Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Undivided care for wounded

A charity gives military amputees and burn victims their own rehabilitation center.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published January 30, 2007

SAN ANTONIO, Texas

Of the roughly 20,000 soldiers injured since the start of the Iraq war, more than 500 have lost a limb - many of them in roadside bombings.

On Monday, a $50-million high-tech rehabilitation center opened that is designed to serve the growing number of soldiers who return from war as amputees or with severe burns.

The 60,000-square-foot Center for the Intrepid will allow the Army to move its rehabilitation program out of the Brooke Army Medical Center and into a separate facility.

The facility tells soldiers "we're going to take care of you for as long as you need us, to get you back to where you want to be," Maj. Stewart Campbell said.

At Brooke, amputees were being treated in offices and facilities carved out of the larger hospital. The new facility includes a rock-climbing wall, wave pool and a 360-degree virtual reality sphere to help soldiers recover their balance and other basic skills.

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, the leading presidential candidates for their parties and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, thanked the wounded for their service and told them the nation owed them a debt. Both senators avoided questions about the unpopular war.

"There is common ground on higher ground, and on that higher ground, we stand to pay in full our debt" to those wounded, said Clinton, D-N.Y.

McCain, R-Ariz., said frustration among service members was understandable in light of extended tours to Iraq or a return to duty as President Bush sends additional troops.

"The war in which you have fought has divided the American people, but it has divided no one in their admiration of you," McCain said. "We all honor you."

The center was funded by private donations to the Intrepid Foundation, a charity that has built dozens of houses to shelter families of wounded soldiers while they undergo treatment.

"This place is amazing, that the American people donated the money for this," said Staff Sgt. Jon Arnold-Garcia, who lost part of a leg in a grenade attack.

[Last modified January 30, 2007, 00:59:31]