It's a long road back for injured soldier (11/28/04)

It's a long road back for injured soldier

BY MICHAEL MARTZ
Media General News Service
Sunday, November 28, 2004

WALTER REED ARMY MEDICAL CENTER, Washington -- The physical-therapy room was filling up when Dean W. Schwartz walked in, a slight hitch in his gait from the blue titanium leg fitted to his left thigh.

The leg was temporary. So was his time here, six months after a rocket-propelled grenade blew off his leg on a bomb-pocked road in Mosul, in northern Iraq.

Sgt. Robert Faulk motioned toward an empty cot next to an older veteran with graying temples and no right leg. "You can have a spot here if you like, next to Superman," Faulk said.

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