A home for wounded warriors

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By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — The first residents of the Wounded Warrior Center are moving into their rooms this week as military officials formally unveil the new transitional home Thursday.

The single-story building, which until last month housed an in-patient drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, will become a temporary home to 25 Marines and sailors who are recovering from their injuries and preparing to transition to their unit or be medically discharged.

Designed by I Marine Expeditionary Force’s Injury Support Unit, the center is the West Coast’s take on the Wounded Warrior Barracks established last year at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“The Marine Corps is finding that wounded guys are still a great value and can still contribute,” said Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Scott T. Mason, the Injury Support Unit’s senior enlisted leader.

“By bringing them here, it will take weight off the command to do the day-to-day support of their wounded warriors,” Mason said, speaking during a recent tour of the center. “We try to take some of the pressure off of them with centralized resources.”

Organizers want a comfortable, homey place so the wounded — most of whom would otherwise live alone and separated from their friends or in barracks while their unit remains deployed — can restore their health and renew their strength together. “We have our warriors spread out all over the base,” Mason said.

The concept is to support the wounded by keeping them together through the healing process. A staff of seven or eight Marines and sailors, all combat veterans or formerly wounded themselves, will oversee the center. “We want the wounded warriors to see people who can ‘talk the talk’ and ‘walk the walk,’ ” Mason said.

The atmosphere may even help hasten their recovery, he said, adding, “With these Marines and sailors cohabitating together in one building, they know what the other person has gone through.”

To be assigned here, residents “have to be self-sufficient so they can get out of bed and they can bathe themselves alone,” Mason said. Most will continue physical therapy, combat-stress counseling and any follow-on surgeries or medical procedures. There is no restriction on how long they can remain at the center.

Its location near Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital will put residents close to counseling and other medical services, and they will be able to eat at the mess hall. Vans will transport them to other appointments, including checkups at the San Diego Naval Medical Center.

Last month, construction crews widened doors and entries and built two wheelchair ramps. Two large rooms, each with specially equipped bathrooms, are available for wheelchair-bound patients. A treatment room will let corpsmen change dressings or do routine checkups.

Most residents will live in spacious two-man rooms, each with a private bathroom and fully furnished with a television, desk and telephone. Officers and staff noncommissioned officers will get private rooms, each with a large seating area.

The men will share a TV lounge, a computer room with Internet access and donated computers and videogames, a laundry and a small kitchen. An outdoor patio, barbecue area and garden are planned.