600,000 donors help vets get rehab center

SAN ANTONIO – Some limped gingerly, some rode in wheelchairs as they made their way into the tent. They had missing arms and legs, faces with no ears or with rebuilt noses, bones rebuilt with steel, shrapnel wounds still visible.

They are the faces of war and its cruel costs, the “wounded warriors” as they were called Monday, and they were the guests of honor at the dedication of a $40 million rehabilitation center built in San Antonio just for them.

One of those soldiers is Spc. Lucas Schmitz, a 22-year-old college student from rural Minnesota, whose right leg was blown off by a bomb in Iraq in July.

“The center will give me the opportunity to adapt,” said Schmitz, a member of the Minnesota National Guard. “I’m never going to be the same, and I won’t be able to do things exactly like I used to. But I can do it my own way.”

Three thousand people braved chilly weather for the two-hour dedication of the Center for the Intrepid, a rehabilitation center for the severely wounded that is touted as unrivaled in the United States.

The center is next door to Brooke Army Medical Center, one of the Army’s two primary hospitals for the critically wounded.

Paid for by the donations of 600,000 Americans, the center was the brainchild of Arnold Fisher, a wealthy New York developer whose family is better known for the Fisher Houses for military families.

As of Monday, the 65,000-square-foot, four-story building belongs to the Army.

Fisher, who also began the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund to help wounded troops financially, said the American people are uniquely generous when presented with a need.

“Why wait for the government to do what we can do in half the time at half the cost and twice the quality?” Fisher said.

Hundreds of those who supported the project attended the ceremony, including Rosie O’Donnell, Michelle Pfeiffer and Pfeiffer’s husband, David Kelley.

John Mellencamp sang two of his tunes, “Little Pink Houses” and “This is Our Country.”

And dozens of government officials were present – U.S. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain; Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England; Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson; the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James Conway; and numerous other flag officers.

But the day’s focus was on the wounded, who occupied prime spots on the dais and in the front rows.

The center, it was said, was “not a memorial but a monument” to their dedication and sacrifice.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke directly to the wounded.

People will say that “he lost an arm, he lost a limb, she lost her sight,” Pace told them.

“I object,” he said. “You gave your arm. You gave a leg. You gave your sight, as a gift to your nation.”

Service members said they can’t wait to use the facility.

They said the much smaller therapy gyms in Brooke are not challenging enough, and they are too crowded.

Marine Staff Sgt. Scott Blaine, a 14-year veteran who sustained third-degree burns on more than a third of his body during a roadside bomb attack in Iraq in August, said he looked forward to anything that would speed his recovery.

“I’ve never been down like this,” he said. “It’s frustrating. I want to get back to doing things I did before.”

The center will have an annual budget of $2 million to $2.5 million.

The Center for the Intrepid is unparalleled for what it offers in technology and research possibilities, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, the Army’s surgeon general.

“The technological capabilities are probably not matched anywhere in the world,” Kiley said.

In addition to the new center, the dignitaries dedicated two new Fisher Houses at Brooke, each with 21 bedrooms and room for 65 people. That project cost about $9 million, officials said.

Fisher Houses, also paid for through donations and staffed largely by volunteers, are a free home away from home for thousands of families nationwide.

And few places are as busy as Brooke, which has treated more than 2,400 soldiers, airmen and Marines since the fall of 2001.

Some of those injured troops were wounded so severely that they will spend months in a critical-care room at the hospital and many months more in need of therapy and other outpatient services.

But unlike most amputee patients, these are young men and women in their 20s and 30s, in otherwise top physical condition, and with their lives ahead of them.

As a rule, medical professionals say, they’re motivated to restore their strength and prove they can physically rebound.

“These guys are in fabulous shape, and they’re ready to get back into life with their peers,” said Laura Marin, a biomechanist who analyzes how the troops use their prosthetic limbs.

That’s why Fisher began the fundraising campaign for the center. He said he believed that their future quality of life required far better rehab facilities than the Defense Department was providing.

In the view of some of the troops, he succeeded.

“I don’t think there is anywhere in the world that compares to this,” said Army Staff Sgt. Jon Arnold-Garcia, a soldier in the 101st Airborne Division who had a leg amputated last year after an attack in Iraq.

Arnold-Garcia called some of the rooms “space-age, like something they have at NASA.”

He believes that with facilities like that, he can reach his goal.

“First, I want to run,” the Sacramento, Calif., native said. “And if it’s feasible, I’m going to run the Big Sur Marathon. It’s beautiful. You’re running down Highway 1 with the ocean the whole way. I want to do it. And I hate running.”