thedrifter
02-04-09, 08:43 AM
Saline area marine's battle moves to hospital bed
Posted by jcmathis February 03, 2009 10:20AM
Marine Cpl. Kenneth C. Bowen is one of the victims of war most people don't see.
If the 2003 graduate of Saline High School had been killed by that roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Jan. 24, the military would have sent word to the news media, and we would have written a big story. We would have talked to friends and family, and attended the funeral, just as we have for other local soldiers who've died in service to their country.
Instead, he joins the many thousands of casualties of war who fall under the radar because they have "only" been critically injured. So there was no press release. Kenny wasn't killed.
He's "just" suffering second- and third-degree burns on 44 percent of his body and a fractured ankle.
That's all.
Kenny was the squad leader riding in the passenger seat of an armored vehicle in Afghanistan Jan. 24 when it hit a roadside bomb.
Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan of Brooklyn, N.Y., was killed in the explosion, and another Marine, Kevin Preach of North Carolina, was badly injured.
Kenny is now at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, his new home for the next year.
The other day, doctors allowed Kenny out of his drug-induced coma just long enough for him to look up at his mother and say, "Oh, Mom. This is bad, isn't it?"
This is one of those times you wonder how people can endure the conditions they face.
Jan. 24 was also the one-year anniversary of my own daughter's near death, when a surgeon accidentally pierced her iliac artery and vena cava during an appendectomy and she nearly bled to death. I called Angela that morning to wish her a happy anniversary. When she called back, crying, I thought she was having a flashback.
"Mom!" she said. "Kenny got hit by roadside bomb. He might not make it."
Nothing so far in my life has come close to the agony of Jan. 24, 2008. But Jan. 24, 2009 was right up there.
For years, my family has loved Kenny Bowen; his gentle aura; his generosity and humor; the fact that he's a manly "guy's guy," but also sensitive and sweet.
When Kenny visited Angela following her close call, I remember watching him sit there for hours. He was on leave from the Marines and I thought to myself: Nothing better happen to him over there. Nothing better happen to Kenny.
Now Angela's planning a trip to San Antonio, along with some other friends, all of whom wish they could do more.
I saw Ken's mother, Wendy Bowen, in the crowd at the burial of a local Marine some time ago. Kenny hadn't enlisted yet, but his younger brother, Geoff, had. As she was trying to comfort someone, I knew she had to be thinking: That could be my son being lowered into the ground.
Wendy is on leave now from her job as a waitress at Knight's Steak House in Ann Arbor so she and her husband, Bob, can be with their middle son.
Kenny's friend, Jenny Smith of Saline (who, ironically, was in a serious car accident on Jan. 24, 2008), has been visiting with the family at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Jenny said Kenny's still in critical condition because of the risk of infection, but nurses are very positive he'll pull through this. He's heavily medicated, and all wrapped up in bandages. He'll have scars on his legs, arms and back.
"What about his beautiful face?" I asked.
"Handsome as ever," she said. "He'll be able to have a normal life. But right now, he's in bad shape."
As of Jan. 25, 4,806 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the wars began. Those numbers are easy to find.
But what about the thousands of other soldiers, like Kenny Bowen, who have been severely burned, suffered brain damage, lost limbs and blinded in the two wars?
They have become the unseen casualties of the wars, left to keep fighting their private battles.
Ellie
Posted by jcmathis February 03, 2009 10:20AM
Marine Cpl. Kenneth C. Bowen is one of the victims of war most people don't see.
If the 2003 graduate of Saline High School had been killed by that roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Jan. 24, the military would have sent word to the news media, and we would have written a big story. We would have talked to friends and family, and attended the funeral, just as we have for other local soldiers who've died in service to their country.
Instead, he joins the many thousands of casualties of war who fall under the radar because they have "only" been critically injured. So there was no press release. Kenny wasn't killed.
He's "just" suffering second- and third-degree burns on 44 percent of his body and a fractured ankle.
That's all.
Kenny was the squad leader riding in the passenger seat of an armored vehicle in Afghanistan Jan. 24 when it hit a roadside bomb.
Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan of Brooklyn, N.Y., was killed in the explosion, and another Marine, Kevin Preach of North Carolina, was badly injured.
Kenny is now at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, his new home for the next year.
The other day, doctors allowed Kenny out of his drug-induced coma just long enough for him to look up at his mother and say, "Oh, Mom. This is bad, isn't it?"
This is one of those times you wonder how people can endure the conditions they face.
Jan. 24 was also the one-year anniversary of my own daughter's near death, when a surgeon accidentally pierced her iliac artery and vena cava during an appendectomy and she nearly bled to death. I called Angela that morning to wish her a happy anniversary. When she called back, crying, I thought she was having a flashback.
"Mom!" she said. "Kenny got hit by roadside bomb. He might not make it."
Nothing so far in my life has come close to the agony of Jan. 24, 2008. But Jan. 24, 2009 was right up there.
For years, my family has loved Kenny Bowen; his gentle aura; his generosity and humor; the fact that he's a manly "guy's guy," but also sensitive and sweet.
When Kenny visited Angela following her close call, I remember watching him sit there for hours. He was on leave from the Marines and I thought to myself: Nothing better happen to him over there. Nothing better happen to Kenny.
Now Angela's planning a trip to San Antonio, along with some other friends, all of whom wish they could do more.
I saw Ken's mother, Wendy Bowen, in the crowd at the burial of a local Marine some time ago. Kenny hadn't enlisted yet, but his younger brother, Geoff, had. As she was trying to comfort someone, I knew she had to be thinking: That could be my son being lowered into the ground.
Wendy is on leave now from her job as a waitress at Knight's Steak House in Ann Arbor so she and her husband, Bob, can be with their middle son.
Kenny's friend, Jenny Smith of Saline (who, ironically, was in a serious car accident on Jan. 24, 2008), has been visiting with the family at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Jenny said Kenny's still in critical condition because of the risk of infection, but nurses are very positive he'll pull through this. He's heavily medicated, and all wrapped up in bandages. He'll have scars on his legs, arms and back.
"What about his beautiful face?" I asked.
"Handsome as ever," she said. "He'll be able to have a normal life. But right now, he's in bad shape."
As of Jan. 25, 4,806 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the wars began. Those numbers are easy to find.
But what about the thousands of other soldiers, like Kenny Bowen, who have been severely burned, suffered brain damage, lost limbs and blinded in the two wars?
They have become the unseen casualties of the wars, left to keep fighting their private battles.
Ellie