Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57 [Hardcover]

Michael Weisskopf (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 2006

A powerful account of eighteen months in the lives of three soldiers and a
journalist, all patients in Ward 57, Walter Reed's amputee wing

Time magazine's Michael Weisskopf was riding through Baghdad in the back of U.S. Army Humvee, an embedded reporter alongside soldiers from the 1st Armored Division, when he heard a metallic thunk. Looking down, he saw a small, dark object rolling inches from his feet. He reached down and took it in his hand. Then everything went black.

Weisskopf lost his hand and was sent for treatment to Ward 57 at Walter Reed Medical Center, the wing of the armed forces hospital reserved for amputees. There he crossed paths with Pete Damon, Luis Rodriguez, and Bobby Isaacs, three soldiers whose stories he learned during months in the ward. Alongside these men, Weisskopf navigated the bewildering process of recovery and reentry, and began reconciling life before that day in Baghdad with everything that would follow his release.

Blood Brothers is the story of this difficult passage--for Weiss-kopf, Damon, Rodriguez, Isaacs, and hundreds of others--a story that began with healthy men heading off to a war zone, and continued through the months in Ward 57 as they prepared their minds and bodies for a different life than the one they left. A chronicle of devastation and recovery, this is a deeply affecting portrait of the private aftermath of combat casualties. 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Reporter Weisskopf, at 58, was accompanying a patrol in Baghdad in 2003 when he picked up a grenade that flew into his Humvee. This book relates the consequences, beginning with a detailed account of a medic's emergency treatment of Weisskopf's shattered hand, his speedy transport to an aid station, helicopter flight to a front-line hospital, flight to the trauma center in Germany and, finally, to amputee Ward 57 of Washington's Walter Reed Hospital. Readers quickly learn that amputees make up 3% of Iraq's wounded—twice that of previous wars—thanks to the Kevlar helmets and sturdy body armor that protect all but the soldier's limbs from otherwise fatal explosions. Besides recounting his own successful recovery from the trauma of losing a hand, Weisskopf adds stories of three American soldiers who also endured months of torment before adjusting to new lives, though they were not necessarily typical. Other patients mentioned in passing do very badly. Pain is universal; many amputees suffer numerous operations and take narcotics for years. Modern prostheses are ingenious but heavy and difficult to use. Readers with a low tolerance for inspirational stories will still find plenty of technical and medical details of one tragic, little-publicized consequence of the Iraq war. (Oct. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Prizewinning Time reporter Weisskopf went to Iraq embedded with the First Armored Division. One day he picked up a strange object from the bottom of his vehicle--and woke up with his right hand missing. His next journey was to Ward 57, the amputee ward, of Walter Reed Hospital. He skillfully depicts his own experiences and those of his wardmates, making it clear that even today amputation entails a particularly acute form of post--traumatic stress disorder, to say nothing of the physical pain involved, and having to learn all over again to use the muscles of more than the affected limb. Nor, even in an era when each casualty can be given painstaking care, is Walter Reed, the army's flagship hospital, free of red tape and personnel who--and this is putting it delicately--lack a bedside manner. This thoroughly distinguished addition to the literature on the Iraq War adds further distinction to Weisskopf's career, which he plans to continue to the best of his remaining abilities. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (October 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805078606
• ISBN-13: 978-0805078602
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #541,649 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for the Wounded and All Who Care About Them, October 5, 2006

By 

Sue73 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57 (Hardcover)

With great insight and compassion, Michael Weisskopf brings us the stories of the amputees of this generation's wars. Weisskopf himself lost his dominant hand while embedded with soldiers in Iraq in preparation for Time's 2003 Person of the Year edition. He picked up a grenade that landed in his vehicle and awoke to a whole new life: Ward 57 of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

But while Weisskopf weaves himself throughout Blood Brothers, describing his his own healing and attempts to regain his journalistic "objectivity," he is not the central figure. Instead, he vividly paints the portraits of three fellow-travelers in Ward 57, soldiers who must come to terms with the physical and psychological impacts of losing a limb. In powerful but matter-of-fact, news-like prose, the reader is introduced to Before and After, and taken along for the gut-wrenching journey in between as wounded warriors (along with their loved ones and care-givers) tackle the mountain that is physical and psychological recovery from amputation.

Blood Brothers is the kind of book that will put you through the emotional wringer, but you won't want to put down. You'll laugh when the wounded-but-fiery Army sergeant and the Marine physical therapist get into a verbal pissing match, and cry when you read of heroic medics or the pain of the residents of Ward 57; other times you'll want to throw something against the wall as you see a need that isn't addressed or stand up and cheer when a physical milestone is reached.

