GUY RAZ, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Guy Raz.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
Today, we conclude our series on the Darkhorse Battalion, officially known as the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. It deployed one year ago to southern Afghanistan. There, it suffered the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit in the war.
Yesterday, we heard about one Marine who didn't make it home.
RAZ: Today, we focus on those who did, but with serious injuries. One hundred eighty-four men were wounded during the deployment, 34 lost limbs.
NPR's Tom Bowman reports on how these men are preparing to move on with their lives.
LANCE CORPORAL JAKE ROMO: Running was my favorite thing to do. I can almost say I loved running more than my wife and kids. I loved running.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Jake Romo can't run now, not after what happened in Afghanistan. His legs are just stumps wrapped in khaki fabric.
ROMO: I would run with weights. If I was just running with shorts and a T-shirt, I could run all day. I could run and run, run and not stop.
BOWMAN: Romo's one of dozens of Marines from Darkhorse Battalion who come to Balboa Naval Hospital in California. He's doing an upper body workout.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: You want to try the rungs?
BOWMAN: All around are Marines who lost limbs. A physical therapist helps one work with weights. Just outside, another Marine who lost a leg climbs a rock wall.
MICHAEL PODLENSKI: We have to hold these guys back. I mean, all these guys are very motivated. They wanted to be running yesterday.
BOWMAN: That's Michael Podlenski a physical therapist at Balboa. He works with as many as 30 amputees each day. One of them is Jake Romo. He's 22. and he was on his first deployment when he lost his legs back in February.
ROMO: I knew when I got hit that I lost both my legs. I knew right away.
BOWMAN: It was a day he remembers as straight-up miserable: heavy rain, lightning and mud.
ROMO: If it hadn't been for the mud and all the rain and stuff, I probably wouldn't be here today. It muffled the blast. But also, because the homemade explosives, it partially detonated, what I stepped on, probably half of one of those exploded.
BOWMAN: So on that miserable day, Romo was just lucky enough to survive. Now, Romo is determined he'll run again. He hopes to try in the next six to nine months when he gets new prosthetic legs. For now, he's working hard at the rehab center. And after the workout is done, he heads home.
It's just a few minutes drive. Romo's wife, Michelle, is at the wheel. She pulls the van into their driveway. She opens the side door of the modified van. Jake rolls down a ramp in his wheelchair.
ROMO: Say hi.
LIAM ROMO: (Unintelligible) in our house.
BOWMAN: His 2-year-old son, Liam, leads the way into the townhouse.
ROMO: It's all clean.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
MICHELLE ROMO: Well, sort of.
BOWMAN: Inside, Michelle holds their son Derren, just 5 months old, and talks about the day she got the call about Jake.
ROMO: Liam was sleeping, and I got the phone call and I knew, you know, is this Mrs. Romo, Jacob Romo's wife? And I knew right away who it was. I started to hyperventilate. I'm like, OK, I just need to breathe because I'm pregnant. And the guy was very sweet. He was so sweet. And I just - all I needed to get out - OK, is he alive? Yes, he's alive. I was like, OK, OK. I could calm down and just, you know, take a couple of breaths.
BOWMAN: The man was reading from a statement. Something about a bilateral amputee. At first, she wasn't sure what that meant. And then she was told his legs were gone.
ROMO: My first concern, actually, I said it to the guy. I was like, the worst thing about this is my husband loves to run. That's what he does, you know? I said, I'm just so sad for him because he loves to...
(SOUNDBITE OF WEEPING)
ROMO: And I didn't want him to be upset, you know? I didn't want him to be sad. I didn't want him to hurt. I didn't want him to be in pain. And I didn't want him to be alone.
(SOUNDBITE OF WEEPING)
ROMO: So that was the first two days.
BOWMAN: The loss of Jake's legs was one thing. What Michelle really worried about was his spirit.
ROMO: And then he called us. And that was such a huge relief. Finally, we could all rest that night. We could all sleep because he called and he was in such good spirits and - 'cause that was the concern.
BOWMAN: Jake, what did you say when you called? Do you remember?
