COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: Casualties
One Day in Iraq, One Lifetime to Recover
AARON GIFFORD, Newshouse
August 17, 2006
SAN ANTONIO -- His legs are gone, but Steven Smith's courageous Army
swagger remains intact.
Back straight, head high, eyes always on the person in front of him --
even as he sits in a wheelchair, heavily sedated. He doesn't dwell on the
pain or the uncertainties ahead. He saves his tears for men in worse shape.
April 4 was Smith's first and only day in Iraq. The Army private from
Brookfield, N.Y., was returning from a shooting range when the Humvee
he was riding in struck a roadside bomb. The explosion took both of his
legs from the knee down and nearly killed him.
"I'm grateful it happened to me and not anybody else" he said in the
physical therapy room at Brooke Army Medical Center near San Antonio,
"and I'm thankful I survived."
A little more than a year ago, Smith walked across a stage to accept
his high school diploma. Now 19, he hopes one day to walk again.
"I don't take things for granted," he said. "There's times when I have
nothing and there's times when I have everything. I'm a better and
stronger person because of this."
His recovery is a war in itself, filled with constant physical pain and
emotional scars.
His four-month stay at the hospital has been marred by medical
complications, resistance to painkillers and depression. Smith's mother
and brother put their lives on hold for him, and moved to an apartment near
the hospital to provide emotional support, visit him every day and advocate
for his care.
Fighting is nothing new to the rebellious young man who trudged through
a tough childhood: Steven Smith had been battling for a better life long
before he ever set foot in Iraq.
Smith grew up in Rome, N.Y. His father left when Smith was 2. Other kids
picked on him: His attention deficit disorder caused him to act hyper and
speak without thinking.
When he was in grade school, Smith's mother, Terrie, married and had
another son. The couple later divorced, leaving the 12-year-old Smith
without a father figure for the second time. He began to resent his
mother.
They fought constantly. Family counseling didn't solve the problem and
Smith was expelled from school for acting out. He went to a school for
troubled youth and wound up in foster care.
"We went through some brutal, brutal years," said Terrie Johnson, who
has lived in the Army guest house at Brooke since Smith's April arrival.
Family court placed Smith with Carl and Christine Chesebro in rural
Brookfield, where a one-building school graduates about 20 students a
year.
Smith appreciated the serenity of the Chesebros' farm, and began to
slowly rebuild his life. He kept rabbits and cows. He went to work at
another Brookfield farm belonging to DeWitt Head.
Smith wore a black leather hat, big belt buckles and tight bluejeans.
He
and Carl often fired up the old phonograph and stayed up past midnight
howling Little Jimmy Dickens and Johnny Cash numbers.
In high school, Smith still fought periodically, mostly because of
pride. At basketball games he tangled with rival fans if they called his
classmates country bumpkins.
"People did bust his chops about (the cowboy hat), but that's who he
wanted to be," said classmate and friend Cory Wilcox. "After a while, it
didn't bother him anymore."
Steven Smith had found a home in rural Madison County -- or so it seemed.
Then, one summer day after graduation, Smith asked his foster parents
for a ride to the Army recruiting office.
"I said, `Are you sure?' And he was so sure," Christine Chesebro said.
"He was out of bed the next day before 7 -- waiting to go."
Terrie Johnson said Smith had never talked about enlisting. Lifelong friend
Autumn Collins called it a "total, total shocker." The Chesebros thought
he'd change his mind after being told that soldiers are government
property.
He didn't. His patriotism was a deep, spiritual conviction that he'd
kept to himself.
"I believe everyone should get their four years in," Smith said,
acknowledging that the money contributed to his decision to enlist.
"It's not much to ask. Freedom isn't free."
The new Army private loved the way the thick wad of bills from his military
bonus felt in his pocket. For the first time in his life he had more than a
few bucks. A lot more.
He slid a stack of 20s, 50s and 100s into the man's hands -- about $6,000
in all. Smith wasn't buying the Ford 4x4 he had always dreamed of, but
still, it was American-made. His fingers trembled as he dialed the phone to
brag about the 1995 GMC pickup.
"All he ever dreamed about was owning a truck," said Head, the farmer for
whom he worked, who received the first phone call. "He got $20,000 after
graduating from boot camp. He went right out and bought it."
At Fort Jackson, S.C., Smith found that life on the farm had prepared him
well for boot camp. The heavy lifting and nine-mile bike rides from the
Chesebros' house to work at Head's barn gave him the lungs, legs and heart
he needed to cruise through basic training. And the hand/eye coordination
he developed during two years of high school welding classes made him a
great marksman.
