Two Women Bound by Sports, War and Injuries

By JULIET MACUR

WASHINGTON - For 25 days at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Specialist Danielle Green wondered if anyone could ever understand. But on the 26th day, a nurse told her: "A new female patient came in today. You have a lot in common."

"Really?" Specialist Green said, and the nurse nodded.

Like Specialist Green, the new patient was a 20-something firecracker, a 5-foot-8 former college basketball player, an Army soldier in the military police serving in Iraq.

Like Specialist Green, she also knew how it felt to have a rocket-propelled grenade shoot through her arm. Specialist Green’s left hand had been torn off.

In the intensive care unit one floor below, First Lt. Dawn Halfaker lay in a coma, battered and swollen after surviving an ambush. Her right arm was attached to her body by sinews.

"But it’s too bad," the nurse said on this day last June. "She’s probably not going to make it."

They had shared a dream of playing professional basketball. Now these two women - one a black enlisted soldier from Chicago’s tough South Side, the other a white officer from a pleasant San Diego suburb - were robbed of the natural gift that helped shape their identities.

Specialist Green, alone in her loss, wanted this new patient to live.

The week before, Lieutenant Halfaker was sitting in the back seat of an armored Humvee as it patrolled the quiet, moonlit roads of Baquba, a city 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Her vehicle rounded a corner.

Lieutenant Halfaker said she saw a flash and heard Staff Sgt. Norberto Lara scream in the front passenger seat, then slump. A rocket-propelled grenade had pierced the engine and entered the cab, slicing off his right arm and flinging it onto the driver.

The grenade exploded next to Lieutenant Halfaker’s right shoulder. "I’m hit!" she yelled. The blast temporarily blinded her right eye and deafened her right ear.

Struggling to breathe, she continued shouting orders: "Keep driving. Don’t let Sergeant Lara go to sleep."

She lifted her right hand with her left, then watched it drop in her lap. The grenade had burst through her upper arm, shattered her shoulder blade and broken five ribs that bruised her lung. She recalled herself saying, "I am not going to die."

Lieutenant Halfaker, who is from Ramona, Calif., never even contemplated war while attending West Point during the later years of the Clinton administration, a time she characterized as happy-go-lucky.

But after graduating in 2001, she joined the military police, the branch of the Army that would bring her close to ground combat, and jumped at the chance to test her leadership when the war began. Lieutenant Halfaker said she had "kicked and screamed" to be stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga., where the 293rd Military Police Company was about to deploy.

In Iraq, her platoon was in charge of the Diyala Province police station, where she and her soldiers lived amid constant mortar fire, trained Iraqi policemen and guarded a prison, squeezing in time to play basketball in the courtyard, where they gingerly avoided the barbed wire. In what she calls her worst moments, she had to kill insurgents.

Now it was June 18, and her Humvee was barreling back to the station. Medics kept her alive until she was transported to a nearby base. There, she ordered the doctors, "You bastards better not cut my arm off." Then she passed out.

Lieutenant Halfaker has no memories of what came next: a helicopter trip to Balad Air Base, 50 miles north of Baghdad, several operations at a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and at Walter Reed, where she was in an induced coma.

On June 30, the unfamiliar voice of a nurse urging her to open her eyes lifted the veil of fog.

Lieutenant Halfaker woke up, thrashing, thinking she was lying next to the Humvee. Three nurses subdued her to remove her breathing tube.

Her father came into view.

"Is my arm going to be O.K.?" she remembered asking him.

"Honey, they already took your arm," Stephen Halfaker said.

Doctors at Walter Reed had amputated it at the shoulder to save her.

Receiving Star Treatment

In mid-July, Lieutenant Halfaker and Specialist Green met in the occupational therapy clinic.

Specialist Green, her left arm missing below the elbow, was learning to use her prosthetic arm when Lieutenant Halfaker was wheeled in, splayed in a reclining chair, her mind slowed by painkillers.

Specialist Green introduced herself. "I played basketball, too," she said with a smile. "You’ll be down here before you know it."

A nascent community of amputees filled the room, testing new arms and legs, maneuvering wheelchairs, wincing as therapists massaged their purple wounds. Some had palm-size scars on the backs of their heads, telltale signs that they had been in lengthy comas, their hair rubbed off by friction on a backboard during overseas transport.

Lieutenant Halfaker and Specialist Green, two of the first three women to lose limbs in the war, were treated like stars at Walter Reed. Each was well known for her college accomplishments: Specialist Green for her athletic career at Notre Dame, a top basketball program; Lieutenant Halfaker for her academic career at West Point.