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
ROMO: I was so heavily medicated, I couldn't tell you what month it was, let alone what I said. No, you'll have to ask her. I don't remember.
ROMO: I remember some of what he said. I was just so relieved that his tone of voice was so good and he was laughing and he just was calm and just himself. You know, I could tell that his psyche hadn't been damaged. That was my main concern. His mom too. We were both like, after we talked to him and got off the phone, we were like, he's going to be OK. He's going to be OK.
BOWMAN: Jake Romo thinks he'll be OK too. He figures he'll get out of the Marine Corps. And he jokes that losing his legs might actually help him in a way.
ROMO: I would never have had as many options if I hadn't gotten hit. I'm getting offers from private intel companies. I'm currently involved with a martial arts company that I was involved in prior to the Marines Corps. And for the last six months, we've been developing a martial arts program for - a serious self-defense program for guys in wheelchairs.
BOWMAN: So far, Jake Romo, like many of the seriously wounded Darkhorse Marines, are doing pretty well. But it's only been a few months. We got to track them. We got to train them and see how things go long term.
That's Rear Admiral Forrest Faison. He's in charge of medical care for all Marines and sailors on the West Coast.
REAR ADMIRAL FORREST FAISON: Because that will be the true indication of whether or not this was all successful is, you know, five years from now, what do we see? You know, how are we doing for families? How are we doing for suicide rates or things like that? All those things, it's way too early to tell.
BOWMAN: On a bright San Diego afternoon, a handful of Marines sit on recumbent bikes, the kind equipped with hand pedals. The men all lost legs in Afghanistan last October, the toughest month for Darkhorse Battalion. Now they're getting set to do laps around a small lake.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: And there's cars out there today.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: So stay to the right of the yellow line.
CORPORAL MARCUS CHISCHILLY: You got that, Josue? You going to keep up with me today?
BOWMAN: That was Marcus Chischilly. Everyone calls him Chilly. Chilly lost a leg after stepping on a roadside bomb. He'd like to go back out on patrol again in Afghanistan, but he knows it's unlikely. He doesn't want a desk job, so Chilly is looking to leave the Marines and become an X-ray technician.
Then there's Josue Barron. He's out training too. He lost a leg and his left eye. He's going to get out of the Marines too.
LANCE CORPORAL JOSUE BARRON: It's not the same anymore. And the career we wanted was just stay in infantry 'cause that's what I joined to do. Like, in my head, I was like, oh, I'm going to join infantry and that's what I want to do. That's what the Marine Corps is all about. Might as well just get out and look for a better job, something else.
BOWMAN: And then there's Lieutenant Cam West, who thinks there's no better job than being a Marine. West was also wounded last fall. He also lost a leg. He was out on patrol, walking behind his radio operator, Lance Corporal James Boelk, who stepped on a roadside bomb. The blast killed Corporal Boelk and wounded Lieutenant West.
West eventually ended up at Bethesda Naval Hospital. He was groggy. He hadn't really been speaking. He woke up one day and his parents were in the room. It was the first time they'd seen him since he lost his leg.
LIEUTENANT CAM WEST: It's good to wake up and, you know, see your mom and pops. My dad and me, we go back and forth and we always quote John Wayne from his movies. He was there at the foot of the bed and he said, mas frijoles, mamacita. And I finished it out, por favor. It's from a great John Wayne movie, probably the greatest, "The Searchers."
My mom looked at him and said, ah, he's going to be fine. And then, you know, it was good to go after that.
BOWMAN: That was about a year ago. Since then, West has been working out. He's getting used to his prosthetic leg. He can ride a bike. Cam West plans to stay on active duty. He wants to be one of the few Marines who has lost a leg but can still lead men in combat
WEST: Shooting, running and gunning like I did before, it's going to be a little trickier now. Definitely possible. But, you know, I'm not going to blow smoke.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BOWMAN: But you're going to try for that?
LIEUTENANT CAM WEST: Yeah, I'd like to.
BOWMAN: Still, he has a fallback plan.
WEST: Be a rancher in Colorado. If I don't do the Marine Corps thing, look for me poking cows, longhorns.
BOWMAN: Kind of like John Wayne.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE SEARCHERS")
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