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Wounded Warrior Program helps injured airmen

Staff Sgt. Steven Light was able to shout out a warning.

“White vehicle! White Corolla!” Then, the Toyota subcompact rammed into the Humvee that Light was in, manning the M240B machine gun in the turret.

That late May morning in northeastern Afghanistan, Light and three other members of the reconstruction team in Panjshir province were on their way to Bagram Air Field for supplies. Everybody except Light, including the PRT commander — an Air Force lieutenant colonel — died.

“Next thing I know I’m laying on my back in a little swell with a little bit of standing water,” Light said. “I remember my body being just a mess.”

As medics and doctors worked to stabilize him for his journey home, Light, 33, became a part of the Air Force Wounded Warrior Program, a fast-growing program to help airmen sort through all nonmedical issues facing them — benefits, entitlements, employment and relocation are examples — as they transition back to duty or into civilian life.

So far, the program has served about 540 airmen, 95 percent of them wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan. Six remain in uniform, 439 have separated and the others are still in the medical evaluation process.

A necessary buildup

Established in 2005, the Wounded Warrior Program is expanding as the wars drag on, said Lt. Col. David Bringhurst, the program’s chief.

The number of case managers at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, where the program has its headquarters, will double — from eight to 16 — by Dec. 31 and plans call for the program to hire more case managers as the population of wounded airmen continues to grow, Bringhurst said. Right now, the airmen-to-case manager ratio is 64-to-1; the Defense Department wants a 40-1 ratio, he said.

“As we stay in the war, every time we get another 40 wounded warriors, we’ll be hiring,” Bringhurst said. “We’ve projected out to … 2017 for that possibility and we’ve already begun to look at that need.”

By the end of fiscal 2010, dozens more nonmedical workers called recovery care coordinators will join 17 already in place at military hospitals to support all airmen who are hurt or sick, he said.

“They’re going to add a lot to help identify our combat-related wounded to us earlier on but also provide that same kind of one-on-one personalized support that we provide to wounded warriors,” Bringhurst said of the recovery care coordinators. “They’re going to provide it to all wounded, ill or injured.”

Also key to helping the service’s wounded warriors, he said, are liaisons at the airmen and family readiness centers around the world, who provide support most often after airmen return to their home station, and family liaison officers, who are there for airmen in the early days of their recovery. The officers are assigned to airmen taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and to the larger military hospitals, such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

The real challenge for the program, though, is to identify wounded warriors right away, not after they return home with their units, Bringhurst said.

“Most of the time they’re not medevaced,” he said. “It may be TBI [traumatic brain injury] or PTDS [post-traumatic stress disorder] that begins to cause them problems.”

Of the 540 airmen in the program, at least 340 have PTSD or another mental health-related primary diagnosis, Bringhurst said.

“PTSD is the signature wound of this war, and probably of any war, it’s just that now we’re advanced enough to know that,” he said. “It’s very difficult for us to believe in a psychological wound because we can’t see it.”

BWW: Before Wounded Warrior

Master Sgt. Christian MacKenzie, 40, got hurt in Iraq in 2004, the year before the Air Force established the Wounded Warrior Program.

MacKenzie, then a technical sergeant, had already done two tours in Iraq and three tours in Afghanistan without getting hurt. He wouldn’t be so lucky his third time in Iraq, with the 20th Special Operations Squadron from Hurlburt Field, Fla.

An MH-53 Pave Low flight engineer, MacKenzie and his teammates set out from Baghdad International Airport as night fell — headed first to Fallujah on a resupply mission, then Mahmudiyah to recover the remains of a Special Forces soldier killed the night before.

As the two helicopters approached Fallujah, they saw that their landing zone wasn’t clear so they turned around to regroup.

Out of nowhere, enemy fighters hiding in a nearby field popped up and fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the lead helicopter, the one MacKenzie was in.

“It penetrated the nose of the helicopter and blew up right on my face,” he said.

The pilot and co-pilot also were injured, but the co-pilot was able to regain control of the helicopter and land the bird.

Heavy enemy fire initially forced the second helicopter to leave the area, but it came back and rescued MacKenzie and his team seconds before enemy fighters overran their damaged helicopter.

MacKenzie was peppered with shrapnel and glass from the helicopter’s instrument panel and suffered burns and fractures to his face, head and arms.

“The pain and everything was so severe that my body just shut down all the pain receptors,” he said. “I was wide awake the whole time.”

MacKenzie endured seven surgeries — he eventually lost vision in his left eye — and extensive physical therapy but returned to duty a little more than a year after being wounded. Later, he was cleared to return to flying status.

“The coolest part about this whole thing was back in 2004 we really didn’t have a Wounded Warrior Program in the Air Force,” he said. “My unit, just out of a desire to do the right thing, they energized the family liaison program to take care of me and my family.”

Feedback from MacKenzie and his fellow wounded airmen helped shape the service’s current Wounded Warrior Program, he said.

Today, MacKenzie speaks at wing, group and commander schools about what he went through and how the Air Force can better care for its wounded warriors, and he is a casualty assistance liaison for U.S. Special Operations Command, working with wounded special operators in the Washington area.

“The whole idea is to get the service member to definitive care in a timely fashion and get the family member to their bedside as quickly as possible, and have that service member and family member want for nothing,” he said.

True appreciation

Light, the airman injured five months ago in the Humvee blast, is still an outpatient at Walter Reed.

He has endured at least 10 surgeries and continues to undergo physical therapy. He also has been diagnosed with mild TBI.

Light, though, is recovering from his extensive injuries — a right leg broken in two places, a fractured kneecap and ankle, a broken left shoulder, a broken nose and facial burns.

“I’ve heard one person say that my knee will not be 100 percent, but what’s not 100 percent? 98 or 99?” he said. “I’m trying to stay positive. It’s tough sometimes. Everybody goes through their days. You can be positive about things or you can wallow in your grief in your room.”

Light said he and his wife, Cara, have relied on the support they’ve received from the Wounded War¬rior Program.

“They have been awesome,” he said. “I had a liaison in Landstuhl who was there with me every day, was in contact with my wife. She’d go to the food court to get me pizza and Cherry Coke. I’m just battled, beaten to no end and she’s taking care of me and staying in touch with my unit back home and my wife and making sure they’re staying up to date with everything.”

When Light arrived at Walter Reed, he met his new liaison.

“They have taken care of us to no end,” Light said, adding that even while he was on vacation, he received calls to make sure he was doing well.

“I like to think they’ve taken a liking to us,” he said. “I think I appreciate more what they did for my wife and my family than for myself, just making sure they were taken care of while I’m in the hospital.”

Light said he wants to stay in the Air Force.

“This is definitely my career of choice, and the military has been so good to us [that] even throughout all this, I can’t imagine doing another job,” he said.