Families of wounded struggle with long road to healing

[russian33]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Heather Pepper pulls a cigarette out of her husband’s pack, lights it and takes a drag to get it burning.
“Here, honey,” she says, holding it in front of Staff Sgt. Jason Pepper, 27, and moving an ashtray to a spot near him on the table. His face and his blank eyes turn toward her, following her voice, his hand groping the air to find hers.

Blinded four months ago by a roadside explosion in Iraq, Pepper is almost completely dependent on his wife. She helps him bathe, dress and eat. When he walks, he throws his hands over her shoulders, shuffling along behind her. She has become his eyes.

“It has been a huge challenge for us,” says Heather Pepper, 26, sitting on the patio of a Fisher House group home at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. “I had to do everything as if he was a brand-new child, except bigger.”

http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-comnews-339956.php



This is a heart-breaking article. But people need to read it, and know about it. It's not like this is reported anywhere.

[Unperson 309]

1. He Will Recover...

If they put him on contact with good mobility and living-skills instructors, he will recover most of what he has lost...

He will travel far more easily than he does now, with dog or cane, he will be able to type, cook, do all the things he once did...

Except drive a car, read a newpaper, all the things we take for granted daily.

And he will NEVER earn what he had hoped to earn as a sighted man.

The unemployment rate for blind citizens able and trained to work (not the underaged, miltiply disabled or non-work-ready!) is well over 80%! His life expectations are gone.

The fact that this happened to him because the fuckwit in the White House wanted to go to war pisses me off BIGTIME!

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