Walter Reed Army Medical Center

In January 2005, an enemy rocket hit him in the head, literally.

He walked away, earned that Purple Heart, recovered at Walter Reed and went back to finish his career.

Then he kept serving.

As a teacher, an interim principal, and editor of Purple Heart magazine, his memoir, Decisions, a middle-class memoir, with a foreword by your friend and mine, Colonel Kurt Schlichter, is about the choices we make after life knocks us down.

And I'm under the impression that I'll just be going back to work.

As soon as I heal up here, I'll be fine.

And I was medevaced to Walter Reed after failing some Some tests that a neurologist gave me over there.

It was 10 days later.

So as soon as the bomb went off, you don't remember anything? None of it.

In fact, from there to Baghdad, a hospital there, from there to Germany, Germany to Walter Reed Orman Medical Center in D.C.

I briefly woke up in Germany.

I remember little things happening.

Didn't know what was going on.

and then went back to sleep and then woke up the night of Christmas Day at Walter Reed.

In fact, that's one thing that was impressive about the care for the troops in combat now, These numbers, I'd read this years ago, so hopefully they're factual, but I was told that, or read once, that in Vietnam, for every one soldier killed, seven survived.

But around the time I got injured, for every one soldier killed, 27 survived.

He was out of the Senate.

Because it was in Walter Reed after these operations and, you know, trying to get better.

Yeah.

And this is one of those moments where we can reflect on how I know it feels like we're not making any progress.

some back injuries and Dale actually lost both of his legs below the knees.

Well, through the recovery, Dale was in Walter Reed Army Hospital for many, many months, about 16 months.

And what John realized after, as Dale was preparing to come home was he did not have an accessible house to come home to.

So John rallied the community And the community built Dale an accessible house to come home to.

It was about a week later.

And I, like you, I went through Longstool or I went through Canover, Longstool, but instead of Bamsi, I went to Walter Reed.

And for about a week in Walter Reed, I was on in and out of surgeries.

I'm sure this maybe reflects your experience too.

I was on heavy amounts of painkilling medication.

I knew where I was and I knew what was happening and I knew I was being treated and all that sort of stuff.

But I didn't know the long-term effect until...

About a week into Walter Reed, there was a set of surgeons describing the last surgery I'd have to go through.

spent nine years in Germany working for the U.S. Army, which I honestly think is critical to how I practice medicine now, because there's nothing better as a pediatrician to have to really hone your skills in different areas than to not have a specialist available in town.

My closest American specialists were at Walter Reed, except for we had a pediatric endocrinologist who was part-time, developmental pediatrician.

There was one in all of Europe, and there was one Peds Cards in Europe, in all of Europe, for all the service members' kids.

This makes the five miles to the nearest DME look like, yeah.