Wounded Heroes: Three Stories Of More Than 16,000 Injured Troops

Wounded Heroes: Three Stories Of More Than 16,000 Injured Troops

"Three disabled veterans from Arizona spent time recently with an
Arizona Republic reporter and photographer, describing the moment they were
injured and talking about their lives since."
By Connie Midey
The Arizona Republic, November 6, 2005


Their photos appear in our newspapers and flash across our TV screens.

We examine the faces. Read the names. Lament the loss, no matter how we
feel about the war.

They are the men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.But what
about t

But what about the wounded?

About 16,000 U.S. troops have been injured in those countries since
2001. They survived, but at the cost of lives forever changed, and they,
too, will be honored! in Veterans Day activities this week.

Some of them have had more surgeries than they want to count. They
grapple with challenges and regrets that would daunt the strongest of
people: paralysis, blindness, scars both physical and emotional.

Letting their wounds define them would be seeing only part of these
veterans.

Three from Arizona spent time recently with an Arizona Republic
reporter and photographer, describing the moment they were injured and talking
about their lives since.

Chris Shipley has an understated sense of humor, displayed with a shy
downward glance, and it didn't desert him in the darkest of times.

Jared Foster, for all the good-natured teasing he dishes out to his
parents, chafes at being unable to help them the way he'd like to.

Erik Castillo, whose sweet nature is re-emerging, chooses every word
carefully, struggling to be as honest as possible, even at his own
expense.

Each of these Arizona men also bears re! minders, not all of them
visible, of wounds suffered in Iraq.

'BLOOD WAS ALL OVER MY HEAD'

Chris Shipley of Glendale was injured in Baghdad.

Chris Shipley, 21, Glendale. Married, one child. Army sergeant, 2nd
Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort St

It was on the first day we invaded Baghdad. I was a tank driver. The
fire lights came on my tank, and I knew we were hit by something.

The whole back end of my tank was on fire, so we had to get off. We
grabbed all the weapons and ran to another vehicle. I jumped on that
vehicle.

We were just riding along, and some of us got shot. I looked at my
hands, and they were all bloody. I wish I would have heard it coming. Then
I would have ducked, you know?

At first I thought I was just hit by an IED (improvised explosive
device) or something from a slow-moving vehicle on the side of the road. But
it was an AK-47 assault rifle that hit me.

It went through my Kevlar (! helmet). Blood was all over my head. It
was all in my face. There were skull fragments everywhere.

All the other rounds - because the AK-47's a fully-automatic weapon,
there were other rounds - they hit the vehicle and just shredded
everything. There was a lot of shrapnel in my arms.

When I turned around, my friend, he's all bloody, too, and I'm like,
"What's going on? You've got to get us out of here, man." I asked for
some morphine or beer, cigarettes, whatever.

The guy in the tank next to me got hit with an RPG (rocket-propelled
grenade), and the tank they were in got blown to pieces. That day,
probably seven died from my company.

They threw me on a Black Hawk (helicopter). I was throwing up blood on
everyone. They got all pissed off about it, but it wasn't like I could
help myself. I said, "I'm just going to go to sleep for a little bit."

I woke up in this dark place. At that exact moment, a doctor was trying
to shove a catheter into me. I didn! 't know if I was captured or what.
I said, "I can do this on my own, buddy."They removed my

They removed my right eye at the MASH unit in Spain. I remember pulling
staples out of my head afterwards. It just took me a week to get out of
the hospital, then they put me right back to work at Fort Stewart, like
it never happened.

Then it took about nine more months after that until I could go to
Walter Reed (Army hospital in Washington, D.C.). They built me a prosthetic
eye, a cyborg eye, or whatever you want to call it.

The scar on my head is where it hit. It didn't go into my brain. At
least, the Army didn't tell me if it did. They don't like to tell you very
specific things. Except they had to remove the outer lining of my
brain. I have no idea if it will grow back. I hope so.

I'm not in therapy now, but I'm assuming there'll be more surgeries.
There's like 17 or 18 screws in there somewhere. My sinus cavity was
obliterated, and I can't taste or smell an! ything. Two of my (three)
brothers are stationed in Iraq right now. But I'm home with my wife and
baby. I'm an auto mechanic, and I just got a Pontiac Firebird.

'I'M TOO STUBBORN TO SIT IN A WHEELCHAIR AND TAKE IT'

Jared Foster, 22, Mesa. Single. Marine corporal, 5/10 Battalion, 2nd
Marine Division, based at Camp Lejune, N.C. Injured March 24, 2005 in
Baghdad.

I got shot by a .50-caliber. That's the biggest bullet they have in the
military. The round's about six, seven inches long, maybe half an inch
around. It's not meant to go inside people. It's an armor-piercing
round. They go through tanks and bricks and stuff.

It was an Army weapon that went off, friendly fire. It hit me in my
butt and my lower back. I say I don't have a butt to sit on now, and I
really don't.

The only thing that saved my life is I was maybe five to 10 feet away
from the .50-cal when it went off, and it didn't have time to tumble and
pick up speed and velocity. It went thro! ugh me, three feet of wood,
four feet of a dirt berm, went another 300 yards and hit another dirt
berm.

I think the angel wings (tattoo) on my back saved me. The .50-cal
didn't touch my wings.

My buddies cut my blouse off to find out where the blood was coming
from, and from what I remember, my guts and intestines fell out. I was
sitting there trying to scoop up my insides, and they threw me back on the
cot and were patting me down with gauze to try to stop the bleeding.

But the blood was going everywhere. It's hitting my face. It's hitting
the ceiling. It's hitting the walls. I felt sorry for the guys who had
to clean it up.