It's all there: the horror and the beauty, the heights and the depths, the illusory achievements and the real milestones. Due to a reportorial style that essentially allows them to speak for themselves, the soldiers in Blood Brothers stand on the page in all their glory and humility, strength and weakness. The reader sees the darkest days and the moments of hope, the times when the path of healing is clear, and the times there seems no possible future.

"Blood Brothers" is heart-wrenching and beautiful book, a must-read for every severely-injured warfighter and family, every volunteer and employee serving in a military hospital, or any other person who wants to better understand the challenges and recovery process of those who go to war but are not lucky enough to come back in one piece.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful and Riveting and Revealing, October 14, 2006

By 

D. Teixeira "Homes for Our Troops" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57 (Hardcover)

I read this book over the course of one weekend, it was that good. The book gets to the heart of what our severely wounded veterans face from the exact time of the injury on the battlefield to the care they receive in our military hospitals, to their day to day recovery, relationships with their families and how they cope with the loss of not only a limb but in some cases, their whole identity. This book made me realize how much they really do lose and sacrifice to defend this country no matter where or when. I have a new appreciation for the true heroes of our day, the men and women of our military, especially the heroes who lose limbs in the line of duty.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sacrifices of our troops do not end at the cemetery gate, December 27, 2006

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood Brothers: Among the Soldiers of Ward 57 (Hardcover)

When discussing war we are often most interested in how many died in battle. I suppose that this gives us some sense of how ferocious and large the fighting was and how much was sacrificed for the cause. We also discuss the number of casualties. This includes the wounded. The range of wounds is large. Some are completely debilitating, but recoverable long term. Others remove the soldier from the battlefield only temporarily. Some are amputations of limbs or the destruction of organs in the field of battle or lead to amputations in order to save the soldier's life.

Battlefield medicine has improved since the Civil War and especially since Vietnam. The concept of evacuating the wounded quickly and treating them within the "Golden Hour" led to much greater survivability. Now emergency medical personal talk about the platinum ten minutes. This implies that what would have been fatal wounds because of the severity of injury in prior conflicts now allow the soldier to survive, but with severe physical deficits including missing hands, feet, legs, arms, and even severe brain trauma.

Michael Weisskopf is a reporter for Time magazine (not to be confused with Michael Isikoff of Newsweek) who took an assignment embedded with troops in Iraq. On one ride in an open vehicle a smoldering grenade landed in the back of the truck. Weisskopf says he remembers the feeling of his hand being burned as he picked up the grenade and nothing else. He describes what he can recall and what he learned about his evacuation and treatment. Eventually, the Pentagon allowed him to be treated in Ward 57, the special place where the hundreds of amputees from the War on Terror are treated and given rehabilitation treatment.

The author shows a great reticence to talk about himself and is quite honest in wanting to know why he picked up the grenade and if he threw it or dropped it or what. He is quite uncomfortable with the accolades given him and rejects the title of hero. As the book goes along his process of recover also includes him coming to some kind of resolution to this inner turmoil.

Most of the book is given to the stories of a few of those soldier's who went through the process with Weisskopf. Luis Rodriguez, by all accounts a fine leader and medic, lost a leg to a roadside bomb. Bobby Isaacs lost both his to another of those infernal devices. And Peter Damon lost both his arms to a freak accident when a tire from a Black Hawk Helicopter exploded. The shrapnel not only wounded Damon, but killed his friend, Paul Bueche.

We get to know these men and the author thanks to the fine and honest reporting by Weisskopf. He doesn't spare himself one bit and exposes his own lapses and struggles in coming to terms with the lost of his right hand. The issues surrounding phantom pain are far more serious than I had ever imagined. Then there is the idea of re-entering public with a very much different body and how that new self-image and public-image affect the person is well described in this book.

The different ways in which these men were greeted and supported (or not supported) and used and even abused on the road back is also quite different for each man. How they find their own new foundation and what they determine to use in order to find their way back is quite, well, staggering to me. I am sure you will have your own reaction to the book and the men and their choices. However, I am sure you will agree that this book is very much worthwhile. It will certainly inspire some folks, but it should remind all of us that the sacrifices of our soldiers do not end at the cemetery gate. There are many of the wounded who are now disabled and need our help. There are thousands more who don't show their wounds on the outside, but still need to be honored and cared for.

We can be proud of the doctors and nurses and others who help these men and women get back to as normal a life as they can, but we must not shirk our responsibilities to these soldiers either. This book is a good place to start in learning about what we need to do.