A HERO'S HOMECOMING
Special healing for a soldier wounded in Iraq.
BY:ANNE HOSANSKY
Shelley Davis, an Army wife living on the base, couldn’t be happier as she went across the street to tell a friend, "He’s coming home!" Her husband, 31-year-old Sergeant Gerald Davis, who was stationed in Iraq, was due to call in a few days to let her know when to expect him. But as she talked, she saw a man approaching her house. "I thought he was a friend of my husband’s who’d been helping me," says Shelley, who headed back to greet him.Suddenly she realized he wasn’t the friend, but an officer—with two others following him—for that knock on the door all military families dread. "I just froze and kept saying, 'No! No!'"The officer called to her, "He isn’t dead—but we have to talk."
Gerald, she learned, had been driving a Humvee when it was struck by a mortar thrown from an overpass and had suffered multiple severe wounds. "What they didn’t tell me was that he was ‘VSI,’ which means ‘very seriously injured,’" says Shelley. He was being flown to a hospital in Germany. "What I also didn’t know—thank goodness!—was that he had less than a 30 percent chance of living. "
Waiting was "very hard," she says. "The Army was wonderful about letting me call him every day, but I wanted to be with him. I did a lot of crying and pacing the floor."
After a week, Gerald was stable enough to be transferred to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. Shelley flew there immediately. She didn’t know what to expect, but what she saw shocked her. "He was completely bandaged and his face was so swollen he couldn’t talk clearly." Shrapnel had gone through his cheek, taking part of his jaw. "I had wanted him to come home, but not this way! I wanted so much to hold him, but I couldn’t."
Gerald, in turn, says he was "amazed" at the way she looked. Shelley, who had long battled obesity, had lost 60 pounds. "It’s a good thing I did," she says, "because it gave me much more energy. If I’d still had that weight it would have been harder to wheel him to his therapies every day and help him walk." (He had lost the big toe on his right foot and part of his left thigh.) Shelley helped nurses bathe and shave him and change his bandages. "I had more peace of mind doing it myself. I even learned to work the IV machine."
That first hospital stay lasted six weeks. Shelley gave up her job at the PX on the base in order to stay with Gerald. So far, Gerald has had 19 surgeries and two more are scheduled: one for his leg, where he had lost a chunk of muscle, and the other for his arm. The most "major" surgery, she notes, "was on his wrist, which had been shattered by shrapnel." Surgeons had to insert a metal bar to attach his hand to his arm.
Gerald had a succession of roommates and Shelley got to meet families caring for other soldiers. "Sometimes we’d talk to each other," says Shelley, "but we were so focused on our husbands, there wasn’t time for anything else." Being at Walter Reed was a "very humbling experience," Shelley found. "When your husband’s wounded you think nobody could be worse off than you. Then you realize everyone else is—and all those soldiers just want to get back to their units."
Gerald, with Shelley by his side, spent 13 weeks at Walter Reed. Fortunately the surgery to complete the reconstruction of his jawbone was performed at the base hospital. The surgeons did a "great job," Shelley says. There’s only a small mark. "I tell him it’s his Iraqi dimple."
At first he needed help with the most basic things. "I had to button his shirts, tie his shoes. I was a Mother Hen, very protective. But he told me, ‘You’ve got to let me try to do things on my own.’" The most difficult part of helping is not helping. "I try to step back and wait until he asks me to do something for him. If I see him reaching for something I have to restrain myself. But I still have to carry heavy packages for him."
Although his physical wounds are healing, Shelley feels there’s an invisible change in her husband. "He’s still the upbeat person he’s always been, but he gets very reserved and short with me. He doesn’t talk much about his feelings. So I just ask, ‘Is everything okay?’ and wait until he’s ready to talk. Even then I don’t get the whole story." She pauses, trying to control her voice. "I feel that part of my husband stayed there in Iraq."
His attitude is "amazing," she says. "I’ve never heard him say anything negative about all this. He believes everything happens for a reason and that some good will eventually come out of it."
But Shelley’s now having symptoms of post-traumatic stress: anxiety attacks, trouble sleeping, forgetfulness. "I’ve been so focused on helping my husband, I didn’t realize I needed help, too." This was especially true on the anniversary of the day she got the news about Gerald. "February 2nd I felt as if I was reliving that day, seeing those officers at my door."
Living on a base can feel isolating. Although she’s made some friends there, her family is far away—her mother in Maryland, her father in Delaware. Recently she began seeing a therapist at the base every other week. "He’s helping me understand that there are some things I have no control over."
Gerald still needs physical therapy every day to help restore motor skills that he lost. But he’s resumed his job at the base as an aircraft electrician. "He says his wounds aren’t going to cripple him," says Shelley.
Gerald, in turn, says his wife is the one who "motivates" him, by encouraging him to go to school to become a chief warrant officer. Says Shelley, "I tell him he can do anything he puts his mind to. I want him to advance himself, go as high as he possibly can. "Meanwhile, he’s to begin training as a recruiting officer.
When he was first wounded, Gerald said he didn’t know whether or not to stay in the army. His entire unit—the 101st Airborne—was scheduled to return to Iraq. Gerald is still on recuperation leave, but he wants to rejoin his unit as soon as he’s able to. He told Shelley, "In my heart I’m a soldier, and I want to be with my soldiers."
She’s hoping the war will be over before he can go back, but she reassures him she’ll stand by whatever he decides.
"He tells me," she says proudly, "that what’s helping him the most is my 100 percent support."