My long-time friend Jeanne volunteers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She sent this along yesterday:
Last summer I saw The Hurt Locker with a friend of mine. About a month ago there was a GI at Walter Reed who did exactly that in Afghanistan. The crew is called something like battle (or battlefield) engineers. They ride over a route a convoy is going to take to clear the IEDs. The vehicles are made in South Africa especially to withstand the shock of explosions and cost a quarter of a million per vehicle. He told me much of the necessary functional stuff is on the outside so they can pull off damaged parts and replace them quickly.
I asked if he’d seen the movie and he had. I said I know movies have to telescope events and asked him if any aspect of the movie was realistic. He got all hung up on the details, i.e. no team would go into a building or site alone like they did in the movie. The sense of the adrenalin rush, however, was real, he admitted. He loved his job.
He broke his back and both legs in an explosion. He said it was because the back seats are bolted in place–different from the front seats to save room. This causes beaucoup broken backs when there’s an explosion. He told his Senator that the vehicles should be modified to lessen injuries.
He has all his limbs and will recover. He can’t go back to his old job, however, because his injuries will leave him below standard for strength. He’s getting out of the Army because there’s no other job that appeals to him.