The two of them lie on a rock in the sun, Garth's silver prosthetic ankle glinting in the sun. Canoeists paddle by and birds fly overhead. "I came back here and people think the Iraqis just surrendered," Garth says. "The TV didn't show anything. I saw bodies. Melted bodies. Skulls. Bodies with the skin falling off. We got to Karbala and we started fighting the Republican Guard. Those guys don't want to take no for an answer."
His feelings about the war remain mixed. But there is no doubt surrounding his desire to be a soldier again.
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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Finally he gets the news he's been waiting for. Garth is told to report back to Fort Benning, Ga., home of the 3rd Infantry Division.
A Future in Flux
Danny Roberts is home alone in his new ground-floor rental outside Green Bay when the three boxes arrive from Iraq, emissaries from a distant dreamscape. Danny tears into them, dirt and sand spilling everywhere. My stuff ! All his Army gear, plus his CD player, the last disc he listened to still inside.
In Wisconsin, Danny is unsettled, scattered. Waiting for a new foot, still unable to put weight on his other leg with its mangled heel, he can't reach the cupboards so his girlfriend has to put dishes out for him each day before going to work.
For now, he spends hours watching TV or reading or playing video games. Doctors told him it would improve his concentration.
Tests revealed mild brain trauma, after all. Which bums Danny out, despite assurances it will heal on its own within a few months. Sometimes he forgets where he put things, or who called or visited him that day.
He joins a chapter of Purple Heart veterans, and they push his wheelchair in the Memorial Day parade.
The Veterans Administration is trying to determine what kind of vocational training would suit him, but Danny is convinced they screwed up the test results. "You have no reading comprehension," he remembers the VA lady telling him. He is still incredulous. "All I know how to do is read!" Does this mean they won't pay for him to get the English degree he wants? He sweet-talks the VA lady into retesting him, and plans to re-enroll in college this fall. He's applying for a discharge from the Army.
Maybe he won't teach, after all. Maybe he'll buy land in the Colorado Rockies. He knows a tiny town called Alma where they're always desperate to fill the lone policeman's job. He imagines himself the peacekeeper in that cool, quiet place.
Jennifer Love Hewitt keeps calling. The actress kissed Danny's forehead when she visited Ward 57. Now she wants him to participate in an MTV documentary. Sure, he tells her.
Danny is still trying to sort out what he thinks about this war. "I want the world to be a better place," he muses. "We gotta focus on homelessness, on education. We spend more money on guns and tobacco than we do on education."
He records a new message on his answering machine. Danny's voice sounds rushed, like he's worried that time will run out. Well before the beep, he offers a hurried signoff.
"Peace" is what he says.
Reporting for Duty
Fort Benning is just like Garth remembered: scrubby little sand hills and Georgia pines, with hot asphalt roads slashing the landscape of flat buildings. One thing is different: No one is here. Garth passes his barracks. The parking lot is empty. All 4,500 soldiers in the 3rd Brigade are still deployed.
He knows it's up to the Army to decide his assignment, but Garth wants to convince the medical review board he can be a ground-pounder again.
A cab drops him off and he walks into battalion headquarters. Behind a desk, the weekend duty sergeant is playing video games. Garth introduces himself. "I was wounded in Iraq," he says. "I need a place to stay tonight."
The sergeant dials someone on the phone. "Hey, we got a WIA here," he says.
"Hey," Garth says, pleased at the heroic-sounding acronym. "I guess I am a Wounded In Action."
Three hours later, another sergeant arrives to welcome him back and announce that a room in the barracks awaits him. Instead of the fourth floor where he used to live, he's getting a spot on the first floor where the noncommissioned officers are housed.
Garth's jaw drops. "No stairs!" he says.
He arrives in his new barracks and sits down on the bed. After 16 hours of wearing his prosthesis, his leg is throbbing. He lays his cane aside and looks around. There are fresh sheets on his bunk and the room has been stocked with toilet paper, bottled water and a few candy bars.
"Outstanding," he says.
Graduation Day
John Fernandez returns to West Point at the invitation of Vice President Cheney. It is graduation day, and he is a guest of honor. Only 48 hours earlier, he was at Walter Reed getting his second foot attached.
For the first time since the war, John is back in uniform, crisp in his Army dress blues, spit-shined shoes on plastic feet. He gazes from his wheelchair at the perfect rows of proud cadets; only two years have gone by since he was one, too. John begins steeling himself, a soldier with a mission. As the opening bars of "The Star-Spangled Banner" fill the stadium, John rises from his wheelchair, up through the blinding pain. With Kristi holding him tight, he stands tall for just a few shaky minutes, and salutes his flag.
The first part of this series, a gallery of photographs from Walter Reed by staff photographer Michael Lutzky and a video report on Marines recovering from their injuries at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/nation.