Smith was stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky., where he specialized in diesel
mechanics. The teen's self-confidence blossomed and the relationship with
his mother improved.
For his 19th birthday in March, Johnson took her son to Nashville, Tenn.,
where he sang Charlie Daniels songs at karaoke night for as long as the
audience would have him. Johnson recalls how handsome he looked,
strutting about in his maroon beret and green Army uniform.
It was the last time she would see him walk.
Smith was far more excited than nervous the day his unit was deployed
to Iraq. The camaraderie and sense of service that the 101st Airborne
instilled in him were sacred.
"Every day we were told we were going to Iraq," he said. "We were all
brothers and we wanted to go to look after each other."
A few hours after arriving in Iraq, Smith went to a shooting range to
qualify his M-16 assault rifle for combat. On the short drive back to
base, he sat in the back seat, behind the driver he'd known for only six
hours but will always mourn.
The vehicle had hardly moved when a roadside bomb exploded, slamming
Smith's head into the back of the truck, ripping off a piece of his scalp
and causing ringing in his ears that has not gone away. He saw flames
devour a soldier's ear. The driver was slumped over.
Smith yelled for help and tried to escape the wreckage.
"At first I didn't feel it," he said.
Several hours later, the unconscious GI was on his way to a German
hospital. But before he left, Command Sgt. Maj. Oswaldo Colon slipped
into Smith's knapsack a heartfelt letter and his own Balls of the Eagle
combat medal, of which only three exist. The 320th Field Artillery, 2nd
Battalion had earned the nickname "Balls of the Eagle" during the seven
years it served in the Vietnam War.
"You are more than a hero. You are a warrior, brave beyond belief,"
Colon wrote in the letter that Smith still keeps. "You conducted yourself
with bravery and professionalism, even though you knew the extent of your
injuries."
The wounded soldier, who was on life-support for five days, woke up in
San Antonio on April 8. He saw his mother's tearful face.
"I'll be here for him always," Johnson said. "I'm not leaving until my boy
says it's OK to leave."
Smith's left leg was cut clean off. The right leg fared even worse: Sharp
pieces of metal from the exploded Humvee mangled skin and tissue and
lodged deep in the bone. Some of it remained even after surgeons hollowed out
the bone, bringing the soldier constant pain.
"As a mother," Johnson said, "it's so hard to see your little boy in
pain."
Doctors saved Smith's left knee. Last month they had to amputate his right
leg 41/2 inches above the knee to stop an infection that nearly killed him.
Even with a combination of powerful drugs, Smith woke up shortly after the
operation, screaming and hallucinating. He slept only a few minutes at a
time. During his waking moments, Johnson prayed with him and played
country music to distract him from the agony.
He's endured horrific complications: a throbbing sensation in the femur,
anxiety attacks, a lung infection, pneumonia and bouts of depression.
At one point, his father, Roland Smith, whom Smith hadn't seen since he
was 2, walked into the hospital.
"I told him to leave," Smith growled, "because I didn't like him."
Despite his own nightmare, Steve Smith draws strength from the other
patients at Brooke, many of whom he thinks are much worse off than he is:
men whose wives and girlfriends left them because of their disfigurements,
a severe burn victim who can move his hand just enough to ask for more
painkillers.
"Our troops don't deserve to get hurt," Smith said, crying. "We're over
there helping."
Smith may stay at Brooke until he can walk, a feat that's at least a
year away. For now, he is getting used to his prosthetic leg. After the
swelling goes down on his right leg, he'll get used to another.
He spends much of his day with doctors and dozens of soldiers, Marines
and sailors he's befriended during his four-month stay. He keeps in touch
with family and friends via e-mail.
In the exercise room, Smith is trying to relearn balance. He leans back
and forth with a medicine ball and gets aerobic conditioning on an
upper-body exercise bike. That's in addition to the workouts he does throughout
the day, lifting himself in and out of the bed or chair.
"With Steve, the issue is going to be balance," said his physical
therapist, Maj. Stuart Campbell. Double amputees "need a lot of core
strength to drive the prosthetics. He continues to come back."
The workouts have been grueling. Before his operation, there were days when
Smith worked himself way beyond what the doctors recommended and he
could barely sit up the next day. After the operation, fatigue kept him from
exercising at all. Now, he sometimes feels as if he's starting all over
again.
But no matter how hard it gets, Smith says, he has no regrets about
that fateful day in Iraq. He'll receive a Purple Heart after his battalion
completes its return to the United States in the next few weeks.
"I hope they make it back," he said. "It's the only thing I pray for."
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