Versions of this story were co-published with NPR [1] and Stars and Stripes [2]. For more coverage, listen to Morning Edition [3].
One afternoon this fall, Bobby McKinney hunched over a coffee table with a clear glass surface. A lamp with a bare light bulb illuminated it from below. Pencil in hand, the former Marine traced the pattern for a tattoo across delicate paper, a swirling, intricate design reminiscent of a Celtic cross.
McKinney's small apartment faded from his thoughts: The closet filled with shirts and pairs of jeans, hung three inches apart, all facing exactly the same direction, the way the Marines had taught him. The box packed with a dozen brown plastic medicine bottles. The worn couch that he slept on instead of the bed. The eraser board on his refrigerator where he had scrawled "A coward dies a 1,000 deaths. A warrior dies one."
Suddenly, a nurse's aide knocked on the door. Had he checked the oven? McKinney leapt up and ran to the kitchen, pulling out a tin of brownies on the point of burning.
"I guess I was just very focused on the tattoo design," he told a counselor later, pushing a camouflage baseball cap back on his head. "I set the alarm. I guess I just didn't hear it."
"Try to work on one thing at a time," she told him. "Multitasking is just asking the brain to do two or three things not too well."
McKinney, 29, nodded in agreement. It seemed so obvious once she said it. But his mind -- the mind that once helped sniper teams in Iraq, that navigated battlefield maps and complex rules of enemy engagement -- had just not come up with the idea to do one task instead of many. "When you think about it, it kinda makes sense. But I wouldn't think about it on my own," he said.
McKinney is an Iraq war veteran who suffered multiple concussions, also known as mild traumatic brain injuries. Bomb blasts jarred his brain, leaving him with no outside scars, but with nagging mental problems. His short-term memory is bad. He moves slowly through ordinary chores. He gets disoriented easily, and can't find his way to the home that he has lived in for months without the aid of a GPS.
A farm boy fond of the Georgia Bulldogs and chewing tobacco, McKinney has pinned his hopes for recovery on cognitive rehabilitation therapy, a subtle and complex treatment for a subtle and complex injury. Doctors and studies have shown that the therapy helps soldiers. But the Pentagon's primary health plan for soldiers and seriously wounded veterans, called Tricare, will not cover the treatment [4], saying it is still unproven.
To see what cognitive therapy looked like, ProPublica and NPR spent several days with McKinney and fellow soldiers and veterans at Project Share, a charity to help brain-damaged soldiers. The program is based out of the Shepherd Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury in Atlanta, a nationally recognized hospital for head injuries.
Former Home Depot magnate and philanthropist Bernie Marcus founded Project Share in January 2008 to fill the gaps left by Tricare and military and veterans hospitals, which often lack the expertise and staffing to provide a full-scale program of cognitive rehabilitation therapy.
GO HERE to read more.
One afternoon this fall, Bobby McKinney hunched over a coffee table with a clear glass surface. A lamp with a bare light bulb illuminated it from below. Pencil in hand, the former Marine traced the pattern for a tattoo across delicate paper, a swirling, intricate design reminiscent of a Celtic cross.
McKinney's small apartment faded from his thoughts: The closet filled with shirts and pairs of jeans, hung three inches apart, all facing exactly the same direction, the way the Marines had taught him. The box packed with a dozen brown plastic medicine bottles. The worn couch that he slept on instead of the bed. The eraser board on his refrigerator where he had scrawled "A coward dies a 1,000 deaths. A warrior dies one."
Suddenly, a nurse's aide knocked on the door. Had he checked the oven? McKinney leapt up and ran to the kitchen, pulling out a tin of brownies on the point of burning.
"I guess I was just very focused on the tattoo design," he told a counselor later, pushing a camouflage baseball cap back on his head. "I set the alarm. I guess I just didn't hear it."
"Try to work on one thing at a time," she told him. "Multitasking is just asking the brain to do two or three things not too well."
McKinney, 29, nodded in agreement. It seemed so obvious once she said it. But his mind -- the mind that once helped sniper teams in Iraq, that navigated battlefield maps and complex rules of enemy engagement -- had just not come up with the idea to do one task instead of many. "When you think about it, it kinda makes sense. But I wouldn't think about it on my own," he said.
McKinney is an Iraq war veteran who suffered multiple concussions, also known as mild traumatic brain injuries. Bomb blasts jarred his brain, leaving him with no outside scars, but with nagging mental problems. His short-term memory is bad. He moves slowly through ordinary chores. He gets disoriented easily, and can't find his way to the home that he has lived in for months without the aid of a GPS.
A farm boy fond of the Georgia Bulldogs and chewing tobacco, McKinney has pinned his hopes for recovery on cognitive rehabilitation therapy, a subtle and complex treatment for a subtle and complex injury. Doctors and studies have shown that the therapy helps soldiers. But the Pentagon's primary health plan for soldiers and seriously wounded veterans, called Tricare, will not cover the treatment [4], saying it is still unproven.
To see what cognitive therapy looked like, ProPublica and NPR spent several days with McKinney and fellow soldiers and veterans at Project Share, a charity to help brain-damaged soldiers. The program is based out of the Shepherd Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Injury in Atlanta, a nationally recognized hospital for head injuries.
Former Home Depot magnate and philanthropist Bernie Marcus founded Project Share in January 2008 to fill the gaps left by Tricare and military and veterans hospitals, which often lack the expertise and staffing to provide a full-scale program of cognitive rehabilitation therapy.
GO HERE to read more.
As some others have posted, quite accurately, he was just another piece of cannon fodder for leaders who have never held a gun, fought a war, or served in any position other than a political one. they couldn't care less who lives or dies, or suffers from their selfless service. Our leaders are so quick to send our bravest to fight, but when it was THEIR turn, they ran like the cowards they are...
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