"I am in the Army," Garth snapped.
And yet he has earned her admiration. One of the tools she uses is a full-length mirror. It helps the soldiers see how their bodies are leaning as they get used to having only one leg or one arm. Some of the new amputees refuse to look.
When Cooks led Garth to the mirror, he stared, as if trying to burn the image into his mind.
Danny Roberts is hooked up to an electroencephalogram, which will measure his brain activity to determine the extent of any damage to his brain.
(Photos Michael Lutzky -- The Washington Post)
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| ___ Video ___  Purple Hearts
Marine Gunnery Sgt. David Dill, 39, and Lance Cpl. John A. Keeney, 20, were awarded the Purple Heart for their sacrifices in Iraq. Both were recuperating at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda.
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Today, Cooks wants Garth to practice walking. Sweat has gathered on his forehead from doing a set of leg-lifts and push-ups. Cooks hands Garth a pair of crutches. He blows a puff of air from his cheeks and stands. Cooks buckles a harness around his waist so she can pull him upright if he loses his balance.
Taking a step, Garth extends his stump as if he still had a leg and foot. "Good, Garth," Cooks says, walking alongside. Garth travels 30 feet and then proceeds out the front door of the PT room. A man sitting in the lobby averts his gaze into a magazine, not lifting his eyes until Garth passes.
Garth makes it back to the table and lies down, winded. Cooks touches his bandaged stump. Garth gasps. "Ow, ow, ow, what are you doing?" he asks, desperately. He exhales and stares at the ceiling. He can feel someone watching him. A girl with auburn hair has paused beside his table. She is struggling on her own crutches. Garth reaches out, placing his large hand on her small one.
A Visit From Hulk
A blast injury is like no other wound, a war unto itself. The tremendous force of a land mine shears soft tissue from bone, then reverberates through the skeleton with an energy that has nowhere to go but up. The brain bears the final insult, whiplashing inside the skull. Hitting the ground hard can also cause a blast victim's brain to swell, bleed or tear without any outward sign of a head wound. When a land mine or grenade or mortar detonates, the sound waves alone can cause concussion.
Danny Roberts, 26, is wheeling himself to the Traumatic Brain Injury unit, one gleaming hall down from his room on Ward 57. "There's nothing wrong with me," he fumes. The slight reservist from Green Bay, Wis., had just been getting his life on track, tending bar part-time and settling on a major -- education -- when his Army reserve unit, the 890th Transportation Division out of Hobart, Ind., was deployed. He went to war with paperback classics in his duffel bag, never fired his weapon, then was blown sky-high by a land mine while just standing around talking to his buddies one afternoon. His left foot is gone.
Now a neurologist will flip through a tablet of drawings: What's this, and this, and this? he asks. A bench, a tripod, a seahorse. Danny is usually so good-natured that nurses on Ward 57 drop by his room even on their breaks to chat. But today he's exasperated, his lips pressed tightly together. He is sure his nagging headaches are a side effect of his meds, that's all.
Deborah Warden and her associates patiently explain to Danny that concussions can be mild; he may not even realize he has any symptoms. They cover his eyes and ask him to identify smells: coffee, oranges. They break a cotton swab in half and tap his palm with the cotton, then the stick. Which is soft, Danny? Which is sharp?
A technician attaches electrodes to Danny's scalp. An electroencephalogram will chart any abnormal brain waves. Verbal and written tests will chart concentration and memory. Once that's done, doctors have promised discharge. Goodbye, Walter Reed, after 24 days.
When the examiners take a break, Danny goes AWOL. He rolls back to his room. Hulk Hogan is coming to visit! "I'll be there for that," he says.
Minutes later, Hulk barrels into Danny's room, all cartoon swagger.
"We just wanna thank you guys for going over and protecting us," the wrestler booms. "We love you, brother."
He glances at Danny's stump. "They'll fix that flat tire and get you runnin' again," he says.
"Put me in a headlock," Danny begs. His mother has a camera ready.
Hogan declines, but poses with his arm around him instead.
Word comes that a medevac plane departing Andrews Air Force Base the next morning can ferry Danny and his mom to Wisconsin. The brain team will call him with their findings, and he can get an artificial foot at the Veterans Administration hospital in Milwaukee.
When Taylor comes to say goodbye at dawn, the orthopedist finds his cheeriest patient in a tearful fury. The charge nurse is insisting that he cannot go because he needs valid military ID to board the plane. Danny's was shredded by the blast.
"You have any other ID? Driver's license?" Taylor asks.
Danny shakes his head. "They're saying it's my fault, that I should've taken the initiative! I can't walk up there." He jerks his head toward the nurses' station. " It's their job."
"You're absolutely right," Taylor soothes.
He confronts the stubborn charge nurse: This is ridiculous, he says. Danny didn't need ID to be flown here and shouldn't need it to leave. Just send him to Andrews, they'll let him on. "I doubt it," the nurse says. But she hands Danny a lunch sack filled with narcotics and his blue plastic hospital card. "Maybe that will work," she suggests. Nancy Roberts points out that her son has his dog tags tattooed on his chest -- what more ID could anyone want?
