Word: reed
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...same courage in the young soldiers he befriended in rehabilitation, and he writes movingly about them in his new book, Blood Brothers. Michael is the first to say his own suffering barely compares with that of the soldiers he came to know on Ward 57 of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. As he notes in the story, he lost his hand, but the soldiers lost their youth, and much more...
...book Blood Brothers, TIME senior correspondent Michael Weisskopf weaves his own tale of losing a hand in Iraq with the stories of three soldiers who also spent time at Amputee Alley, Ward 57 of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. In this excerpt, the action begins on Dec. 10, 2003, as Weisskopf, 57 at the time, is on assignment in Baghdad, riding in the back of an open humvee along with TIME photographer James Nachtwey and two young soldiers, Private Orion Jenks and Private First Class Jim Beverly...
TIME colleagues pushed for my transfer from Baghdad to the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. They then joined my friends and sister Leslie Flesch in lobbying to get acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee to admit me to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, making me the first reporter wounded in combat known to have received such treatment at the premier hospital reserved for soldiers...
Among the pros on the amputees' Ward 57 at Walter Reed, no one seemed fazed by my injury. But just the word amputation made me shudder. It conjured up a disjointed series of images: a childhood friend who had lost his leg in an auto accident; World War II veterans wheeled into ballparks for holiday games, their empty trousers or shirtsleeves pinned up. I had avoided mirrors all week. Now I feared seeing the startling reality in the faces of my family and friends who would be visiting on my first day in the hospital...
...taken a major loss for me to understand what I meant to others. Relationships rescued me. They got me out of Baghdad, into Walter Reed and back home. I received that help not because of a grade I had earned, a story written, or lives saved; it was for being me. I resolved to return the love by being less self-absorbed. I promised my kids I would stay out of war zones. My brother-in-law, Michael Flesch, came for a three-day visit, the longest time we had spent alone together in years. We hung out at Walter...