Time to heal
Special barracks gives wounded Marines a sense of belonging
By C. Mark Brinkley
Times staff writer

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — This place is pretty plushy for a barracks room.

It’s a suite, actually, with two rooms connected by a walk-through bath. The first serves as a makeshift living room, with a couch, chair and TV/DVD combo provided by the Marine Corps.

The other has a big bed with decent linens. The bathroom looks like a hospital bathroom, only nicer. All of the doors have industrial handles, not knobs, for easy opening.

Any Marine would jump at the chance to live here, until he heard about the price of rent. “Costs an arm and a leg” takes on a new meaning in the Wounded Warrior Barracks, one that’s not so funny.

Opened just two months ago, the barracks and its supporting programs are still finding their way.

Since it’s the only program of its kind in the Corps, there is no blueprint for how it should work. In that regard, the program and its clients have something in common: Tomorrow is always a mystery.

Sgt. Jonathan Brown spends a lot of time here. Though he isn’t a resident, he has a vested interest in seeing the place succeed.

“There was nowhere to go,” Brown said, referring to his own recovery struggles, shipped home from Iraq with a bum arm and no plan of attack for getting back into the game. “There was no program like this.”

The barracks program is an offshoot of a broader initiative — the Injured Support Unit — created six months ago for II Marine Expeditionary Force at the direction of its commander, Lt. Gen. James Amos.

“I intend to develop an all-encompassing program that provides continual support to all injured II MEF service members until such time as the service member no longer desires the support,” reads a commander’s intent statement from Amos.

“This continual support will also extend to his or her family. This program is directed to be a ‘one-stop’ shop for all injured II MEF service members, staffed with resident experts capable of finding solutions to all inquiries.

“It will provide continual command care and concern to the injured service member and their families throughout their transition to either continued military service or to the civilian community.”

Maj. Dan Hooker keeps a similar message, handwritten on three-star stationery, taped to the cabinet above his desk. It’s a reminder of what the program is about.

“We give people straight answers,” said Hooker, 41, a Reserve logistics officer and head of the unit’s Injured Support Section. “I think that gives them peace of mind.”

One of his section’s initial duties was calling every II MEF Marine medically discharged since Sept. 11, 2001 — hundreds of them.

“Sometimes, it was as simple as they never got the Purple Heart,” Hooker said. “Whatever they need, we don’t care. We help them.”

It didn’t take many phone calls to understand that adding a wounded barracks was a good idea. Thus, the Wounded Warrior Support Section was born.

Officials on Nov. 14 said work on a similar program at Camp Pendleton, Calif., was “in the early planning stages.”

The Marine Corps’ birthday is supposed to be a time for beers and parties.

But on Nov. 10, 2004, unaware of the journey he was about to begin, Brown found himself holding his position on the second floor of a mud-brick structure in Fallujah, Iraq. The kaboom would come any second, that magical sound of close-air support leveling the nearby building where insurgents were holed up and firing on his unit.

The last thing the machine gunner with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, remembers is bracing for the impact of a 500-pound bomb hitting home.

Then, he was on the floor.

“They painted the building wrong,” said Brown, 23, a former infantry squad leader from Indianapolis. “They blew up the house right next to us. Pretty much threw stuff all over us.”

And just that fast, Brown’s hopes for a future in the Marine Corps were clouded in a haze of uncertainty, thick like the fog of dust and debris that swirled around him in that room.

Now, he was on “The Trip.”

It’s not the sort of trip one signs up for. There are no massive homecomings, no barbecues and cheering. This is the struggle of working twice as hard just to break even, like what gamblers call the Martingale System, in which you double every bet hoping to kick a losing streak at the tables.

Getting back to even is an uphill climb on The Trip, one that wounded Marines once scaled without much aid from their band of brothers.

Brown pulled himself free of the debris, worried about a slight injury to his leg. But it was the damage to his left arm — somehow, he didn’t notice that his thumb had been ripped loose — that gave the men in his unit cause for alarm.

Below the missing digit, the sergeant’s forearm was hanging limp by the meat, bereft of four vital inches of bone that should have kept it straight and strong.

So much for cake and counting the years since Tun Tavern.

The blast that battered his body also ripped him from the comfortable familiarity of his unit, sending him home alone into a world of doctors, painkillers and rehab.

“It took 17 operations to get it to where it is now,” Brown said Oct. 20, nearly a year after the blast. “I’m still fighting a lot of infection in there.”

Every surgery brought another month on convalescent leave, with no duties and no purpose.

He was sidelined while his buddies continued the fight.

He was home, at least, with his family to lean on for support, but it was still tough to find a way ahead. Since he’s married, the sergeant wouldn’t have been a candidate for living in a wounded barracks, had one existed then, but the professional assistance the program provides would have been welcome.

