Browse Items (1472 total)

MINERAL, ILLINOIS, 2008. When Dusty finally came home, he refused offers of additional plastic surgery, explaining that other soldiers looked lots worse than he did, and needed the surgery more than he did. Even after all that has happened he says he…

MINERAL, ILLINOIS, 2008. Dusty Hill, 23, a former sergeant in the Illinois National Guard, lost both his hands, one eye, most of his right ear, and suffered fourth-degree burns on one-third of his body after an IED explosion in Baghdad ejected him…

TORONTO, CANADA, 2008. The trip to Canada was a convoluted one. Kimberly and her husband packed up their old car with their children and what clothes they had and drove around for weeks, not sure if they were doing the right thing, before they…

TORONTO, CANADA, 2008. “My life as a soldier,” Kimberly says, “was falling apart. It gets to the point where you want to injure yourself. And then there was this time when I seriously thought I was going to kill a guy. He kept scooting closer…

TORONTO, CANADA, 2008. Recruited into the National Guard while still in high school, Kimberly Rivera, 24, subsequently joined the Army in order to support her growing family. After a troubling tour of duty, which included incidents of sexual…

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, OHIO, 2008. In the late afternoon, when the weather is good, Gail wheels Shurvon outside, where he enjoys the company of his nieces and nephews. “A young man Shurvon’s age,” Gail laments, “should be dating girls, cooling off…

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, OHIO, 2008. Though Shurvon has a serious brain injury and can’t speak, Gail reminds everyone that he’s still basically the same person that he was. “He’s in there, and he’s very smart. He might not be able to do things…

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, OHIO, 2008. Gail doesn’t get to sleep until 2:00 a.m., is up again with Shurvon at 3:30, to turn and suction him. She gets up again at 6:00 to get him his meds and flush his breathing tube; that’s when she gives him water, so…

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, OHIO, 2008. Shurvon Phillip, 27, a Marine Reservist, was returning to base in Iraq when an anti-tank mine exploded beneath his Humvee. He received a traumatic brain injury that left him unable to speak and in need of constant care.…

LAURENS, SOUTH CAROLINA, 2008. It’s a struggle for Clint Keels to make his mom and stepdad understand what he went through in the war. “It’s the only thing I can’t help him with,” his mother says. “That’s what hurts me. I sent him off…