Kansas National Guardsmen serving the wounded

Guardsmen volunteer to help wounded soldiers

By John Milburn - The Associated Press
Posted : Saturday Mar 8, 2008 7:17:35 EST

FORT RILEY, Kan. — They’ve gone to war recently themselves, but a cadre of Kansas National Guard soldiers has volunteered for a year — maybe longer — to help wounded soldiers get back on their feet.

Located in a cluster of tan modular structures adjacent to Irwin Army Community Hospital, the Warrior Transition Battalion is designed to give wounded soldiers a place to get well, while getting services they need to continue their Army career or life as a civilian.

Command Sgt. Maj. Terence Hankerson, a Guard soldier from Topeka, is the senior enlisted soldier at the battalion. He was wounded in Iraq last year and volunteered to serve at Fort Riley.

“Obviously, you want somebody who’s been through the process,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to identify with these guys. I can look them in the eye and go, ‘I know what you’re talking about. Believe me, I had an E-6 dogging me the whole time, too.’

“It doesn’t matter if you are a sergeant or a colonel, you’re still expected to make your appointments and heal, first and foremost.”

The battalion results from last year’s controversy over the quality of care wounded soldiers were receiving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Over the past year, Congress and the Department of Defense have worked to improve care and put more personnel in contact with the wounded as they move from combat back to their home posts or civilian lives.

Most the 300 soldiers in Fort Riley’s battalion are active-duty Army from units deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, though some are Guard soldiers and Army Reservists.

Sgt. Bonnie Capp previously deployed with a medical detachment out of Lenexa but volunteered to work at Fort Riley. She’s a squad leader, making sure 12 wounded soldiers get to medical appointments on time and their needs addressed at all hours of the day.

It’s a new challenge, she said, calling for skills that aren’t standard for the military.

“You have to be a mother, you have to be a sister, you have to be a friend. You’re everything that these soldiers rely on,” Capp said.

That includes advocating that soldiers get the services they need, even when someone tells them no.

“As for us being National Guard, we have a little more understanding, but military — the uniform — is not all that we know about,” said fellow squad leader Sgt. Voneen Hale. “We have our education; we have our civilian jobs.”

Col. Lee Merritt, the battalion commander, said a new Soldier and Family Assistance Center specifically for the wounded centralizes key services, such as medical, educational, child support or financial.
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