Humbled at Walter Reed

Humbled at Walter Reed
By Kevin Cullen
Globe Columnist / April 21, 2008
WASHINGTON - In the rehabilitation unit at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where every day is Patriots Day, there are nine "Rehab Rules" on the wall and the first commandment is: Share Your Story.


"I was riding shotgun in a Humvee and it came right through the door," Sergeant Ken Butler, 82d Airborne, was saying. "My right arm was almost sheared off. The charge entered the right side of my chest and it came out the left. I woke up a couple of weeks later."

When he woke up, he was in Walter Reed, 6,200 miles from the road near Baghdad where he got hit, and his right arm was gone.

He is 28 years old. How he survived, nobody knows. A chunk of molten metal went right through him.

"I was kind of out of it at first," Butler said, smiling. "I thought they had my arm on ice and were going to put it back on."

It's easy to pick out the New Englanders. They wear Red Sox hats. Butler's from Braintree. Sergeant First Class Ceamus McDermott is from Barnstable, but he's SFG - Special Forces Group - out of Springfield. Five months ago, he was jumping out of a truck in Afghanistan with a 50-caliber round in his hand when he fell.
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