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Iraq War DisabledVeterans a New Brand of HeroBy Brenda Brown-Grooms Heath Calhoun is alive and well. But it took some doing. In July 2003, while serving in the U.S. Army in Mosul, Iraq, Calhoun lost both of his legs when his Humvee was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade launched by insurgents. He was eventually evacuated to Landstuhl, Germany, and then to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Although he was in rehab for nine months at Walter Reed, that stint has not really ended for the retired staff sergeant. “In a sense, I will spend the rest of my life in rehab,” Calhoun said. “I loved Walter Reed. I thought they did an amazing job putting me and others back together again. I spent a lot of time in a wheelchair before I ever learned to walk (again). The fact that I don’t have to work right now and have the opportunity to go out and live my life in a way that I have never had an opportunity to do before is an unexpected blessing. There are 15 years between the last time I skied and now!”
The day he was injured, Calhoun said, “I remember standing, then popping the troop strap (across the rear of the Humvee to keep soldiers from falling out). A rocket came in and exploded. The blast threw me up against the back of the truck. I was screaming in pain. I didn’t know my legs were gone. I kept trying to walk. I told the driver to call a medic because I was hurt. I tried to walk out. Guys held me down. They tied tourniquets on my legs. I thought they were too tight or put on wrong. I kept saying that. That was the last thing I remember before waking up after surgery. “I woke up to a nurse passing a needle past my eye (she was stitching a wound). Scared me pretty badly. I passed out. When I woke up again, the doctor told me that my legs were gone. I called my wife and my mother. I told them that the bad news was that my legs were gone. The good news was that I was coming home. My wife was pretty upset. She just listened to what I said. She cried a little. She has been very good to me. My mother was…a mom. She actually didn’t do anything on the phone (she shed no tears but only asked questions). She was glad I was alive. She understood that she needed to be strong for me.” When he was overseas, Tiffany recalled that Heath would call every Friday at 5 a.m. “Heath called that Friday morning and said, ‘I have some good news and some bad news: Which do you want to hear first?’” Tiffany Calhoun said. “We had a bad connection and there was a delay. I thought he said, ‘I got my legs blown off,’ but I didn’t think I’d heard right. ‘What did you say?’ I asked. ‘You heard right. But I’m coming home.’ I thought it was a bad joke, although Heath never jokes like that!” And then, when she heard him asking the doctors if he could tell her what happened, she remembered being completely and utterly stunned. “I had my 1½-year-old son (Mason) beside me… I heard the doctors say Heath could tell me what happened, but he couldn’t tell me where it happened. I was very calm on the phone. I didn’t react at all — just listened. I was in pure shock. I didn’t know what do say or do. When I got off the phone I had a major breakdown. I called his mother and my parents. I was just stunned. Shocked.”
Heath was visited by various veterans groups while at Walter Reed. The care, the visits, and the other injured vets all helped to create a kind of cocoon. But that environment, although necessary to help him adjust, was not the real world. In the real world Heath needed full disability pay. The Veterans Administration has provided that. In the real world he needed his house and a retrofitted car. The VA offered him a one-time grant of $50,000 to retrofit his home, and it pays for hand controls on two vehicles every four years. In the real world Heath needed vocational training. He will get it, paid for by the VA, which also pays for Tiffany. In the real world he and his family needed help from their community. Neighbors and friends in Salem, Va., where the Calhouns currently live and where Heath spends time at the VA hospital, have been there for them. The local people and The Wounded Warrior Project have been life-savers, according to the Calhouns, who have three children: Mason, now 4; Brystal, 2; and Bailee, 1. The Calhouns are getting on with their lives, but they don’t consider themselves to be remarkable. “Ryan Kelly is a buddy who also lost his legs,” said Heath Calhoun, who will soon receive the military Hero Award from the Red Cross in Roanoke, Va. “He says (being injured) ‘is not a time for life to be over. It’s a time to define your life.’ Before I lost my legs I didn’t know anything about disability. I didn’t realize what amputations were. I didn’t understand what it really meant to be in a wheelchair. When I lost my legs I learned just what it is to be disabled. Now I use my prosthesis and walk. I could just let life fade away — not be a father, a husband, or I could go out and be the best I could be, with what I have. I still had the same opportunities. I just had to go about taking those opportunities differently. (Even though everything had changed), nothing had changed. I just got around differently. I was still a father, still a husband, still a person, still a friend. Did I want to continue to be those things? “As you go through (life) being disabled, you’re given a choice: to live — to do as much as you can with whatever you are given — or not. At this point, I’m not worried out it. Certain things I can do well. Other things I can’t do so well. I haven’t used a wheelchair in over seven months now.” Tiffany says Heath has changed. She has changed. Their lives have changed. “We’ve had a whole lot of support,” she said. “My parents kept our son 2½ months until Heath go out of rehab. Then I couldn’t stand to be without him any more. My cousins and uncles helped to make our home accessible. We came home from Walter Reed and pulled up to the house to find a ramp had been built! People have pulled together to help us with finances. It has been a great experience working with The Wounded Warriors Project. I am their travel coordinator.” For the last year and a half, Tiffany has arranged travel for all employees, soldiers and families connected with The Wounded Warrior Project and their sponsored events. “If a solder needs to go to see family and has no money, we arrange the finances,” she said. “It is an amazing feeling to get a letter from someone who says, ‘It helped more than you know to talk with you, work with you.’ “If Heath hadn’t gotten injured he wouldn’t have been able to ride his bike all over the world to earn money for the Wounded Warrior Project or participate in the (planned) U.S. Ski Team.” Tiffany, Heath and others went to Congress to help get the TSGLI (Traumatic Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance) Bill passed. TSGLI provides for payment ($25,000 to $100,000 in a lump sum, tax-free) to any member who sustains a traumatic injury that results in certain severe losses. “Before Heath (was injured) (he) did everything that I couldn’t do (such as taking out the trash and heavy lifting),” Tiffany said. “Then, everything was completely on me. At first he had prosthetics, but he wasn’t using them. I moved a whole house practically by myself. This wound up being empowering for me. But I was very frustrated at the time. I kept telling myself, ‘He can’t help it; he can’t do it,’ but it was very hard. Now Heath is able-bodied all over again. He takes out the trash, cleans up, etc. I went through a major transition with his injury. I am grateful. So is Heath.” *************************** Brenda Brown-Grooms is an independent living coordinator with the Blue Ridge Independent Living Center in Roanoke, Va. |
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Calhoun was recently on the ski slopes in Aspen, Colo., on a trip
sponsored by The Wounded Warrior Project, with which he and his wife Tiffany
work. He and a few buddies are trying to get a U.S. Olympic Ski Team together.
After his rehab at
Walter Reed, Heath Calhoun recalled, he returned to Fort Campbell, Ky., his
home at the time, but “I probably shouldn’t have. I wasn’t
walking and I could have used more rehab. The first trip home was really tough.
Walter Reed was a sheltered environment. At home there was no one to shelter me
and take care of me the way I’d gotten used to. That’s when I first
realized that life was going to be different — very different. I came away
from the time at home realizing that my life had changed. I think I thought
I’d just get new (prosthetic) legs, charge them at night, and it would be
OK. It took me a few days to deal with everything. I realized that I had a few
options. I could sit on the couch, eat Cheetos and complain or I could live
life — do something. Things were going to be different and I’d deal
with it as best I could. We could deal with different.”