Former Marine wounded in Iraq bombing becomes Dallas officer

Former Marine wounded in Iraq bombing becomes Dallas officer, lingering health problems
TANYA EISERER Dallas Morning News
First Posted: August 29, 2011

DALLAS — Dallas police Officer Andrew Litz falls frequently and can't walk across the room without help.

He sometimes uses a wheelchair or cane. He suffers seizures. He's confused and disoriented. He's in and out of the emergency room almost every week.

After three combat tours in Iraq, he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and a traumatic brain injury caused by a 2005 roadside bomb.

Litz was among the thousands of Americans who enlisted in the military during a burst of patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Now, a decade later, he has become a victim of the wars spawned by 9/11.

"I feel like I'm broken," said the 30-year-old former Marine sergeant, now a Dallas police officer who can't work because of his health problems.

After intense criticism over its handling of blast concussions, the military has in recent years toughened protocols for handling them. But for Litz and others, it is too little, too late.

Litz relies on the strained medical services of the Department of Veterans Affairs, where psychological injuries and brain injuries compete with the "more real" problems of amputations and other physical ailments.

Litz and his wife call it the "VA machine." Trips from their home in McKinney to the emergency room at the Dallas VA Medical Center are routine.
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