By Elaine Wilson, AFPS
Nov. 13, 2009
Elaine.wilson@dma.mil
When I recently walked into the lobby of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., I felt that familiar sense of awe and excitement I always feel when I’m about to be in the presence of wounded warriors.
Wounded warrior Army Staff Sgt. Robert Canine and his wife, Jennifer, pose for a picture before Robert works out in the lower limb physical therapy area of the Military Advanced Training Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2009. DoD photo by Elaine Wilson
These troops wage war on the battlefield and, when injured, wage a different type of war back home, a battle that requires just as much, if not more, courage and resilience.
I must admit I’m a huge fan.
I was there to meet with a wounded soldier and his wife to find out how they had weathered the depths of deployment and injury and made it through.
Army Staff Sgt. Robert Canine and his wife, Jennifer, an attractive, young couple, greeted me warmly and immediately put me at ease.
At first glance, you’d never notice that Robert had been injured. An explosive had robbed him of his legs, but he stood tall to greet me on prosthetics.
A Mexico, Mo., native, Robert told me he’d joined the Army about 10 years earlier. A year later, he married Jennifer and their son, Sebastian, arrived a year after that. His first of two deployments took place in 2003, when he did a tour in Tikrit, Iraq, with the 4th Infantry Division.
After “living in the dirt” for about four months, he separated his shoulder and was sent home.
Robert did a three-year stint as a recruiter and then moved his family to Fort Riley, Kan., and deployed again to Iraq in 2008, this time to Baghdad. He alternated his time going on patrols and pulling guard duty at the joint security station.
Robert said conditions in Iraq had changed a lot in five years.
“It wasn’t bad” this time around, he said. “We had air conditioning most of the time, and electricity.”
Jennifer said she also noticed a big difference, but on the home front. “The first time he went, we waited two months for a letter, third month I got a phone call,” she said. But now, Robert was able to call and e-mail home frequently, which helped keep the couple connected, she said.
That closeness would soon pay dividends.
It was May 17, 2008, about seven and a half months into his tour and about two weeks before he was scheduled to fly home for a mid-tour leave. “I was really looking forward to [leave], hanging out with the wife, with my mom and dad,” Robert said.
He had gone out on patrol with his unit and was heading back to his joint security station, sitting “shotgun” in a Humvee, when “I got hit by a lightning bolt,” he said.
It wasn’t a force of nature, however, but a man-made charge called an explosively formed projectile. Robert describes it as a disk with explosives behind it. “When it goes off, it turns the disk into a molten slug,” he explained.
The EFP tore into Robert’s legs and went into the transmission, he said, as some pieces splattered into a computer screen and up onto the seat. Out of the four in the Humvee, he was the only one seriously injured.
“It went off, I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, sparks were going off everywhere … next thing I know the gunner was yelling. There was black smoke, dust,” he recalled.
Robert said his comrades got him on a “bird” and to Balad, Iraq, in about 15 minutes, where they amputated his right leg below the knee. He later lost his left leg below the knee due to extensive damage.
Back home, Jennifer was chatting on the phone with her mother-in-law when the knock on the door came. It was the rear-detachment commander. “As I opened the door, slowly it dawned on me that something happened,” she said, and immediately sent her 8-year-old son upstairs.
The “rear D” told Jennifer that her husband’s right leg had been amputated below the knee and his toes on his left leg were gone, but he was stable. “I was like, oh, this can’t be happening. He’s two weeks away from leave.”
Robert was flown from Balad to Landstuhl, Germany, and then on to Walter Reed.
Jennifer saw him for the first time after his injury about a week later.
“My biggest thing was walking in and not trying to scare him and not looking straight down at his legs,” she said. “I just wanted to let him know it was going to be OK.”
Robert said Jennifer gave him a hug that “felt like forever.”
“For me, when she got there, the first three days were rough. I just remember her coming in and just holding me, that was a great way,” he said. “She came in, didn’t say anything about it. She just gave me a big hug.”
It was tough, Jennifer said, but she decided to handle this adversity like the others she’d dealt with in her marriage. “I told myself, ‘it’s going to be OK; it is what it is.’ We’re going to have to work with it. That’s how we’ve always done it.
“I don’t think I cried again till the day he was supposed to have come home for leave,” she said. “That was bad for me. He was supposed to have been having fun. He never got that big welcome home.”
Wounded warrior Army Staff Sgt. Robert Canine works out while his wife, Jennifer, keeps him company in the lower limb physical therapy area of the Military Advanced Training Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2009. DoD photo by Elaine Wilson
Robert has undergone multiple surgeries and continues to recover at Walter Reed. The couple and their son have moved into post housing in D.C. to be close to Walter Reed’s facilities and are working on establishing a new type of normal for themselves and their son, they said.
While tough, the couple said they can weather any storm as long as they do it together.
“We’ve been through adversity before; we’ve stuck together through 10 years,” Robert said. “I think it’s our determination to keep going forward. It would probably be a lot tougher on the younger guys who haven’t been married as long.”
“We just got used to military life,” Jennifer added. “It toughened me up.”
The couple said it’s vital to stay positive and supportive of each other.
“Listen to what they have to say,” Jennifer said, referring to the wounded warrior. “You’re going to have your frustrated moments, but hopefully you’ll have your family there to take small breaks. They’re going to have their ups and downs. Just stay positive.”
“They’ll be some rough patches, but you have to keep moving forward,” Robert added. “If you think about woe is me, it will just take longer to recover. Take it day by day.”
The couple said they hope to move back home to Missouri by next summer to be closer to family and friends.
I plan to stay in touch with them and will offer occasional updates on how they’re doing.
I walked away from our talk with a great admiration for their courage and determination.
In fact, when I first met Robert, I called him a wounded hero, but he was very quick to correct me. “I’m not a hero,” he said. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I’d like to go on record as saying I don’t agree. Anyone who serves in combat and then so bravely battles his way back from such a severe injury is definitely a hero in my book.