Taylor13
06-22-2009, 01:16 PM
Leslie Kammerdiener buried her tears in the pink shag carpet on her bathroom floor.
Last year, it was the only place the Armstrong County mother could hide from family and friends who gathered to comfort her as she waited for news of her son, Kevin, then 19, an Army private deployed in Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
On May 31, 2008, a suicide bomber plowed into Kevin's Humvee, killing two of his buddies and severely wounding another. As she lay curled in a fetal position, surgeons working on an operating table halfway across the world saved her son by removing part of his skull and 85 percent of the left side of his brain.
The daredevil skateboarder is among thousands of U.S. troops who have suffered brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Pentagon estimates indicate as few as 180,000 or as many as 360,000 troops have endured brain trauma ranging from a mild concussion to severe, penetrating head wounds.
Military experts and doctors say it is the signature injury of the war.
"I try not to think back to that desolate time," Kammerdiener, 43, said in early June. "I just can't go back there."
More:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/lifestyles/s_630409.html
Last year, it was the only place the Armstrong County mother could hide from family and friends who gathered to comfort her as she waited for news of her son, Kevin, then 19, an Army private deployed in Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
On May 31, 2008, a suicide bomber plowed into Kevin's Humvee, killing two of his buddies and severely wounding another. As she lay curled in a fetal position, surgeons working on an operating table halfway across the world saved her son by removing part of his skull and 85 percent of the left side of his brain.
The daredevil skateboarder is among thousands of U.S. troops who have suffered brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Pentagon estimates indicate as few as 180,000 or as many as 360,000 troops have endured brain trauma ranging from a mild concussion to severe, penetrating head wounds.
Military experts and doctors say it is the signature injury of the war.
"I try not to think back to that desolate time," Kammerdiener, 43, said in early June. "I just can't go back there."
More:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/lifestyles/s_630409.html