back home
safe," he said. "Our country is engaged in a war. I felt it was my
responsibility as a leader in the Army to continue."
Rozelle commanded a cavalry troop and conducted reconnaissance
operations when he returned to Iraq, just as he had before the mine
blast. Other amputees who have returned to combat, ranging from
infantry grunts to special forces soldiers, have conducted
door-to-door searches, convoy operations and other missions in the field.
"Guys won't go back if it means riding a desk," Rozelle said.
He said his emotions at the start of his second tour in Iraq, which
lasted four months, were a lot like those during his first stint: "I
was going back to war, so it was as heart-pounding as the first time."
Mark Heniser, who worked as a Navy therapist for 23 years before
joining the amputee program at Fort Sam Houston in 2005, said both
the military and the wounded benefit when amputees can be kept on
active duty: The military retains the skills of experienced
personnel, while the soldiers can continue with their careers.
Staff Sgt. Nathan Reed, who lost his right leg a year ago in a car
bombing, is 2 1/2 years from retirement and has orders to head in
July to Fort Knox, where he expects to be an instructor.
"My whole plan was to do 20 years," said the 37-year-old soldier from
Shreveport, La. "I had no doubt that I would be able to go back on
active duty."
Not everyone comes through treatment as rapidly or as well as
Williamson, Reed and Rozelle. Some have more severe injuries or
struggle harder with the losses, physically or emotionally. Soldiers
who lose a limb early in their careers are more likely to want out.
Those with long service are more motivated to stay, Heniser said.
Williamson did not want to return to combat, and it is not clear he
could have met the physical qualifications anyway.
The military planned to discharge him on disability, but he appealed,
hoping to become a drill instructor. The Army ruled that would be too
physically demanding for Williamson, a human resources officer before
being sent to lead convoys in Iraq, but it agreed to let him return
to active duty in some other capacity.
He is regaining his strength and balance at the new $50 million
Center for the Intrepid, built to rehabilitate military amputees. A
hurdler in high school, he ran the Army minimum of two miles for the
first time in mid-May, managing a 10-minute-per- mile pace on his
C-shaped prosthetic running leg decorated with blue flames.
He is working out five days a week running, lifting weights and
doing pool exercises and just got his first ride on a wave machine
used to improve balance.
"I could leave here today if they told me I had to," Williamson said.
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