New wounds to heal ; Iraq creates next generation of disabled vets (9/13/04)

New wounds to heal ; Iraq creates next generation of disabled vets
REC0000020040913e09d0003m
NEWS
TOM DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
1541 Words
13 September 2004
The Record
All Editions.=.Two Star B. Two Star P. One Star B
A01
English
Copyright (c) 2004 Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved.
They roam the hallways of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in wheelchairs, their legs gone. Others are missing arms, hands, fingers and toes.

A Waldwick man, 27-year-old Jason Pepper, is there. He's missing a finger and both eyes. Shrapnel from an explosion in Karbala, Iraq, last May shredded his face. A cast encases his nearly severed left hand.

The Army sergeant used to patrol the downtown streets of Karbala in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Now his wife pushes his wheelchair around the Washington, D.C., hospital, and he prepares for life without sight.

"It only takes a short amount of time to get damaged," said his wife, Heather. "It takes so long to recover."

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