Military Officer - April 2006 - (Page 68)

O 68 MILITARY OFFICER Former Army Cpl. Robert “B.J.” Jackson n Aug. 7, 2003, his ﬁrst day off in a month, Army Cpl. Robert “B.J.” Jackson headed into Baghdad’s commercial district with four other soldiers. The then-22-year-old had been in Iraq for four months with the Iowa National Guard. The Humvee he was in hit a land mine under Jackson’s driver’s seat. Almost immediately, a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) was thrown inside his door. The soldiers in Jackson’s group worked to free him from the truck as they fought off insurgents. “The tendons in my left leg were wrapped around the brake pedal. My right leg was burned to the bone. I must have grabbed for my legs because I had burns on my hands and arms,” recalls Jackson. He was airlifted to an Iraqi ﬁeld hospital, then to an Army combat hospital in Kuwait, and on to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. He arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) in San Antonio Aug. 12 and remained there in a medically induced coma for one month. Jackson’s 20-year-old-wife, Abagail, left their two daughters with her grandmother and kept vigil by his side. “She broke it to me slowly that my legs were gone,” says Jackson. By November, he was learning to walk on his new prosthetic legs, and by December he was skiing. “My APRIL 2006 right hand is deformed. Two ﬁngers don’t straighten, and the others don’t bend. But I can still hold a pool stick,” laughs Jackson. He admits to some dark days but says he surprises even himself by his ability to stay upbeat. Today, Jackson is employed by the Coalition to Support America’s Heroes, a nonproﬁt group that helps recently disabled veterans by building them accessible homes and sponsoring family support networks and programs to encourage companies to “hire a hero.” Jackson, whose occupation once was home improvement, says he is “not big on the ofﬁce work, but I get a lot of satisfaction from helping others who have been injured.” Team effort Lt. Col. Tim Maxwell, USMC, has seen six combat deployments. “I al- ways planned on getting killed,” he says. “But [I] never thought I’d be injured in a way that would leave me with diminished capacity.” Maxwell was severely injured by enemy mortar ﬁre Oct. 7, 2004, during his second tour in Iraq. He awoke 34 days later at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., to ﬁnd he had suffered traumatic brain injury. More than a year after his injury, Maxwell has exceeded all expectations for his recovery. Still, he has severely impaired vision, cannot drive, has trouble reading, and often searches for the right word to ﬁnish a sentence. Maxwell returned to his home base, Camp Lejeune, to further recover at the Naval hospital there. Lejeune’s Marines and the Navy corpsmen who serve with them have had particularly heavy casualPHOTO: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - April 2006

Military Officer - April 2006 Contents From the Editor President’s Page Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Lap of Luxury Magic Carpet of the Rails Blue Ridge Wonderland Salud, Santé, Cin Cin! Cover Story: Wounded Warriors On Duty MOAA Scholarship Donors MOAA Member Services Pages of History Information Exchange Member Books MOAA Calendar Advertising Index Sounding Taps Encore

Military Officer - April 2006

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