Though their circumstances were similar - both former ballplayers, both M.P.’s, both missing their dominant hands - their relationship was complicated, as described in interviews over two months with them, their families, caregivers and colleagues. The differences in their backgrounds and personalities eventually steered them in different directions, starting with their recuperation.

Although Lieutenant Halfaker saw a psychologist regularly, Specialist Green stopped after two sessions, insisting she did not need the help. On simpler choices, they diverged as well. Specialist Green had skin grafts taken from her thigh, as doctors recommended. Lieutenant Halfaker insisted that the grafts be taken from her buttocks, where the scars would be less noticeable but the recovery more painful.

Lieutenant Halfaker, 25, also leaned on a stream of relatives and friends who visited the hospital. Specialist Green, 27, a self-described loner who does not trust others easily, had only her husband for support.

Alone on the Roof

Growing up, Danielle Green lived with her grandmother on welfare; her mother was a drug addict, she said, her father absent. She pulled herself out of that life and became a high school all-American whose graceful left-handed shot earned her the nickname D Smooth. She won a full basketball scholarship to Notre Dame, where she scored 1,106 points, and graduated in 1999.

But she always longed for a family she could rely on. In 2002, she enlisted in the Army to find one because her boyfriend, Willie Byrd, did not want to marry her.

She learned quickly that the Army was a disappointment, she said. In January 2004, she dreaded leaving for Iraq with the 571st Military Police Company.

Specialist Green returned home to Chicago that April for a two-week leave and married Mr. Byrd during a capricious trip to Las Vegas. Mr. Byrd, a gentle retired basketball coach and science teacher 32 years her senior, was her father figure, she said.

When Specialist Green returned to Baghdad, she played basketball to relieve tension but could barely sleep after several soldiers were injured by a mortar attack on the base mess hall.

On the afternoon of May 25, she was alone atop a two-story police station, M-16 rifle at her side, feeling as if she would melt in the 110-degree heat. Suddenly, two rocket-propelled grenades hit a barrier on the ground and exploded. She grabbed her rifle, but it was too late. A third grenade pierced her left arm.

She went down, screaming, ears ringing; sand was in her mouth, eyes and ears, splintered wood embedded in her left cheek. Her rifle, which she had never fired in combat, was in pieces, her battle fatigues soaked with blood because her left leg had also been hit.

"Please, God," she said. "I have so much more to do in life. I don’t want to die here." Her fellow soldiers rushed to the roof and carried her to safety. The front pages of newspapers across the United States carried photographs of her evacuation on the hood of a Humvee.

After surgery at a hospital inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, she woke surrounded by soldiers in tears. She saw that her left arm was shorter than the other.

"How’s my arm?" she asked.

"It’s gone," her sergeant replied.

Then he placed her diamond ring and wedding band on her right ring finger. They had been found buried under sand on the roof, still on her hand.

"Wow, they’re still bling-blinging," she said before drifting to sleep.

Choosing a Course of Action

By late summer, Specialist Green and Lieutenant Halfaker were working hard together in occupational therapy.

"That hook looks scary," Lieutenant Halfaker said one day, staring at Specialist Green’s prosthesis, a metal claw attached to a carbon fiber forearm that straps to her shoulder. "I don’t want to wear that."

Specialist Green said, "I don’t care what it looks like." She opened and closed her claw by moving her shoulder and back. "As long as it works."

Lieutenant Halfaker wore a lifelike electric prosthesis that was heavy and bulky and hurt her wounds. She practiced using it during weekly cooking classes, though she preferred to use the microwave.

"Girl, if you want to get a man, you’ve got to learn how to cook," Specialist Green said.

"He’ll just have to cook for me, then," Lieutenant Halfaker replied.

They laughed together, but more often they were frustrated.

Sometimes Specialist Green complained and Lieutenant Halfaker would say: "Well, you have it better than me. At least you have part of your arm left."

Specialist Green would counter, "At least you’re alive."

Capt. Katie Yancosek, an occupational therapist who has been helping amputees at Walter Reed since 2003, saw the two women become upset because physical tasks were no longer effortless.

"I think it was a little easier for Danielle because she grew up with heartache and struggle and had had so many more opportunities to build resilience and coping skills," Captain Yancosek said. "But Dawn, she couldn’t identify with one hardship, let alone a number of them in her life before this. While Danielle would say, ’O.K., this happened to me; I’m going to get by,’ Dawn would get a little short-tempered and put off by it."

