Pat Dollard | Young Americans

‘You Just Drive On’

Vets fighting their way back

By Ralph Peters

FORT SAM HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO — Watching Army Staff Sgt. William Corp work out with a boogie-board on the wave-rider in the rehab center, I couldn’t help thinking of the best line from a bad film, “Apocalypse Now”: “Charlie don’t surf.”

Well, maybe the Viet Cong didn’t ride the waves, but our latest generation of severely wounded veterans do. Recovering from the loss of his right leg in a roadside-bomb attack in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Corp ran through his rehab routine - then started doing somersaults in the pressure-generated waves.

It’s no luxury. A workout in those roiling waters is exhausting, building muscles back up and helping those who’ve lost limbs re-master their sense of balance. It’s a challenging, innovative regimen.

And yes, it’s fun - but fun is vital to healthy rehab. Lt.-Col. Jennifer Menetrez, MD, the director of the Center for the Intrepid for our wounded warriors, argued for the wave-rider’s installation. It was a stroke of genius.

Lt.-Col. Menetrez is a story in herself - a Karen Allen look-alike (Remember the hottie from “Animal House”?), she’s a Wellesley grad who dedicated herself to a career in military medicine. A veteran of the first Gulf War, she’ll soon be promoted to full colonel.

She’d deserve it just for the intensity she brings to caring for our wounded warriors.

Grinning as he climbs out of the water, Staff Sgt. Corp is one of the rehab program’s success stories. (There are many others, as well.) He’s come a long way back since his arrival at the Brooke Army Medical Center in 2006. How far? Well, he isn’t just a “surfer dude.” He also ran the Army Ten-Miler in D.C. this autumn.

Oh, and he’s awaiting orders to go back to his job as a military policeman. Meanwhile, he volunteers to train newly arrived amputees. Just 27 and married to a military intelligence NCO (Whitney Corp), he’s got four kids and an attitude toward life that puts the rest of us to shame.

“You just drive on,” he told me. “What’s the next step? Hey, just drive on.” Drying off poolside, he shrugged and said, “Aw, I’m just an MP grunt.”

Well, Staff Sgt. Corp isn’t “just” anything. He’s a lion in a world of alley cats. As is another “combat surfer” - Spec. Joshua Wold, who lost his foot to a roadside bomb while on a recon mission outside Baghdad’s Sadr City last September.

An infantryman, Spec. Wold is fighting his way back fast. He’s already got a job lined up with the sheriff’s department back home in Lewis County, Wash. - where he’ll be reunited with his two daughters. Asked about his treatment, he said, “The medical facility here is the top of the line.”

That’s the Center for the Intrepid, built with private donations. (Congress didn’t help then and won’t help now.) But we, the people, still have more to do for our vets who’ve endured life-changing injuries: Your donations are needed to complete the construction of the Warrior and Family Support Center, where our wounded warriors and their families can find their way back into society.

Men and women in uniform who’ve suffered amputations, extensive burns or brain and nerve damage need a refuge where they can do everything from spending some quiet time getting re-acquainted with their loved ones to starting college classes or learning how to approach job interviews before they take off their uniforms.

They gave. Now we have to give. (Details on how to donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center are below.)

Asked if he had any thoughts he wanted to share with the American people this holiday season, Spec. Wold grew somber. “We’ve got to stick with it [Iraq]. All those men who sacrificed their lives . . . it would be pointless.”

For his part, Staff Sgt. Corp just wanted to thank the American people for their support.

In the course of dozens of interviews with severely wounded soldiers and Marines, not one complained about anything. They’re the bravest of the brave - not the demoralized losers Hollywood desperately wants them to be.

If you want to meet examples of what heroism means, visit these men and women who’ve served our country.

And no, it’s not all good news and happy outcomes. War’s carnage endures a lifetime for these men and women. As Doc Menetrez put it, “Sometimes we have to tell their care-providers [their families], ‘He’s not going to get all the way there.’ Some of them may need help for the rest of their lives. We have to set realistic goals.”

But she’s upbeat, in the end, and proud of the troops in her care. “Rehab is about taking what you have and maximizing it . . . and we have facilities here that don’t exist elsewhere.”

We were standing in a hallway just outside the rehab gym, where amputees were sweating through an exercise class. Looking in their direction, the lieutenant colonel said, “We consider our patients national treasures.”

And they are.

What you can do

You can donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center project via credit card by phone at 1-888- 343-HERO or at ReturningHeroesHome.org. To give by mail, send your donations to: Returning Heroes Home, P.O. Box 202194, Dallas, TX 75320-2194.

Checks should be made out to Returning Heroes Home, Inc. This is a nonprofit 501c3 endeavor; all donations are tax-deductible. All contributions, in any amount, will help our wounded warriors. Please give to those who gave so much.