Iraq Veteran, Double Amputee worries more about PTSD veterans

WOW! This Marine lost both of his legs in Iraq but he is more concerned about other veterans with the wounds no one else can see. He may not understand it yet, but that just may have saved some veterans from thinking they don't matter.

Marine adjusts to loss of legs in Iraq War
By Matt Lakin
Posted March 18, 2013

WHITE PINE — Brad Walker doesn’t mind the stares he gets now and then.

Ask about his legs, and he’ll show them off.

“I’ve had people who think I just have a sprained ankle,” he said. “It’d be nice if I had an ankle. People generally stare anyway. There’s no point in me hiding anything.”

The onetime Marine corporal lost both legs Nov. 27, 2006, when a roadside bomb exploded beside the Humvee he drove in Haditha, Iraq. He’s had his new legs for six years now — long enough to learn his way around on them.

“It doesn’t define me,” Walker said. “This is not me. It’s just what I use to get around.”

He worries more for the veterans whose wounds don’t show — those battling crippling brain injuries, mental illness, addiction, battlefield stress and the temptation to suicide.

“I guess I’m always going to be the token vet guy because I have visible injuries, even though there are the guys with the invisible injuries, like post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury,” Walker said. “There’s guys that have terrible PTSD, and people will look at them and say, ‘You’re not injured.’ I’ve seen them in the hospital. They hold onto everything. They can’t let it go.”
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