Certainly they were tackling their recovery differently, Lieutenant Halfaker struggling more because her injury and pain were more severe.

Specialist Green wanted to expedite her treatment and leave Walter Reed as fast as possible. Lieutenant Halfaker was methodical, using every available hospital service to try to make herself whole again, from the ophthalmologist who performed corrective eye surgery to the dentist and the dermatologist.

Still, the women could commiserate. They talked about difficult tasks: writing a note, fastening a bra, tying shoelaces. And impossible ones: pulling hair into a ponytail, clasping a necklace, applying mascara.

They went on field trips with other wounded soldiers. At the White House, they met President Bush.

The news media clamored for them. Lieutenant Halfaker shied away from interviews, while Green rarely said no.

"Both were aware of being in this transparent world, their very personal fight being watched closely because they were women, amputees and athletes," Captain Yancosek said. "Danielle was realistic about it. She could be in a bad mood and felt that it was O.K. to show that. Dawn was more political. She was groomed to be responsive to people and kept her pain inside."

Several times, Specialist Green and Lieutenant Halfaker, a four-year starter for West Point’s basketball team, agreed to play one-on-one for television reporters.

"To feel a basketball or shoot the perfect shot, I miss that," Lieutenant Halfaker said. "All I want to do is touch something with my missing hand."

For weeks after she was injured, she would not acknowledge that her right arm was gone. She told her mother to cover the mirrors with towels. Now Lieutenant Halfaker’s red hair was singed, her once porcelain complexion burned.

"Who’s going to talk to me?" she said. "I look like a weirdo. I’m a freak."

One day, a towel over the bathroom mirror slipped. She was devastated when she saw her sunken cheekbones and protruding eyes.

But Sergeant Lara, a fellow soldier who was also injured in the Humvee attack, was still unconscious at Walter Reed. A few rooms away, one of Lieutenant Halfaker’s West Point classmates died of a brain hemorrhage. Guilt overwhelmed her.

She remembered thinking, how could I ever complain about my looks?

Beyond the Hospital Doors

Lieutenant Halfaker and Specialist Green talked about writing a book together, but they saw each other less and less as months passed. Their differences were pushing them apart, but they were also living in separate boarding houses at Walter Reed and busy because of their unsolicited celebrity.

They both established friendships with Paul D. Wolfowitz, who often visits injured soldiers, first as the deputy secretary of defense and now as the incoming president of the World Bank.

Lieutenant Halfaker met Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq in September before he addressed Congress. In December, she sat next to President Bush at the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia.

Specialist Green flew in Notre Dame’s private jet to present the colors before a home football game against Michigan on Sept. 11 and was cheered by 80,000 fans.

She could no longer stand Walter Reed, depressed by the waves of arriving injured soldiers and especially bothered by the brain injured ones with stitches crisscrossing their scalps. She escaped often by skipping rehabilitation appointments to fly home.

Finally, Specialist Danielle Green was medically retired on Dec. 7. In January, after 230 days at Walter Reed, she climbed in her Ford Explorer and drove home with her husband.

Captain Yancosek, the occupational therapist, knows what can happen next. She has learned that female soldiers are prone to depression and men to anger and that their heroic public image differs from their self-perception.

"Every single one of them has deep issues," Captain Yancosek said. "Every one is just as broken and nervous about trying to put their lives back together. Because you are what you do, and what happens when you aren’t a soldier anymore?"

The hardest part for Ms. Green, now 28, is when she is alone in her two-bedroom house, her future uncertain. Sometimes she drifts back to Baghdad.

"In public I’m good to go, but behind closed doors I’m angry," she said. "I’m going to be like this the rest of my life. I’m going to be looked upon as a cripple or disabled and be stared at. How am I going to be able to handle that mentally? I feel like I’m wonderful right now, but you never know."

One weekday in February, she and her husband sat on their living room couch facing a pyramid of televisions: one tuned to horse racing because Mr. Byrd is a bettor, another tuned to a basketball game, the third broken. The scent of cigarettes from Mr. Byrd’s two-pack-a-day habit lingered.

He slipped a tape of his wife’s Notre Dame highlights into the VCR, and they marveled at her faking a move to the basket, then making a no-look pass.

"Good move, Smooth," Mr. Byrd said, turning to see her smile.

