Struggling Back From the Wounds of War

NYT: PALO ALTO, Calif. - It has taken hundreds of hours of therapy, but Jason Poole, a 23-year old Marine corporal, has learned all over again to speak and to walk. At times, though, words still elude him. He can read barely 16 words a minute. His memory can be fickle, his thinking delayed. Injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq, he is blind in his left eye, deaf in his left ear, weak on his right side and still getting used to his new face, which was rebuilt with skin and bone grafts and 75 to 100 titanium screws and plates. | story and slideshow
Also, read Truthdig’s Ron Kovic on his personal journey as a wounded veteran. | report

Tyler Hicks / The New York Times

Specialist Charles Mays, who was injured in Iraq, visits with his wife, Summer, and their daughters Helena Laraine, 2, and Olivia Simone, 3, at the rehabilitation center in Tampa.