When young men and women join the armed forces, their families understand the seriousness of “the knock.” When a soldier is killed, the Department of Defense dispatches officers to find the next of kin, knock on their door, and inform them of the loss, face to face. “I used to have a terrible fear of leaving my house,” one military mother explains in Unbreakable Bonds, “that I would not be home when they knocked on my door.” Dava Guerin and Kevin Ferris deal not with “the knock,” but with “the call.”
This book is about what happens to families after “the call.” Staff Sergeant Stefanie Mason suffered a traumatic brain injury during a Humvee crash in Kabul. At home in Delaware, her mother, Paulette, got the call. The next morning, desperate to know more about her daughter’s condition, Paulette called a friend in the Pentagon. He called a former colleague stationed in Bagram. And within a few hours, that woman called Paulette. “I’m sitting here at Stefanie’s bedside,” she said. “I’m holding her hand. She doesn’t know what’s going on, and she’s in and out of consciousness. But she wants to talk to you.” The next thing Paulette heard was Stefanie, who managed just four words: “Mom, I need you,” she said.
Like many critically wounded soldiers, Stefanie Mason was soon sent to a hospital in Germany, where she was further stabilized. And then, finally, she made it to Walter Reed, now in Maryland, where she and other “lucky” soldiers begin to heal. If things go well, they’re eventually moved to a residential rehabilitation center on the Walter Reed campus called Building 62. But Stefanie did not make this journey alone: Like many wounded warriors, she was accompanied, at every step, by her mother.
This is the unbreakable bond Guerin and Ferris refer to as they profile 10 critically wounded soldiers and their mothers—the Mighty Moms, as these remarkable women are referred to around Walter Reed.
The stories in Unbreakable Bonds are often difficult to read. Nearly 2,000 soldiers have been catastrophically injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, losing limbs and suffering from traumatic brain injuries. Lance Corporal Josh Brubaker is one of them. He stepped on an IED while on patrol in Helmand Province in Afghanistan in June 2012. Guerin and Ferris recount the damage: “His left leg was blown off below his knee. His right knee was shattered; he had major trauma to his pelvis, and soft tissue damage to his left hand.” He survived for one amazing reason: His Marine buddies and the helicopter pilot moved at light speed, getting him into surgery just 12 minutes after the blast. Twelve minutes.
Josh went through two operations in Afghanistan and was then placed in a medically induced coma and flown to Landstuhl, Germany, where he underwent more surgeries to stabilize him for transit to Walter Reed. The Marines made sure that his parents were in Maryland, at the airport, when his plane touched down. But from there, Josh spent three weeks in intensive care, before the really bad stuff happened. His IED had been “dirty,” and a blood infection set in. His right leg had to be amputated. And then one of his arteries ruptured. His mother Mary was by his side throughout.
The Mighty Moms aren’t just moral support. For soldiers like Josh who manage to make it to rehabilitation, their mothers often become essential, full-time caregivers. The military designates them as nonmedical attendants and pays them a token sum of $72 a day. The work of rehabilitation often spans months and, sometimes, years. The strain is enormous.
Pam Carrigan Britt describes what happened to her after her son, Tyler, stepped on an IED: “As soon as I got the call about Tyler I contacted my boss and told her what happened and that I didn’t know when I would be back. My life was in complete disarray, and I kept thinking I would lose my house, my husband, my job, my life—everything.” Pam’s coworkers responded in magnificent fashion: They donated sick and vacation leave so that she could take time off with pay. Her boss told her that her job would be waiting for her, whenever.
But not all of the stories are so encouraging. A distressing number of the women profiled are fired from their jobs while caring for their Wounded Warriors. And again and again, the authors remind us that life is not like the movies: Marriages fail, lives crumble. The Wounded Warriors and Mighty Moms are heroes, but they are not superheroes. They’re ordinary people with ordinary frailties who have been placed in extraordinary circumstances. It is impossible to read Unbreakable Bonds without feeling the tremendous weight of obligation we owe to them for their service and sacrifice. (The authors helpfully include a catalogue of organizations which have sprung up to serve these families, making it easy for readers to start giving back.)
Unbreakable Bonds is many things. Its discussion of the nature of family, duty, and service is a tour de force. It’s a stark reminder that the sacrifices of our troops sometimes go deeper than we dare to imagine. And it is a call to action for the rest of us, that we might do our duty, too, and stand by these exceptional families. It is a book not of happy endings, but of small and improbable triumphs. Staff Sergeant Tom McRae lost both legs and his left arm to an IED in Afghanistan. His right eye was destroyed and his left eye was severely damaged. His mother, Carolee, spent nearly two years nursing him back to health.
Ten months after being blown up, Tom was able to leave Walter Reed for the day to help walk his little sister down the aisle at her wedding.
Jonathan V. Last, a senior writer at The Weekly Standard, is the editor of The Seven Deadly Virtues: 18 Conservative Writers on Why the Virtuous Life is Funny as Hell.