“I didn’t feel like a Marine,” Brown said. “I felt like a civilian under a Marine name.”

Brown’s thumb was reattached, and a bone graft from his hip and some metal plating put his arm back in business. He’s lost most of the muscle control and can’t close his hand, but he doesn’t spew venom when asked about it.

“I don’t really consider myself injured anymore,” said Brown, who now works for the Injured Support Unit, helping Marines with issues he once navigated alone. “Just seeing some guys that are worse, how could you complain about an arm?”

No place like home

The barracks section was given the first floor of a base bachelor officer’s quarters in August, forcing the Reserve officers living there to make other arrangements.

There are more than a dozen rooms outfitted for wounded Marines, and the upstairs rooms could always be snatched away should the need arise.

The most seriously injured Marines will never live here, nor will those with minor injuries who are quickly returned to full duty. Instead, the barracks provides a place for those caught in-between.

“It allows them to be productive while they are recovering,” Hooker said. “We immediately find out what their problems and challenges are. We know it faster and we can fix it faster.”

Before the barracks, the residents here had few options.

After being discharged from the hospital, they would often go home on seemingly endless convalescent leave, out of sight and, often, out of mind.

“It seemed like everyone got lost or got stuck on convalescent leave,” said Gunnery Sgt. Ken Barnes, 36, staff noncommissioned officer in charge for the Wounded Warrior Support Section, which operates the barracks and other support programs. “It’s a pretty vulnerable spot for that Marine to be in. I had a hard time when I got back.”

Barnes was wounded a week before Brown in a remote area of Iraq when a roadside bomb shattered his left wrist, peppered him with shrapnel and severed the tendons in his arm.

After two weeks in the hospital, the 18-year veteran was on his own, with no unit to report to and nothing to do.

The convalescent leave, painkillers and constant state of limbo teamed to cause as much emotional trauma as the injury did physical damage, he said.

“It turns a Marine bitter, No. 1,” Barnes said. “No. 2, they lose their sense of ownership.”

“A lot of it was, realistically, there wasn’t a lot for these guys to do,” said Capt. Brad Williams, 29, an artillery officer and head of the Wounded Warrior Support Section.

Now, his group seeks opportunities for the wounded — working with trainers and simulators, and possibly instructing at Camp Lejeune’s nearby School of Infantry East.

“Let me do something” is the prevailing thought, Barnes said. “Either I’m done — let me go to school or something — or put me back to work.”

Barnes finally found a home with the Injured Support Unit, where he visits wounded Marines in the hospital and tends to the needs of the barracks and its residents.

“Going it alone is just too tough,” he said.

“You left your team. You’re hurt. You’re drugged up beyond belief. You have no decompression time. You’re on your own.”

Lance Cpl. Brian Floyd, 19, was one of the first Marines to come to the barracks.

On May 1, the machine-gunner with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, was riding in a Humvee that was hit by a roadside bomb.

The blast tore off a piece of the blast shield, shattering the front of his skull and lodging a piece of shrapnel behind his eye.

The shard was removed without causing vision damage, but his skull was ruined, leaving only a thin layer of flesh to protect his brain.

A metal plate goes in this December to replace Floyd’s missing forehead.

While he was on seemingly endless convalescent leave, Floyd would put on his uniform — for no other reason than to remind himself that he was still a Marine. Then came the call to report to the new wounded barracks, where he was given a job working with Hooker.

Now, Floyd calls other injured Marines, takes down their vital information and helps them work through their issues.

“They’re going to have to drag me out of the Marine Corps,” Floyd said. “There’s really nothing wrong with me, other than this piece of skull missing. I might have to pick another MOS, but I’m prepared for that.”

His enthusiasm caused Williams to smile.

“They don’t say it just to say it,” he said. “They mean it.”

These days, with the basic framework in place, the Marines from both sections have more time to focus on the needs of the wounded.

For Hooker’s team, that means tracking 188 wounded and 96 medically discharged Marines. Numbers grow or shrink daily, depending on how things go.

For Williams and Barnes, it means focusing on the needs of the Marines under their charge, helping them go as far as possible.

Brown, for instance, could be hampered because he still has trouble with pull-ups, due to the lack of muscle control.

Floyd still has serious surgeries and recovery time ahead.

The difference is that they know the Corps is still faithful to them.

“It’s not a guarantee that they’re all going to return to duty,” Barnes said. “But that’s our goal.”

C. Mark Brinkley is the Jacksonville, N.C., bureau chief for Marine Corps Times. He can be reached at (910) 455-8354 or via e-mail at cmark@atpco.com.

Ellie