The next thing I knew, they dragged me outside on the cot, using it
like a stretcher. They put me in an SUV, and I couldn't fit all the way
in, so they were holding my hands and the cot while we rode to the
hospital, hitting every bump.

From Baghdad, they flew me to Germany; from Germany, to Bethesda, Md.,
ICU and all that.

When I came to at one point, I saw my parents. I don't know how to
describe it. They were just there. There's Mom and Dad sitting over me,
hovering. They said I got shot by a .50-cal. I went, "Nah. That would rip
your head off."

The doctors said they didn't know if they could save me. They didn't
know how to put me back together, because they'd never seen anyone shot
by a .50-caliber. The hole in my back was huge. But whatever they did
worked.

I was at Bethesda for five, six months, recuperating, getting all my
surgeries, my therapy. Trying to get my feet and my toes working.

From there they flew me to Good Samaritan (hospital in Phoenix) for
therapy, learning how to walk again, dress myself, brush my teeth. Then
they took me to Desert Samaritan (in Mesa) for outpatient therapy. And I
still go to the VA hospital in Phoenix.

I need therapy for another six months. There's still operations to
come. I've still got a colostomy bag and I h! ave to cath every four to six
hours in order to urinate. Those are the downsides.

But all the doctors are amazed I'm walking. Or even alive. My heart
stopped at one point, and they pronounced me dead. I had like 15 blood
transfusions.

They told my mom I'd be in a hospital bed or a wheelchair for the rest
of my life, and I've already proved them wrong. I'm too stubborn to
just sit in a wheelchair and take it. That's not me.

I do need it, though. I use it every day. I can use my cane to go to
the restroom in my house or walk against the walls in order to get
something. But it hurts.

I used to go out every night and hang out with friends. Oops, can't do
that. Used to get in my vehicle and go drive somewhere. Can't do that.

My unit just got back from Iraq about two weeks ago. One of the guys,
the one who saved me, is from AJ (Apache Junction), and I hung out with
him. He was crying so much when he saw me.

'MY LIFE IS SO DIFFERENT NOW. I CAN'T ! DO MOST OF THE THINGS I USED
TO.'

Erik Castillo, who grew up in Rio Rico but is living temporarily in
Phoenix while undergoing extensive therapy, was wounded in Baghdad.

Erik Castillo, 22, Phoenix. Single. Army specialist, 82nd Field
Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas. Inju

Something hit me, and my first reaction was to take off my helmet and
start running.

I felt weak. My legs buckled. I said, "This is not going to beat me or
break me." I remembered getting back all the strength I could and
stepping up. I don't think that was a dream.

I woke up early the morning it happened, and my job that day was being
the driver of the Humvee. When I was inspecting my vehicle, that's when
four mortar rounds fell from the sky and injured me.

My captain started running toward the explosions. When he got there, I
was already getting loaded into the ambulance. I was in convulsions.

The doctors removed the shrapnel from my brai! n, and the extra pieces
of skull that was shattered, they removed those.

I started being responsive and my first sergeant said, "Do you remember
me?" My captain said I flipped the first sergeant off. He said, "That's
when I knew you were going to be OK." When the other soldiers would
visit me at the hospital, I'd always give them a thumbs-up, and they were
real happy.

They said 45 percent of my skull was missing. Really, me telling you
that doesn't hit you until you see the model of my skull. When I saw that
model, I was like, "That can't be me. A person with a skull like that
can't be alive."

They made the model of my skull at Walter Reed (Army Medical Center in
Washington, D.C.). It's how they put my head in place and reconstructed
the right side of my face.

I wish I had my ID they took of me when I first landed at Walter Reed.
My head was swollen so bad my brother couldn't recognize me. He went
right by my room. My mom, my two brothers and my dad wer! e at the
hospital.

When I got there, I couldn't chew. They put a shunt in my head to drain
the fluids, and they put a tube in my stomach to feed me.

I went to the Palo Alto VA hospital in California - they specialize in
traumatic brain injuries - and then the Carl T. Hayden VA in Phoenix
and now here at Gentiva (Rehab Without Walls in Phoenix).

I had a problem with being really angry, from my brain injury. It makes
you get short-tempered. I would get angry and start cussing and doing
all this crazy stuff.

My mother was the one I would take it out on the most. You expect your
mother and your family to take care of you, so you kind of lash out at
them. She got used to it. We really didn't know what a brain injury
does, so we all kind of grew together.

Every day, there's something that will get me fired up. But now I've
learned how to deal with it and I put it in check so it won't come out.
My therapists here, I talked to them about it. We went throu! gh these
steps of trying to prevent it.

I have three more surgeries coming up. This bump I have here on my
temple, they're going to try to remove it. Then I'm going to have an
eyelift. Because my muscles were damaged, the eye gets tired and it droops. I
have to concentrate on holding it open.

And they're going to remove the excess tissue from my right ear. The
first time I was at Walter Reed, my ear was swollen and my ear canal was
gone. They reconstructed it using fatty tissue from my belly.

I can't hear in my right ear. There was too much nerve damage. I can
see from my right eye, but it's kind of hazy sometimes. And they don't
know if it's from my right eye or from the brain injury, but my left
peripheral vision is kind of impaired.

Due to the right-side brain injury, the impairment is to my left side.
Left-side neglect, they call it. That's why I have to use a brace on my
left leg and walk with a cane. I have no functional use of my left
hand.

! My life is different now. I can't do most of the things I used to do.
I have to sit in a chair to take a shower. Just normal things.
Everything we take for granted, I had to change.

But it can't get any worse, is how I see it. Because every day you keep
getting better.
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