At Ms. Green’s feet was a plastic mitt for her prosthesis that would allow her to shoot a basketball, though she said she never wants to play again. Her most important goal now is to be a good wife.

Living Through the Pain

Dawn Halfaker, promoted to captain in October, continues to live at Walter Reed while rehabilitating. She wonders if men will be attracted to her. She works out several times a day and has had laser surgery to erase a facial scar. Ms. Green has small scars on her cheek, too, but she expects them to fade eventually.

"I’m already missing an arm, so I want the rest of me to look good," Captain Halfaker said.

Every day, it has grown easier but she must still make a concerted effort to stay positive, she said. She braces for a fall into depression.

Captain Halfaker is proud of her time in Iraq, but nothing could be worse to her, she said, than becoming one of those soldiers who end up at the Veterans Administration, wearing Operation Iraqi Freedom hats and reminiscing about the war.

So she stays busy, going out with friends and even vacationing in Italy and Germany. In late February, she and Sergeant Lara went to their company’s homecoming in Georgia and saw all 32 of her soldiers walk off the plane from Iraq - some jubilant, some crying - which gave her a sense of closure.

Captain Halfaker has also appeared at fund-raisers, especially for the Fisher House Foundation, which provides housing for wounded soldiers and their families near military hospitals around the world. The Fisher House at Walter Reed has been her home since becoming an outpatient, her pristine room a capsule of her new life.

In the closet is the black gown she wore to the inaugural ball that honored the troops. Atop her desk is a voice-activated laptop. Inside a plastic trunk are hundreds of get-well letters, the most prized from Iraqi policemen and her interpreters; she keeps them, she said, because she will need those encouraging words someday.

At the foot of her bed are 20 prescription bottles, some containing painkillers like Percocet, codeine and methadone.

Damaged nerves in her shoulder cause phantom pain in her missing limb. She said it feels as if someone were poking her hand with pins and wringing her arm. Sometimes, she experiences the searing sensation of the grenade exploding.

"As an athlete, I used to have pain and shake it off," Captain Halfaker said. "So I’m so sick of having something hurt. I’m cranky and moody. It’s hard to sleep."

Ms. Green has also had trouble sleeping lately, she said. She used to have nightmares that a dog chewed her arm off. Now she wakes up drenched in sweat after dreaming about Notre Dame.

Ms. Green said she went there with a hotshot attitude and wanted to be coddled by Muffet McGraw, the women’s basketball coach. Instead, they clashed. Now she is convinced that if their relationship had been better, Ms. McGraw might have recommended her for an assistant coaching position. Ms. Green might never have enlisted in the Army. She might never have lost part of her arm.

Psychologists call this the bargaining stage of grieving. Ms. Green, who majored in psychology, knows she is stuck in it.

"If I continue to be bitter," she said, "I’d be better off dead."

Embarking on New Careers

Ms. Green, who once made it to the final cut at tryouts for the Detroit Shock, a Women’s National Basketball Association team, still wants to be a star athlete. She is training for the 2008 Paralympics in track and field and said her performance at a meet in June would determine whether she should continue.

After changing her career plans several times, she was accepted in March into a master’s program for school counseling at St. Xavier University in Chicago that begins this summer. She also traveled to Spain to visit a college teammate playing basketball there.

Lately, though, Ms. Green has been thinking a lot about the war. She said she has "never been patriotic" and is conflicted about American involvement in Iraq: she is against the war but supports the troops. She is indebted to the soldiers who risked their lives to save her on the rooftop last May.

Captain Halfaker, who once hoped to try out for the W.N.B.A., opted not to train for the Paralympics, despite Ms. Green’s insistence. She has been weaning herself from the hospital, bidding goodbye to her psychologist and the amputee clinic.

"First, you have to grow up suddenly," Captain Halfaker said. "Then you have to figure out what you believe in."

The power of West Point on her résumé has helped Captain Halfaker land an internship with Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, and she has received lucrative job offers in the defense industry.

Captain Halfaker has bought a townhouse in Washington and plans to move there in June after leaving Walter Reed. Even if she decides to retire, she expects to remain connected to the people she met in the Army.

"Your paths always seem to intersect again," she said. "In the military, you never say goodbye. You just say, ’See you later.’ "

She may be right. Though she and Ms. Green had not talked for three months, they met again last week.

Not at Walter Reed. At a veterans’ ski week in Colorado.

On the first day, they passed each other in the hotel, exchanged pleasantries and, once again, went their separate ways.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/s...